Ananias Dare (c. 1560 – 1587, legal death) was a colonist of the Roanoke Colony of 1587. He was the husband of Eleanor White, whom he married at St Bride's Church in London, and the father of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America. The details of Dare's death are still unknown.
Personal life
He was the father of Virginia Dare, whose birth on August 18, 1587, was the first recorded to English parents on the continent of North America.
Very little is known of Dare other than the birth of his child, but his father-in-law, John White, was appointed Governor during the second attempt to settle Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke colony in 1587. White also accompanied the 1585 to 1586 expedition, led by Richard Grenville at sea and Ralph Lane on land. The illustrations White made during his stay at Roanoke were published in 1590 along with Thomas Harriet's "A Brief and True Report".
English descendants
According to the Index to Acts of Administration in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1596–1608, Ananias had a son by the name of John who was placed into the custody of a John Nokes of London in April 1594 and "decreed" his son in June 1597. Both John Nokes and a certain Robert Satchfield had originally applied to the Canterbury Court for the guardianship in 1594. This Robert Satchfield may be the same Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset. The following is an exact quote from the abbreviated entry:
Dare, Ananias, St. Bride, Lond. To Jn. Nokes, k., dur. min. of Jn. D., s. (by Decree), (prev. Gnt. Apr 1594, p. 95), Jun 1597, p. 213 Translation ... "dur. min." means: "during minority" and is usually written: "durante minore aetate"; and basically concerns the "minor person of", and then the name. "Aetate", which means "age", is understood and can, as in this case, subtly refer to a person's estate. Such "double talk" is typical in Latin with things alluded to having an outward meaning as well as an additional "subtle" meaning "reserved" for those of an ominous "inner circle".
So that immediately the children of the missing persons from the Colony were placed into respective guardianships, and all of them were eventually declared dead by the Prerogative or other appropriate court.
The external link below indicates that Ananias and his wife were married in the same church as that mentioned in the quote above, St Bride's, London, and a carving of Virginia Dare's bust is situated above the font of the church.
In Frances Rose-Troup, John White, the Patriarch of Dorchester and the Founder of Massachusetts (1930), the author mentions John White who appears to be the son of the same above-mentioned John White. There, the author also gives mention of a certain George Dier (1579–1672) and his relationship to the Rev. John White. In Charles Edward Banks, The Planters of the Commonwealth (1930, 1st edition) there is an important mention of a vessel by the name of Mary & John that the same above-mentioned Rev. John White sponsored from Plymouth, England to Dorchester on March 20, 1630. On that vessel's ship's list are a mention of a John Drake, close relation of Sir Francis Drake, as well as that of a George Dyer – the same George Dier that is mentioned in Rose-Troup.
Roanoke Colony
In her 2000 book Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony, anthropologist Lee Miller speculates that Ananias Dare and the other members of the Roanoke Colony were religious Separatists who left England at a time when the political climate in England was dangerous for such religious dissidents. She suggests that this might be why the colonists, two of whom were pregnant women and several of whom were parents with young children, were willing to undertake the dangerous journey to Roanoke Island with low supplies and at a time England was on the verge of war with Spain. The colonists, including the women, signed a petition urging White to return to England for supplies, even though he was reluctant to leave his daughter and granddaughter. Miller suggests that this democratic action would have been typical of a religious Separatist group.
John White left the group on August 27, 1587, and returned three years later, only to find the colony deserted.