Jonita Mullins P.O. Box 3827 Muskogee, OK 74402 [email protected] Copyright 2010 Writers Guild of America, West Registration #1602943 National Treasure 3: The Lost Colony Screen Treatment By Jonita Mullins The Historical Back Story England, 1586 Alarmed by the growing power of Spain in both wealth and military might due to its plundering of the New World, Queen Elizabeth I and her trusted advisor Sir Walter Raleigh sought to balance this power. They devised a plan to establish a colony in the New World north of Spanish Florida, but close to the sea lanes between Europe and the Americas. Their aim was for this colony to serve as a base of operation to attack and capture Spanish ships carrying gold and other precious metals and gemstones plundered from the native empires. Raleigh enlisted two military men to scout a location for this new colony. They chose an island off the coast of present day North Carolina. The natives call this island Roanoke (which means “shell money” in the Algonquian language). Raleigh then sent a group of 100 soldiers and sailors to establish the Roanoke colony. They built a fort on the island and secretly received treasure captured from Spanish vessels taken by English privateers. Sir Francis Drake arrived about a year after the colony was established and found dire conditions. These military men were not adept at growing crops and they had alienated the surrounding native people so that they received no assistance from them. Their supplies had dwindled to desperate levels. After hiding the plunder seized by Drake, they convinced him to take all of them but 15 men back to England. It was two years before Raleigh was able to send a second group of colonists to Roanoke. This group included families of farmers and craftsmen, some with children. The leader of the group was John White and his daughter Eleanor and her husband Ananias Dare were among the colonists. They found no one alive at the Roanoke fort, only human remains. It was unclear what had happened to the men because the Spanish treasure was still hidden on the island. With his son-in-law’s help, White moved the treasure to a new location on the island. Eleanor gave birth to a daughter and named her Virginia (she was the first English child born in the New World). White had to return to England for more supplies but he instructed Ananias to move the treasure again if he felt it necessary and to leave coordinates for the new location on a specified tree if he felt the colonists were threatened and would need to leave the island. They agree to a simple code to disguise the location coordinates. Each letter of the alphabet would represent a number. White returned to England and reported to Raleigh, but he was delayed in going back with supplies because war broke out with Spain. It was three more years before he could return to Roanoke. When he arrived, he found the site abandoned with no sign of struggle or loss of life. On the specified tree were the carved letters C R O. C=3 degrees, R=18 minutes, O=15 seconds. This led White to a site where he expected to find the treasure; instead he found empty chests and ruined books and maps. A second tree had the word Croatoan carved on it. This was the name of an island to the south of Roanoke. White tried to sail to this island, but a fierce storm drove his ship far out to sea. He had no choice but to return to England. He was never able to raise the funds for a return voyage and never knew the fate of his daughter, the colonists or the treasure. What White didn’t know was that his daughter Eleanor had convinced her husband and a few trusted men to move the treasure to the mainland. She believed her father had abandoned the colony and was embittered by this because of their constant struggle to survive. After the treasure was moved, she then convinced the entire group to leave Roanoke and join with friendly natives in the area. The colonists were absorbed into the native population and their fate remained a mystery. Eleanor and her family moved inland to live among the Cherokees. Near her death, she left a record of her life and the location of the treasure carved on stones which she gave to her daughter. Virginia Dare had married a Cherokee. The Cherokees intermarried with English and Scottish immigrants who settled in Virginia and the Carolinas. With paper now available to her, Virginia began to keep a diary which she passed down to her descendants. She recorded the stories she had heard from her mother about a great treasure hidden at a sacred Cherokee site. Because much of this treasure was plundered from temples and burial sites, the Cherokees believed it was sacred and should not be divulged and certainly should not be used for any individual’s personal gain. Virginia, too, had come to believe that the treasure was sacred and should be protected from greed and exploitation. For over 200 years, the Cherokees kept the treasure and the fate of the Roanoke Colony a secret. The facts were handed down orally by the “keeper of the flame.” Originally the keeper of the flame literally kept a fire burning at all times for the survival of the tribe, but with time, the “keeper of the flame” became a keeper of the oral traditions and history of the tribe. To be chosen as a keeper was a sacred honor and the secrets the keeper held were shared only with a few trusted tribal members. As the years passed, fewer and fewer Cherokees even knew of the existence of the treasure. One person who knew was a Cherokee of mixed ancestry named John Jolly who lived in east Tennessee. He adopted a young Tennessean named Sam Houston who spent his teen years living among the Cherokees. His Cherokee name was “Coloneh” which means raven (a member of the crow family.) Houston learned to speak Cherokee and adopted the traditional dress of the tribe until he joined the military at age 19. Jolly told Houston about the treasure and where it was hidden. Houston served under General Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. Grateful to find a mentor in the famous general, Houston divulged the existence of the treasure to Jackson. Intrigued by the possibility of such a treasure hidden in his home state, but doubtful of its existence, Jackson nevertheless urged Houston to keep it a secret. After the war, Houston returned to Tennessee, but found that his Cherokee family had been pressured to move into western Arkansas Territory with a group of other Cherokees. John Jolly became chief of this western group and he arranged to move the treasure to the area. He chose a new site near an ancient burial mound where three rivers join together, believing these would serve as landmarks for future generations. However, newly elected President Jackson began to push Congress for an Indian Removal Act to force tribes in the southeastern United States to move to Indian Territory. Aware that Houston had told Jackson about the treasure and that he wanted it kept secret, Jolly wrote a letter to President Jackson threatening to reveal its existence unless the President dropped his push for Indian removal. Alarmed, Jackson wrote to Sam Houston who was now governor of Tennessee. The President ordered Houston to do whatever necessary to stop Jolly from revealing the treasure. Houston resigned as governor and rushed to Indian Territory in 1829 to persuade Jolly to keep the treasure a secret. Houston didn’t agree with Jackson’s policy on Indian removal, but he convinced Jolly not to use the treasure as leverage against the President. He convinced Jolly to keep the treasure secret, but to let him devise a map to the treasure’s location. The map would not identify landmarks; a separate key to the map would explain the landmarks and reveal the site where it was hidden. Houston built his home in Indian Territory within site of the treasure. He kept the key and Jolly kept the map. Houston traveled with a Cherokee delegation to Washington but as he promised his father John Jolly, he did not visit Jackson or reveal to him to the new location of the treasure. Jackson was furious when he learned of Houston’s actions. He stirred up trouble for Houston in the House of Representatives and Houston was brought up on charges for assaulting a member of the House. Not knowing if he might be sent to prison at the President’s whim, Houston passed the key to his good friend, Tennessee Representative Davy Crockett. Houston was found guilty by the House, ordered to pay a fine and ordered to immediately leave Washington. He left without the key, returned to his home in Indian Territory and then went on to Texas. He wrote to Crockett and asked him to bring the key to Texas. Crockett did so, but quickly was caught up in the Texas war for independence and found himself at the Alamo as it was being attacked. He hid the key in the chapel of the mission compound and sent a cryptic note by courier to Houston telling him where it was hidden. Before his death a few years later Jolly passed the map to Red Bird Harris, a trusted Cherokee friend. Harris devised a plan to hide the map permanently.