Abandoned Roanoke: A Sixteenth-Century Mystery, Interwar Anxiety, and Historical Speculation.

The article examines Paul Green’s 1937 play *The Lost Colony*, which has profoundly shaped public perception of the mysterious disappearance of the English Roanoke Island colonists between 1587 and 1590. Green’s drama introduces the arrival of Spanish ships as a catalyst prompting the colonists to abandon Roanoke, symbolizing a rejection of European rivalries and an embrace of an “American” democratic ideal through alliance with the Indigenous Croatoan Nation. Written during the interwar period and influenced by anxieties surrounding the Spanish Civil War, the play reflects Green’s nuanced stance against American involvement in foreign conflicts while emphasizing themes of survival, identity, and hope amid uncertainty. Rather than solving the historical mystery, Green’s work uses the Lost Colony narrative to explore broader ideas about American identity, democracy, and peace, maintaining the colonists’ fate as an open question while honoring their enduring symbolic significance.