Piracy. The act of seizing a ship or the cargo from its lawful owners has been a

plagued since people first set sail on the high seas.

By the Elizabethan era, English piracy entered a golden age

as pirates plundered the coastal waters unchallenged.

As Spain gradually increased its wealth through its own savagery in the new world,

English pirates feasted on Spanish ships,

eventually spreading their brand of piracy to the Caribbean Sea.

On this episode of America's National Parks, Pirates, and the role in the creation of America, immortalized at National Park Service

units up and down the East Coast.

In fact, there are so many stories of piracy and privateering in today's national parks that choosing just one was difficult.

So we settled on two surrounding the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site in North Carolina.

First off, here's Abigail Trabue with the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh, known for bringing tobacco and perhaps the potato to England

and laying his cloak on the ground for the Queen to avoid puddles, was authorized to search out and take possession of,

for himself, land in the new world that was described as remote, heathen, and barbarous lands.

Remaining on English soil, Raleigh dispatched a party

to Roanoke to scout a suitable location.

Colonization ventures were extremely speculative at the time, so Raleigh lured investors by combining colonial plans with privateering enterprises. The disruption of Spanish shipping having been

officially sanctioned by the English crown. The colony was to be a base

underwritten by English investors for attacks on Spanish ships in the Western Atlantic.

Rowanoke was ideally suited to prey upon Spanish treasure ships as they sailed up the coast from

the Caribbean to catch the Gulf Stream to cross the Atlantic.

Raleigh settled a self-governing community in Roanoke bent on privateering.

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