White's return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590, by which time all the colonists had disappeared. The whereabouts of Wanchese and Manteo after the 1587 settlement attempt were also unknown. The only clue White found was the word "CROATOAN" carved into a post, as well as the letters "CRO" carved into a tree. Before leaving the colony three years earlier, White had left instructions that if the colonists left the settlement, they were to carve the name of their destination, with a Maltese cross if they left due to danger. "Croatoan" was the name of an island to the south (modern-day Hatteras Island) where the Croatoan people, still friendly to the English, were known to live. However, foul weather kept White from venturing south to Croatoan to search for the colonists, so he returned to England. White never returned to the New World. Unable to determine exactly what happened, people referred to the abandoned settlement as "The Lost Colony." In the book A New Voyage to Carolina (1709), the explorer John Lawson claimed that the ruins of the Lost Colony were still visible: Lawson also claimed the natives on Hatteras island claimed to be descendants of "white people" and had inherited physical markers relating them to Europeans that no other tribe encountered on his journey shared: From the time of the disappearance of the Lost Colony in 1587 to the Battle of Roanoke Island in 1862, Roanoke was largely isolated due to its weather and geography. Sand shoals on the Outer Banks and the North American continental shelf made navigation dangerous, and the lack of a deep-water harbor prevented Roanoke from becoming a major colonial port. Intermediate years Also see: Province of Carolina and Province of North Carolina After the failure of the English Roanoke Colony, Native peoples inhabited the island for seventy more years. Archaeology from the Tilliet site indicates that the Roanoke population persisted until 1650. Written accounts indicate visible remnants of the final native presence which survived long after the end of the island's native population. A large mound 200 feet tall and 600 feet wide was recorded to exist in Wanchese in the early 1900s; now little evidence remains. The 1650 extinction date corresponds with the final war between the Powhatan Tribe and the Virginia Colony that took place in 1646. Settlers from Virginia drove the Secotan Tribe out of Outer Banks region. Survivors of