These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard; the surviving original watercolors are now preserved in the print room of the British Museum.

In 1587, White became governor of Sir Walter Raleigh's failed attempt at a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island, known to history as the "Lost Colony".

[1] In the late sixteenth century, efforts to establish an English colony in the New World began to gain momentum, and White soon became an enthusiastic supporter.

[1] In 1577, White may have accompanied Martin Frobisher to search for precious metals and a northwest passage to Asia on his Baffin Island and Greenland expeditions.

[2] In 1585, White accompanied the expedition led by Sir Ralph Lane to attempt to found the first English colony in North America.

These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern Seaboard, and predate the first body of "discovery voyage art" created in the late 18th century by the artists who sailed with Captain James Cook.

[6] After Lane's colonists returned to England in 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh, who held the land patent for the proposed English colony of Virginia, tasked White with the job of organising a new settlement in the Chesapeake Bay area, one which would be self-sustaining and which would include women and children.

[1] During 1586, White was able to persuade 113 prospective colonists to join Raleigh's expedition, including his daughter Eleanor and his son-in-law Ananias Dare, recently married at St Bride's Church in Fleet Street.

They were guided by the Portuguese navigator Simão Fernandes, the same pilot who had led the 1585 expedition and who was given by his fellow sailors the unhappy nickname of "the swine.

But, upon reaching Roanoke in late July,[1] and allowing the colonists to disembark, Fernandez refused to let White's men re-board the ship.

According to White's journal, Fernandez's deputy "called to the sailors in the pinesse, charging them not to bring any of the planters [settlers] back again, but leave them on the island.

White quickly made contact with friendly natives led by Chief Manteo, who explained to him that the lost fifteen had been killed by hostile Secotan, Aquascogoc, and Dasamongueponke warriors,[13] choosing a time and place of attack "of great advantage to the savages.

White and his soldiers entered the Dasamongueponke village in the morning "so early that it was yet dark,"[15] but mistakenly attacked a group of hitherto friendly Indians, killing one and wounding many.

[20] White was reluctant to abandon his colony, anxious that his enemies in England "would not spare to slander [him] falsely" should he leave,[21] and worried that his "stuff and goods might be spoiled and most of it pilfered away.

[26] The reason was the "invincible fleetes made by the King of Spain, joined with the power of the Pope, for the invading of England" – the Spanish Armada.

[27] In early 1588, White was able to scrape together a pair of small pinnaces, the Brave and the Roe, which were unsuitable for military service and could be spared for the expedition to Roanoke.

"[28] White and his crew escaped to England with their lives, but "they robbed us of all our victuals, powder, weapons and provision," and the journey to Virginia had to be abandoned.

[30] The return journey was prolonged by extensive privateering and several sea battles, and White's eventual landing at the Outer Banks was further imperiled by poor weather.

Before the Governor's departure, he and the colonists had agreed that a message would be carved into a tree if they had moved and would include an image of a Maltese Cross if the decision was made by force.

In 2007, the British Museum placed the entire group of John White's watercolors on public display under the collection, "A New World: England's First View of America."