Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1859-11-23
SMITH AND THOMPSON; OR. vIR-
GINIA SAVAGES, PAST AND
PRESENT.

Our readers will readily recall the touch
ing story of John Smith, fugitive slave
and adventurer, who afterwards became
one of the first eOlonists of jamestown, in
Virginia. His small party of men would
soon have perished for want of food, if he
had not stolen the Indian idol, 0kee, made
of skins stuffed with moss, and comeplled
the natives to redeem it with a large pur-
chase of corn. While exploring the Chic
kahOming, however, he was seized by the
enemy, having killed three of them in the
encounter, and taken before the great
chief Powhatan,-the predecessor of Gov
ernor Wise,-who, seated on his stump of
throne and clothed in raccoon skins, con-
demed the poor fellow to death But, be-
side the throne of the chief, stood two of
his dusky daughters, who cempassionated
Smith, and one of whom, the chiefs favor
ite, Pocahontas, resolved to save his life.
When the grim warriors, therefore, brought
in the two big stones on which Smith laid
his head, and their war-clubs were raised
to drop upon his daylights forever, she
rushed between the executioners and their
victim, and, by her passionate entrcaties,
induced the savagcs to suspend their blows
and suffered Smith to depart
Those old red Indians seem to US to have
had mere real humanity in them than many
of the whites who new occupy their places.
The story of Thompson, which we print in
full elsewhere, is similar in some respects
to the story of Smith. He had committed
an outrage upon the idol of the Virginian
name in this case Cuffee, not Okee-had
been captured, and would have been tried
and condemned to death if the blood-thirsty
ferOcity of the modern Yirginians, less ca
pablo of restraint than that of the old Yir-
ginians, could have waited the slow decis-
ions Of authority. 1t could not. Accord
ing to the testimony of Mr.. Hunter, one
of the actors in the affair, and a son of the
prosecuting Attorney in the Harper's Fer
ry trials, crowd of armed men rushed in
to the room of the hotel where Thompson
was confined, and would have put him to
an instant and brutal death.
But the daughter of the landlord, a Miss
Coulke, with heroism that surpasses even
that of Pocahontas, threw herself between
the guns of those maddened and reckless
slave drivers and their object, whom she
caught in her arms, and besought their
mercy. ''For Gods sake wait" she said,
''and let the law take its course" For a
moment they desisted from their work of
revenge; but for a momont only. Neither
the helpless condition of the prosiner, nor
that noble, wOmanly appeal, could soften
the hearts of these sayages, as the words
of Pocahontas softened those of the ancient
braves. They dragged Thompson from the
sheltering arms of his protector, hauled
him like dog through the streets, amid
the hOOting and bowling of frenzied crowd,
and when they got him to the railroad
bridge, already nearly dead with bruises,
they riddled his body with their rife ballsl
Gov. Wise is reported to have said that he
wept for the cowardice of the Virginians
at Harper's Ferry, and well he may have
wept; for a cowardice so susceptible of PAN
ic that it turns men, not into savages, but
wild beasts, is indeed to be deplored.-i
~ 7. Erening Post.