Philip Amadas was an English naval officer, navigator, and explorer who co-commanded Walter Raleigh’s 1584 reconnaissance voyage to the North American coast and served as Admiral of Virginia during the 1585–1586 Roanoke expedition. His voyages helped establish England’s early colonial claims in the region later called Virginia.
Background
Philip Amadas was born about 1565 in Plymouth, England, to John and Jane Amadas. He came from a family connected with the maritime and commercial life of southwestern England. As a young man he became associated with Sir Walter Raleigh and entered the circle through which Raleigh organized expeditions to the Atlantic coast of North America.
Elizabethan England was expanding its naval, commercial, and exploratory activity during Amadas’s early adulthood. Raleigh’s 1584 patent from Queen Elizabeth I authorized him to seek and settle territories in North America that were not occupied by other Christian powers. Amadas’s seafaring experience and connection with Raleigh placed him among the commanders selected for this enterprise.
Career
In April 1584, Amadas and Arthur Barlowe sailed from the west of England in two ships commissioned by Sir Walter Raleigh. The expedition first traveled toward the Canary Islands and the West Indies before turning north to the coast of present-day North Carolina. On July 13, the party entered an inlet near the Outer Banks, explored Roanoke Island and nearby mainland communities, and claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. Their voyage formed part of England’s effort to identify a base for settlement, trade, and resistance to Spanish power in the Atlantic.
Amadas and Barlowe made contact with Carolina Algonquian communities, including the leaders Wingina and Granganimeo. The expedition returned to England with Manteo and Wanchese, whose presence gave Raleigh’s supporters additional knowledge of the region and its peoples. Barlowe’s favorable account of the coast described its resources and helped persuade Elizabeth I to associate the name Virginia with Raleigh’s proposed colony.
In 1585, Amadas returned to North America with Sir Richard Grenville’s larger expedition aboard the Tiger. He held the designation Admiral of Virginia and served as the second naval commander under Grenville. The expedition established the English settlement on Roanoke Island under the governorship of Ralph Lane, and Amadas remained there for approximately a year. He may also have participated in exploratory activity toward Chesapeake Bay and in the military organization of the Roanoke settlement, although the surviving evidence does not define all of his responsibilities.
In June 1586, Amadas and the remaining members of the Roanoke settlement left the island when Sir Francis Drake’s fleet arrived. After his return to England, little documentary evidence survives concerning his later career. He died in 1618.
Connections
Amadas’s principal documented professional connections were with Sir Walter Raleigh, who organized the voyages and held the patent for colonization, and Arthur Barlowe, his fellow commander on the 1584 reconnaissance expedition. His voyages also brought him into direct contact with Manteo, Wanchese, Wingina, and Granganimeo during the first English explorations of the Roanoke region.
