The word of the week is: Dichotomy

Dichotomy (noun) means to divide two things into two completely contradictory categories.

This division can come in all manner of things, ranging from ideas-both political and philosophical-to the categorical division of people. Aldous Huxley used dichotomy as a foundation in his book Brave New World, where people were genetically divided to for certain types of work.

When dichotomy is used in a sentence it sounds a little something like this:

There is an apparent dichotomy when an alcoholic uses caffeine and other stimulants to overcome an addiction.

The Subject of the week is: Roanoke Island

Roanoke Island, located in present day North Carolina, was the first ever established colony in the United States. However, after a few years, all of the inhabitants disappeared, leaving the colony abandoned.

Sir Walter Raleigh was given a charter by Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a colony within ten years in the royal holding known as Virginia. The colony was established in 1585 as site with militaristic importance, in the hopes of being a base to perform raids on Spanish settlements further south.

Raleigh originally left 100 soldiers, artisans, and scholars-all of which were men-to establish a colony. It failed due to the poor leadership of Ralph Lane, which instead of establishing good relations with the natives to the region, made raids and counter-raids, decimating the supplies and manpower of the colony.

The colony did however still maintain a presence on the island in 1586 when Sir Francis Drake made port on the island after conducting raids in the Caribbean. Drake picked up the remaining colonists, leaving behind 15 men to ensure the colony did not fall into enemy hands.

Raleigh returned to the Roanoke colony in 1587, with 117 men and women, to find that the natives had killed the 15 men who stayed behind. The new colonists rebuilt the colony and in the August of 1857, the first English child to be born on American soil was born. However like the rest of the colonists, Virginia Dare was fated to disappear without a trace.

Raleigh returned to the colony again in 1590 to find the colonies residents gone, and all of the buildings disassembled. The only hint that anyone had ever lived at the colony were the words, “croatoan” and, “cro” carved into two of the trees, along with two buried skeletons.

The remaining colonists were never found, nor were any other dead bodies. In the event of an emergency the colonists were to carve a Maltese cross into a tree pointing in the direction they had escaped to a cross was never found. So 117 colonists, including Virginia Dare disappeared on the North Carolina coast never to be heard from again.

Learning from this disaster of colonization, Jamestown was established as the first permanent English colony in the United States in 1606.