The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1871-04-04
RICHMOND, September %.

BY William Writ.
RICHMOND, September %.
L have just returned, my dear s.,
from an interesting mornings ride. My
object was to visit the site of the Indian
town, Powhatan, which you will remember
was the metropolis of the dominions of
Pocahontas' father, and, very probably,
the birthplace of that celebrated princess.
The town was built on the river, about
two miles below the ground now occupied
by Richmond; that is, about two miles
below the head of tide water. The land
whereon it stood is, at present, part of a
beautiful and valuable farm belonging to
a gentleman by the name of William
Mayo.
Aware Of the slight manner in which
the Indians have always constructed their
habitations, l was not at all disappointed
in finding no vestige of the old town.
But as traversed the ground over which
Pocahontas had so often bounded and
frolicked in the sprightly morning Of her
youth, could not help recalling the prin-
cipal features of her history, and heaving
a sigh of mingled pity and vencration to
her memory.
Good Heaven What an eventful life
was hers To speak Of nothing else, the
arrival of the English in her fathers do
minions must have appeared (as indeed it
turned out to be) most portentious phe-
nomenon. 1t is not easy for us to con-
ceive the amazement and CONSERVATION
which must have filled her mind and that
Of her nation at the first appearance Of
our countrymcn. Their great ship, with
all her sails spread, advancing in solemn
majesty to the shore their complexion !;
their dress; their language; their domestic
animals; their cargo of new and glitter
ing wealth and then the thunder and ir-
resistible force of their artillery the dis
tant country announced by them, far be-
yond the great water, of which the Oldest
Indian had never heard, or thought, or
dreamed-all this was so new, so wonder.
full, so tremendous, that 1 do seriously
suppose, the personal descent of an army
Of Millions celestial angels, robed in light,
sporting ip the bright beams of the sun
and redoubling their splendor, making di-
vine harmony with their golden harps, or
playing with the bolt and chasing the
rapid lightning of heaven, would excite
not more astonishment in Great Britain
than did the debarkation of the English
among the aborigines Of Virginia.
Poor Indians Where are they now ?
Indeed, my dear s., this is truly
affecting consideration. The people here
may say what they please; but, on the
principles of eternal truth and justice,
they have no right to this country. They
say that they have bought Thought it
Yes of whom? Ofthe poor tremb-
ling natives who knew that refusal would
be vain and who strove to make a merit
of necessity by seeming to yield with
grace, what they knew that they had not
the power to retain. Such a bargain
might appease the conscience of gentle
man of the green bag, sworn and hack
neyed" in the arts and frauds of his pro-
fession; but in heavens chancery, my
s., there can be little doubt that it
has been long since set aside on the ground
of duress.
Poor wretches No wonder that they
are so implacably vindictive against the
white people no wonder that the rage Of
resentment is handed down from genera
tion to generation no wouder that they
refuse to associate and mix permanently
with their unjust and cruel invaders and
exterminators; no wonder that in the una.
batting spite and frenzy of conscious i'm.
potence, they wage an eternal war,as well
as they are able; that they triumph in the
rare opportunity Of revenge; that they
dance, sing and rejoice, as the victim
shrieks and faints amid the flames, when
they imagine all the crimes of their op'
pressors collected on his head, and fancy
the spirit of their injured forefathers hov
ering over the sceue, smiling with feroci
Gus delight at the grateful spectacle, anG
feasting on the precious odour as it arises
from the burning blood Of the white man
Yet the people, here, affect to wonder
that the Indians are so very unsusceptiblt
Of civilization or, in other words, thai
they so obstnately refuse to adopt the
manners Of the white men. Go, Virgin
ians ; erase, from the Indian nation, the
tradition of their wrongs; make them for
get, if you can, that once this charming
country was theirs that over these fields
and through these forests their beloved
forefathers, once, in careless gaiety ,pursu
ed their sports and hunted their game
that every returning day found them the
sole, the peaceful, the happy proprietor,
of this extensive and beautiful domain
Make them forget, too, if you can, that
in the midst of all this innocence, simpli.
city and bliss-the white man came and
lo!-the animated chase. the feast, the
dance, the song Of fearless, thoughtless
joy were over that ever since, they have
been made to drink of the bitter cup OF
humiliation; treated like dogs; their lives,
their liberties, the sport of the white men
their country and the graves of their
fathers torn from them, in cruel success
sion; until, driven from river to river,
from forest to forest, and through period
Of two hundred years, rolled back, nation
upon nation,they fnd themselves furgiti-
yes, vagrants and strangers in their own
country, and look forward to the certain
period when their descendants will be
totally extinguished by wars, driven at
the point of the bayonet into the western
ocean, or reduced to a fate still more de-
plorable and horrid, the condition of
slaves. Go, administer the cup OF ofoblivion
to recollections and anticipations like these
and then you will cease to complain that
the Indian refuses to be civilized, But
until than cu.al.. Il Ia ..ail:...z 49,. 4