Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh (Pronounced rah-lee) was a British explorer and colonist of the 16th century. He is also sometimes credited with discovering the potato, although it seems more likely that it was actually Sir Francis Drake who claimed that honor. Drake is known to have loaded supplies onto his ship from Colombia in 1586 that included tobacco and potatoes. Drake later returned to England with his cargo. He founded the colony of Roanoke Island in what was then Virginia (now North Carolina) in 1587, which he was going to use as a base for privateering missions against the Spanish and Portuguese.[1] Raleigh brought 107 colonists (ten of whom were women), and the first English child, Virginia Dare, was born in the Americas in Roanoke. In 1588 Raleigh left for England to get supplies. Unfortunately for the colonists, the Spanish Armada surrounded the British Isles while Raleigh was in London and did not allow him to return until 1590. When he returned, the whole colony had disappeared, with the word "Croatoan" carved into a tree. Due to incliment weather, Raleigh was unable to search the nearby Croatoan Island for traces of the lost settlers. Future colonists would note that many of the local Native Americans had light complexions and eyes, giving rise to theories that the members of the so-called "Lost Colony" were assimilated into the tribes.

Sir Walter Raleigh was quite well rounded; he was not only an explorer, but also credited with bringing tobacco from the New World back to Europe, wrote a number of poems including the Waverley novels. In a later expedition in search of El Dorado, Raleigh captured a Spanish fort. The Spanish ambassador to England demanded tha Raleigh be executed. He was beheaded on October 29, 1618. His last words, according to many biographers, were "Strike man, strike!" urging his executioner to decapitate him.

In 1940, Errol Flynn played a character based on Raleigh in the movie The Sea Hawk.