Philip Amadas

{{Short description|16/17th-century English captain and explorer of North America}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}

{{Use British English|date=July 2015}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Philip Amadas

| image = File:The_Englishmen's_arrival_in_Virginia_(1590).jpg

| imagesize =

| caption = Amadas and Barlowe arrive at Virginia

| birthname =

| birth_date = 1550

| birth_place = Hull, England

| death_date = 1618

| death_place =

| occupation = Explorer

| nationality = English

| footnotes =

}}

Philip Amadas (1550–1618){{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography|last=Tyler|first=Lyon Gardiner|publisher=Lewis Historical Publishing Company|year=1915|volume=1|location=New York|pages=15}} was a naval commander and explorer in Elizabethan England.{{cite web|url=http://ncpedia.org/amadas-and-barlowe-expedition|title=Amadas and Barlowe Expedition |website=ncpedia.org|access-date=28 August 2017}} Little is known from his early life, but he grew up within a wealthy merchant family in southwestern England.{{Cite book|title=Set Fair for Roanoke:Voyages and Colonies, 1584–1606|last=Quinn|first=David Beers|publisher=The University of North Carolina Press|year=1985|location=Chapel Hill|pages=21–22}} Amadas was instrumental in the early years of the English colonisation of North America. He served alongside Arthur Barlowe in the 1584 exploratory voyage to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Leaving on 27 April 1584, he captained the Bark Ralegh with Simon Fernandes as his master and pilot on the voyage. Fernandes is best known for his controversial decision to maroon the colonists of the infamous "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island in 1587. The voyage of 1584 determined Roanoke Island as the location for the future colonies under the leadership of Sir Walter Raleigh. For his role in the Roanoke voyages of 1584 and 1585, Amadas was nominated Admiral of Virginia by Raleigh in 1585. When he returned to England to report their findings, the Queen named the country after herself, Virginia.