As above posters have mentioned, Croatoan was the name of the island that the lost Roanoke colony likely relocated to. And of the Native tribe that lived there. Croatoan Island is now called Hatteras Island, near Roanoke Island.
They had been waiting for supplies to be shipped in from England, but a war kept supply ships from being sent for three years. They needed either English imports, or Native tribes, to provide enough food staples to survive.
Settlers often integrated with friendly tribes when cut-off from England. The Roanoke settlers were already friendly with the Croatan tribe, from the nearby Croatoan Island, because they had established a colony there first. The Roanoke settlers had lived on Croatoan Island for two years before moving on to establish a new colony on Roanoke Island.
So it's probable they returned to their original stable colony. They carved its name on a post, without carving the symbol for danger, indicting they voluntarily left in safety. They took their belongings and neatly dismantled their housing frames. The English party that later discovered the post carving assumed they were safely living back in the Croatoan Island colony.
Folks in England couldn't have been too worried, because no one checked on their whereabouts for over 30 years. By that time, there were young mixed Caucasian/Croatan tribal members with surnames of lost colony members. Reporting that the lost colonists came and lived on Croatoan Island for 20 years before being massacred by a neighboring tribe, who spared only their mixed children.
I had to learn this for tribal studies. My mom is Lumbee, so they teach us its history. It's a tribe from NC, and a descendant of the Croatan tribe. I was shocked as Hell to see it in this movie. But pleasantly.
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