August 18
DARE DAY
An expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh landed at what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Seven days later, on this day in 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of English parentage to be born in America.
Ellinor and Ananias Dare were Baby Virginia’s parents; her grandfather, John White, was the governor of the Roanoke Colony. White returned to England in 1587 to get fresh supplies (that’s how we know of Virginia Dare’s birth).
However, the Spanish Armada attack in 1588 delayed White’s return and when he eventually did get back three years later, the colonists were gone. The settlers, including Virginia Dare, had vanished.
The mystery surrounding the fate of the Lost Colony makes Virginia Dare a popular figure in American culture and folklore. Her name has been used to commemorate many locations, including numerous roads, bridges, parks, and Dare County, North Carolina.
Virginia Dare has also become a popular subject in numerous novels, poems, plays, movies, and TV shows that often deal with the mystery of her disappearance.
One popular poem, The White Doe: The Fate of Virginia Dare, written by Sallie Southall Cotton in 1901, claims that Virginia Dare was turned into a white doe by a jealous Native American witchdoctor. The story spawned a popular legend that if a white doe is seen near Roanoke Island it is Virginia Dare.
And Virginia Dare has become an icon of the Outer Banks, where her birthday is celebrated every year at a festival on Roanoke Island.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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