Gabriel Archer was an early English explorer of Cape Cod, Chesapeake Bay, and Virginia.

A settler of Jamestown, Virginia, he clashed with the leadership council and John Smith repeatedly before dying in the winter of 1609-1610.

The Jamestown Rediscovery Project, among other scholars, considers the possibility that Gabriel Archer may have been a Catholic, based on how he was buried.

[2] His account of this expedition was later published after his death by Samuel Purchas under the title "The Relation of Captaine Gosnols Voyage to the North Part of Virginia."

Archer also recorded and most likely coined many other names from that voyage that are not still used in the present day, including Tucker's Terror and Hill's Hap.

[2] The grave was identified because he was a high-ranking leader who was at the age range of the skeleton, and through a comparison of his teeth and lead levels.

[1] In addition, Archer was buried facing east, which was then generally only the burial orientation of ministers so they could see their churchgoers on the Resurrection.

[7] Archer had also attended Cambridge, which was known at that time, according to James Horn of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project, to be a university with some Catholic presence.

[6] The piece of evidence that initially started the theory that Gabriel Archer was a Catholic, however, was a small silver box that was buried next to him.

If Archer were a Catholic, James Horn and others have mentioned that that could provide a reason for his animosity with some of the top colonial leaders.