The Tides of Nature and History Meet
The north end of Roanoke Island, within the borders of the Town of Manteo, North Carolina, offers for me the most compelling location I’ve yet found on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s a largely secluded spot, though visitors occasionally park in the lot to walk or relax the beach (though one needs to watch out for the snakes). I’m intrigued, and drawn back to the location, by the interplay between history and nature here. In the water close to sure, as well along the beach are the remains of a dying forest. The land has eroded and the trees have largely perished. It is an on-going process down here, as it is in many places.
This is an historic location from the human perspective as well. An important American Civil War battle took off and on shore here, a battle to control the sounds along the eastern coast of North Carolina. The Union took the prize. Roanoke Island came under Federal control. As a result, near this location there was once a “Freedman’s Colony,” a refuge for escaped slaves from the mainland. It’s a long and possible dangerous journey across Croatan Sound, which you can see here. It must have seen far more dangerous then. And of course, this is near to Fort Raleigh, the location of the first English landing in the New World, one that did not go well. The “Lost Colony” was the result. Now, it is quiet, except of the storms that blow in from the west.
More to come.