The Lost Colony, or Roanoke Colony, was the first British colony established in America on Roanoke Island, North Carolina in the late sixteenth century. Sir Walter Raleigh was given a charter to establish this colony by Elizabeth I.
In 1587, a group of colonists returned to England to acquire more supplies. Upon their return to the colony in 1590, they found it abandoned, with no trace of the colonists. The only clue was the word "Croatoan" carved into a tree, which happened to be the name of local tribe. There is speculation that they were either killed off by this tribe, or assimilated into their villages for survival purposes. To this day no one knows their fate, hence the name the Lost Colony.