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Produced by David Widger | |
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS | |
By Charles Dudley Warner | |
The simple story of the life of Pocahontas is sufficiently romantic | |
without the embellishments which have been wrought on it either by the | |
vanity of Captain Smith or the natural pride of the descendants of this | |
dusky princess who have been ennobled by the smallest rivulet of her red | |
blood. | |
That she was a child of remarkable intelligence, and that she early | |
showed a tender regard for the whites and rendered them willing and | |
unwilling service, is the concurrent evidence of all contemporary | |
testimony. That as a child she was well-favored, sprightly, and | |
prepossessing above all her copper-colored companions, we can believe, | |
and that as a woman her manners were attractive. If the portrait taken | |
of her in London--the best engraving of which is by Simon de Passe--in | |
1616, when she is said to have been twenty-one years old, does her | |
justice, she had marked Indian features. | |
The first mention of her is in "The True Relation," written by Captain | |
Smith in Virginia in 1608. In this narrative, as our readers have seen, | |
she is not referred to until after Smith's return from the captivity | |
in which Powhatan used him "with all the kindness he could devise." Her | |
name first appears, toward the close of the relation, in the following | |
sentence: | |
"Powhatan understanding we detained certain salvages, sent his daughter, | |
a child of tenne yeares old, which not only for feature, countenance, | |
and proportion, much exceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for | |
wit and spirit the only nonpareil of his country: this hee sent by his | |
most trusty messenger, called Rawhunt, as much exceeding in deformitie | |
of person, but of a subtill wit and crafty understanding, he with a long | |
circumstance told mee how well Powhatan loved and respected mee, and in | |
that I should not doubt any way of his kindness, he had sent his child, | |
which he most esteemed, to see mee, a Deere, and bread, besides for | |
a present: desiring mee that the Boy [Thomas Savage, the boy given by | |
Newport to Powhatan] might come again, which he loved exceedingly, his | |
little Daughter he had taught this lesson also: not taking notice at all | |
of the Indians that had been prisoners three daies, till that morning | |
that she saw their fathers and friends come quietly, and in good termes | |
to entreate their libertie. | |
"In the afternoon they [the friends of the prisoners] being gone, we | |
guarded them [the prisoners] as before to the church, and after prayer, | |
gave them to Pocahuntas the King's Daughter, in regard of her father's | |
kindness in sending her: after having well fed them, as all the time of | |
their imprisonment, we gave them their bows, arrowes, or what else | |
they had, and with much content, sent them packing: Pocahuntas, also we | |
requited with such trifles as contented her, to tel that we had used the | |
Paspaheyans very kindly in so releasing them." | |
The next allusion to her is in the fourth chapter of the narratives | |
which are appended to the "Map of Virginia," etc. This was sent home by | |
Smith, with a description of Virginia, in the late autumn of 1608. It | |
was published at Oxford in 1612, from two to three years after Smith's | |
return to England. The appendix contains the narratives of several of | |
Smith's companions in Virginia, edited by Dr. Symonds and overlooked | |
by Smith. In one of these is a brief reference to the above-quoted | |
incident. | |
This Oxford tract, it is scarcely necessary to repeat, contains no | |
reference to the saving of Smith's life by Pocahontas from the clubs of | |
Powhatan. | |
The next published mention of Pocahontas, in point of time, is in | |
Chapter X. and the last of the appendix to the "Map of Virginia," and is | |
Smith's denial, already quoted, of his intention to marry Pocahontas. | |
In this passage he speaks of her as "at most not past 13 or 14 years of | |
age." If she was thirteen or fourteen in 1609, when Smith left Virginia, | |
she must have been more than ten when he wrote his "True Relation," | |
composed in the winter of 1608, which in all probability was carried to | |
England by Captain Nelson, who left Jamestown June 2d. | |
The next contemporary authority to be consulted in regard to Pocahontas | |
is William Strachey, who, as we have seen, went with the expedition of | |
Gates and Somers, was shipwrecked on the Bermudas, and reached Jamestown | |
May 23 or 24, 1610, and was made Secretary and Recorder of the colony | |
under Lord Delaware. Of the origin and life of Strachey, who was a | |
person of importance in Virginia, little is known. The better impression | |
is that he was the William Strachey of Saffron Walden, who was married | |
in 1588 and was living in 1620, and that it was his grandson of the same | |
name who was subsequently connected with the Virginia colony. He was, | |
judged by his writings, a man of considerable education, a good deal of | |
a pedant, and shared the credulity and fondness for embellishment of the | |
writers of his time. His connection with Lord Delaware, and his part | |
in framing the code of laws in Virginia, which may be inferred from | |
the fact that he first published them, show that he was a trusted and | |
capable man. | |
William Strachey left behind him a manuscript entitled "The Historie of | |
Travaile into Virginia Britanica, &c., gathered and observed as well by | |
those who went first thither, as collected by William Strachey, gent., | |
three years thither, employed as Secretaire of State." How long he | |
remained in Virginia is uncertain, but it could not have been "three | |
years," though he may have been continued Secretary for that period, for | |
he was in London in 1612, in which year he published there the laws of | |
Virginia which had been established by Sir Thomas Gates May 24, 1610, | |
approved by Lord Delaware June 10, 1610, and enlarged by Sir Thomas Dale | |
June 22, 1611. | |
The "Travaile" was first published by the Hakluyt Society in 1849. When | |
and where it was written, and whether it was all composed at one time, | |
are matters much in dispute. The first book, descriptive of Virginia and | |
its people, is complete; the second book, a narration of discoveries in | |
America, is unfinished. Only the first book concerns us. That Strachey | |
made notes in Virginia may be assumed, but the book was no doubt written | |
after his return to England. | |
[This code of laws, with its penalty of whipping and death for what are | |
held now to be venial offenses, gives it a high place among the Black | |
Codes. One clause will suffice: | |
"Every man and woman duly twice a day upon the first towling of the Bell | |
shall upon the working daies repaire unto the church, to hear divine | |
service upon pain of losing his or her allowance for the first omission, | |
for the second to be whipt, and for the third to be condemned to the | |
Gallies for six months. Likewise no man or woman shall dare to violate | |
the Sabbath by any gaming, publique or private, abroad or at home, but | |
duly sanctifie and observe the same, both himselfe and his familie, by | |
preparing themselves at home with private prayer, that they may be the | |
better fitted for the publique, according to the commandments of God, | |
and the orders of our church, as also every man and woman shall repaire | |
in the morning to the divine service, and sermons preached upon the | |
Sabbath day, and in the afternoon to divine service, and Catechism upon | |
paine for the first fault to lose their provision, and allowance for the | |
whole week following, for the second to lose the said allowance and also | |
to be whipt, and for the third to suffer death."] | |
Was it written before or after the publication of Smith's "Map and | |
Description" at Oxford in 1612? The question is important, because | |
Smith's "Description" and Strachey's "Travaile" are page after page | |
literally the same. One was taken from the other. Commonly at that time | |
manuscripts seem to have been passed around and much read before they | |
were published. Purchas acknowledges that he had unpublished manuscripts | |
of Smith when he compiled his narrative. Did Smith see Strachey's | |
manuscript before he published his Oxford tract, or did Strachey enlarge | |
his own notes from Smith's description? It has been usually assumed | |
that Strachey cribbed from Smith without acknowledgment. If it were a | |
question to be settled by the internal evidence of the two accounts, | |
I should incline to think that Smith condensed his description from | |
Strachey, but the dates incline the balance in Smith's favor. | |
Strachey in his "Travaile" refers sometimes to Smith, and always with | |
respect. It will be noted that Smith's "Map" was engraved and published | |
before the "Description" in the Oxford tract. Purchas had it, for he | |
says, in writing of Virginia for his "Pilgrimage" (which was published | |
in 1613): | |
"Concerning-the latter [Virginia], Capt. John Smith, partly by word | |
of mouth, partly by his mappe thereof in print, and more fully by a | |
Manuscript which he courteously communicated to mee, hath acquainted | |
me with that whereof himselfe with great perill and paine, had been | |
the discoverer." Strachey in his "Travaile" alludes to it, and pays a | |
tribute to Smith in the following: "Their severall habitations are more | |
plainly described by the annexed mappe, set forth by Capt. Smith, of | |
whose paines taken herein I leave to the censure of the reader to judge. | |
Sure I am there will not return from thence in hast, any one who hath | |
been more industrious, or who hath had (Capt. Geo. Percie excepted) | |
greater experience amongst them, however misconstruction may traduce | |
here at home, where is not easily seen the mixed sufferances, both of | |
body and mynd, which is there daylie, and with no few hazards and hearty | |
griefes undergon." | |
There are two copies of the Strachey manuscript. The one used by the | |
Hakluyt Society is dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, with the title of | |
"Lord High Chancellor," and Bacon had not that title conferred on him | |
till after 1618. But the copy among the Ashmolean manuscripts at Oxford | |
is dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley, with the title of "Purveyor to His | |
Majestie's Navie Royall"; and as Sir Allen was made "Lieutenant of | |
the Tower" in 1616, it is believed that the manuscript must have been | |
written before that date, since the author would not have omitted the | |
more important of the two titles in his dedication. | |
Strachey's prefatory letter to the Council, prefixed to his "Laws" | |
(1612), is dated "From my lodging in the Black Friars. At your best | |
pleasures, either to return unto the colony, or pray for the success of | |
it heere." In his letter he speaks of his experience in the Bermudas and | |
Virginia: "The full storie of both in due time [I] shall consecrate unto | |
your view.... Howbit since many impediments, as yet must detaine such | |
my observations in the shadow of darknesse, untill I shall be able to | |
deliver them perfect unto your judgments," etc. | |
This is not, as has been assumed, a statement that the observations were | |
not written then, only that they were not "perfect"; in fact, they | |
were detained in the "shadow of darknesse" till the year 1849. Our | |
own inference is, from all the circumstances, that Strachey began his | |
manuscript in Virginia or shortly after his return, and added to it and | |
corrected it from time to time up to 1616. | |
We are now in a position to consider Strachey's allusions to Pocahontas. | |
The first occurs in his description of the apparel of Indian women: | |
"The better sort of women cover themselves (for the most part) all over | |
with skin mantells, finely drest, shagged and fringed at the skyrt, | |
carved and coloured with some pretty work, or the proportion of beasts, | |
fowle, tortayses, or other such like imagry, as shall best please or | |
expresse the fancy of the wearer; their younger women goe not shadowed | |
amongst their owne companie, until they be nigh eleaven or twelve | |
returnes of the leafe old (for soe they accompt and bring about the | |
yeare, calling the fall of the leaf tagnitock); nor are thev much | |
ashamed thereof, and therefore would the before remembered Pocahontas, | |
a well featured, but wanton yong girle, Powhatan's daughter, sometymes | |
resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleven or twelve yeares, get | |
the boyes forth with her into the markett place, and make them wheele, | |
falling on their hands, turning up their heeles upwards, whome she would | |
followe and wheele so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over; | |
but being once twelve yeares, they put on a kind of semecinctum lethern | |
apron (as do our artificers or handycrafts men) before their bellies, | |
and are very shamefac't to be seene bare. We have seene some use | |
mantells made both of Turkey feathers, and other fowle, so prettily | |
wrought and woven with threeds, that nothing could be discerned but the | |
feathers, which were exceedingly warme and very handsome." | |
Strachey did not see Pocahontas. She did not resort to the camp after | |
the departure of Smith in September, 1609, until she was kidnapped by | |
Governor Dale in April, 1613. He repeats what he heard of her. The | |
time mentioned by him of her resorting to the fort, "of the age then of | |
eleven or twelve yeares," must have been the time referred to by Smith | |
when he might have married her, namely, in 1608-9, when he calls her | |
"not past 13 or 14 years of age." The description of her as a "yong | |
girle" tumbling about the fort, "naked as she was," would seem to | |
preclude the idea that she was married at that time. | |
The use of the word "wanton" is not necessarily disparaging, for | |
"wanton" in that age was frequently synonymous with "playful" and | |
"sportive"; but it is singular that she should be spoken of as "well | |
featured, but wanton." Strachey, however, gives in another place what is | |
no doubt the real significance of the Indian name "Pocahontas." He says: | |
"Both men, women, and children have their severall names; at first | |
according to the severall humor of their parents; and for the men | |
children, at first, when they are young, their mothers give them a name, | |
calling them by some affectionate title, or perhaps observing their | |
promising inclination give it accordingly; and so the great King | |
Powhatan called a young daughter of his, whom he loved well, Pocahontas, | |
which may signify a little wanton; howbeyt she was rightly called | |
Amonata at more ripe years." | |
The Indian girls married very young. The polygamous Powhatan had a large | |
number of wives, but of all his women, his favorites were a dozen "for | |
the most part very young women," the names of whom Strachey obtained | |
from one Kemps, an Indian a good deal about camp, whom Smith certifies | |
was a great villain. Strachey gives a list of the names of twelve of | |
them, at the head of which is Winganuske. This list was no doubt written | |
down by the author in Virginia, and it is followed by a sentence, | |
quoted below, giving also the number of Powhatan's children. The | |
"great darling" in this list was Winganuske, a sister of Machumps, | |
who, according to Smith, murdered his comrade in the Bermudas. Strachey | |
writes: | |
"He [Powhatan] was reported by the said Kemps, as also by the Indian | |
Machumps, who was sometyme in England, and comes to and fro amongst us | |
as he dares, and as Powhatan gives him leave, for it is not otherwise | |
safe for him, no more than it was for one Amarice, who had his braynes | |
knockt out for selling but a baskett of corne, and lying in the English | |
fort two or three days without Powhatan's leave; I say they often | |
reported unto us that Powhatan had then lyving twenty sonnes and ten | |
daughters, besyde a young one by Winganuske, Machumps his sister, and a | |
great darling of the King's; and besides, younge Pocohunta, a daughter | |
of his, using sometyme to our fort in tymes past, nowe married to a | |
private Captaine, called Kocoum, some two years since." | |
This passage is a great puzzle. Does Strachey intend to say that | |
Pocahontas was married to an Iniaan named Kocoum? She might have been | |
during the time after Smith's departure in 1609, and her kidnapping | |
in 1613, when she was of marriageable age. We shall see hereafter that | |
Powhatan, in 1614, said he had sold another favorite daughter of his, | |
whom Sir Thomas Dale desired, and who was not twelve years of age, to | |
be wife to a great chief. The term "private Captain" might perhaps be | |
applied to an Indian chief. Smith, in his "General Historie," says | |
the Indians have "but few occasions to use any officers more than one | |
commander, which commonly they call Werowance, or Caucorouse, which is | |
Captaine." It is probably not possible, with the best intentions, to | |
twist Kocoum into Caucorouse, or to suppose that Strachey intended to | |
say that a private captain was called in Indian a Kocoum. Werowance | |
and Caucorouse are not synonymous terms. Werowance means "chief," and | |
Caucorouse means "talker" or "orator," and is the original of our word | |
"caucus." | |
Either Strachey was uninformed, or Pocahontas was married to an | |
Indian--a not violent presumption considering her age and the fact | |
that war between Powhatan and the whites for some time had cut off | |
intercourse between them--or Strachey referred to her marriage with | |
Rolfe, whom he calls by mistake Kocoum. If this is to be accepted, | |
then this paragraph must have been written in England in 1616, and have | |
referred to the marriage to Rolfe it "some two years since," in 1614. | |
That Pocahontas was a gentle-hearted and pleasing girl, and, through her | |
acquaintance with Smith, friendly to the whites, there is no doubt; that | |
she was not different in her habits and mode of life from other Indian | |
girls, before the time of her kidnapping, there is every reason to | |
suppose. It was the English who magnified the imperialism of her father, | |
and exaggerated her own station as Princess. She certainly put on no | |
airs of royalty when she was "cart-wheeling" about the fort. Nor | |
does this detract anything from the native dignity of the mature, and | |
converted, and partially civilized woman. | |
We should expect there would be the discrepancies which have been | |
noticed in the estimates of her age. Powhatan is not said to have kept | |
a private secretary to register births in his family. If Pocahontas gave | |
her age correctly, as it appears upon her London portrait in 1616, | |
aged twenty-one, she must have been eighteen years of age when she was | |
captured in 1613 This would make her about twelve at the time of Smith's | |
captivity in 1607-8. There is certainly room for difference of opinion | |
as to whether so precocious a woman, as her intelligent apprehension of | |
affairs shows her to have been, should have remained unmarried till the | |
age of eighteen. In marrying at least as early as that she would have | |
followed the custom of her tribe. It is possible that her intercourse | |
with the whites had raised her above such an alliance as would be | |
offered her at the court of Werowocomoco. | |
We are without any record of the life of Pocahontas for some years. | |
The occasional mentions of her name in the "General Historie" are so | |
evidently interpolated at a late date, that they do not aid us. When | |
and where she took the name of Matoaka, which appears upon her London | |
portrait, we are not told, nor when she was called Amonata, as Strachey | |
says she was "at more ripe yeares." How she was occupied from the | |
departure of Smith to her abduction, we can only guess. To follow her | |
authentic history we must take up the account of Captain Argall and of | |
Ralph Hamor, Jr., secretary of the colony under Governor Dale. | |
Captain Argall, who seems to have been as bold as he was unscrupulous | |
in the execution of any plan intrusted to him, arrived in Virginia | |
in September, 1612, and early in the spring of 1613 he was sent on an | |
expedition up the Patowomek to trade for corn and to effect a capture | |
that would bring Powhatan to terms. The Emperor, from being a friend, | |
had become the most implacable enemy of the English. Captain Argall | |
says: "I was told by certain Indians, my friends, that the great | |
Powhatan's daughter Pokahuntis was with the great King Potowomek, | |
whither I presently repaired, resolved to possess myself of her by any | |
stratagem that I could use, for the ransoming of so many Englishmen as | |
were prisoners with Powhatan, as also to get such armes and tooles as | |
he and other Indians had got by murther and stealing some others of our | |
nation, with some quantity of corn for the colonies relief." | |
By the aid of Japazeus, King of Pasptancy, an old acquaintance and | |
friend of Argall's, and the connivance of the King of Potowomek, | |
Pocahontas was enticed on board Argall's ship and secured. Word was sent | |
to Powhatan of the capture and the terms on which his daughter would be | |
released; namely, the return of the white men he held in slavery, the | |
tools and arms he had gotten and stolen, and a great quantity of corn. | |
Powhatan, "much grieved," replied that if Argall would use his daughter | |
well, and bring the ship into his river and release her, he would accede | |
to all his demands. Therefore, on the 13th of April, Argall repaired to | |
Governor Gates at Jamestown, and delivered his prisoner, and a few days | |
after the King sent home some of the white captives, three pieces, one | |
broad-axe, a long whip-saw, and a canoe of corn. Pocahontas, however, | |
was kept at Jamestown. | |
Why Pocahontas had left Werowocomoco and gone to stay with Patowomek | |
we can only conjecture. It is possible that Powhatan suspected her | |
friendliness to the whites, and was weary of her importunity, and it may | |
be that she wanted to escape the sight of continual fighting, ambushes, | |
and murders. More likely she was only making a common friendly visit, | |
though Hamor says she went to trade at an Indian fair. | |
The story of her capture is enlarged and more minutely related by Ralph | |
Hamor, Jr., who was one of the colony shipwrecked on the Bermudas in | |
1609, and returned to England in 1614, where he published (London, 1615) | |
"A True Discourse of Virginia, and the Success of the Affairs there | |
till the 18th of June, 1614." Hamor was the son of a merchant tailor in | |
London who was a member of the Virginia company. Hamor writes: | |
"It chanced Powhatan's delight and darling, his daughter Pocahuntas | |
(whose fame has even been spread in England by the title of Nonparella | |
of Firginia) in her princely progresse if I may so terme it, tooke some | |
pleasure (in the absence of Captaine Argall) to be among her friends at | |
Pataomecke (as it seemeth by the relation I had), implored thither as | |
shopkeeper to a Fare, to exchange some of her father's commodities for | |
theirs, where residing some three months or longer, it fortuned upon | |
occasion either of promise or profit, Captaine Argall to arrive there, | |
whom Pocahuntas, desirous to renew her familiaritie with the English, | |
and delighting to see them as unknown, fearefull perhaps to be | |
surprised, would gladly visit as she did, of whom no sooner had Captaine | |
Argall intelligence, but he delt with an old friend Iapazeus, how and | |
by what meanes he might procure her caption, assuring him that now or | |
never, was the time to pleasure him, if he intended indeede that love | |
which he had made profession of, that in ransome of hir he might redeeme | |
some of our English men and armes, now in the possession of her father, | |
promising to use her withall faire and gentle entreaty; Iapazeus well | |
assured that his brother, as he promised, would use her courteously, | |
promised his best endeavors and service to accomplish his desire, and | |
thus wrought it, making his wife an instrument (which sex have ever been | |
most powerful in beguiling inticements) to effect his plot which hee | |
had thus laid, he agreed that himself, his wife and Pocahuntas, would | |
accompanie his brother to the water side, whither come, his wife should | |
faine a great and longing desire to goe aboorde, and see the shippe, | |
which being there three or four times before she had never seene, and | |
should be earnest with her husband to permit her--he seemed angry with | |
her, making as he pretended so unnecessary request, especially being | |
without the company of women, which denial she taking unkindly, | |
must faine to weepe (as who knows not that women can command teares) | |
whereupon her husband seeming to pitty those counterfeit teares, gave | |
her leave to goe aboord, so that it would pleese Pocahuntas to accompany | |
her; now was the greatest labour to win her, guilty perhaps of her | |
father's wrongs, though not knowne as she supposed, to goe with her, yet | |
by her earnest persuasions, she assented: so forthwith aboord they went, | |
the best cheere that could be made was seasonably provided, to supper | |
they went, merry on all hands, especially Iapazeus and his wife, who to | |
expres their joy would ere be treading upon Captaine Argall's foot, as | |
who should say tis don, she is your own. Supper ended Pocahuntas was | |
lodged in the gunner's roome, but Iapazeus and his wife desired to have | |
some conference with their brother, which was onely to acquaint him by | |
what stratagem they had betraied his prisoner as I have already | |
related: after which discourse to sleepe they went, Pocahuntas nothing | |
mistrusting this policy, who nevertheless being most possessed with | |
feere, and desire of returne, was first up, and hastened Iapazeus to be | |
gon. Capt. Argall having secretly well rewarded him, with a small Copper | |
kittle, and some other les valuable toies so highly by him esteemed, | |
that doubtlesse he would have betraied his own father for them, | |
permitted both him and his wife to returne, but told him that for divers | |
considerations, as for that his father had then eigh [8] of our Englishe | |
men, many swords, peeces, and other tooles, which he hid at severall | |
times by trecherous murdering our men, taken from them which though | |
of no use to him, he would not redeliver, he would reserve Pocahuntas, | |
whereat she began to be exceeding pensive, and discontented, yet | |
ignorant of the dealing of Japazeus who in outward appearance was no les | |
discontented that he should be the meanes of her captivity, much adoe | |
there was to pursuade her to be patient, which with extraordinary | |
curteous usage, by little and little was wrought in her, and so to | |
Jamestowne she was brought." | |
Smith, who condenses this account in his "General Historie," expresses | |
his contempt of this Indian treachery by saying: "The old Jew and his | |
wife began to howle and crie as fast as Pocahuntas." It will be noted | |
that the account of the visit (apparently alone) of Pocahontas and her | |
capture is strong evidence that she was not at this time married to | |
"Kocoum" or anybody else. | |
Word was despatched to Powhatan of his daughter's duress, with a | |
demand made for the restitution of goods; but although this savage is | |
represented as dearly loving Pocahontas, his "delight and darling," it | |
was, according to Hamor, three months before they heard anything from | |
him. His anxiety about his daughter could not have been intense. He | |
retained a part of his plunder, and a message was sent to him that | |
Pocahontas would be kept till he restored all the arms. | |
This answer pleased Powhatan so little that they heard nothing from him | |
till the following March. Then Sir Thomas Dale and Captain Argall, with | |
several vessels and one hundred and fifty men, went up to Powhatan's | |
chief seat, taking his daughter with them, offering the Indians a chance | |
to fight for her or to take her in peace on surrender of the stolen | |
goods. The Indians received this with bravado and flights of arrows, | |
reminding them of the fate of Captain Ratcliffe. The whites landed, | |
killed some Indians, burnt forty houses, pillaged the village, and went | |
on up the river and came to anchor in front of Matchcot, the Emperor's | |
chief town. Here were assembled four hundred armed men, with bows and | |
arrows, who dared them to come ashore. Ashore they went, and a palaver | |
was held. The Indians wanted a day to consult their King, after which | |
they would fight, if nothing but blood would satisfy the whites. | |
Two of Powhatan's sons who were present expressed a desire to see their | |
sister, who had been taken on shore. When they had sight of her, and | |
saw how well she was cared for, they greatly rejoiced and promised to | |
persuade their father to redeem her and conclude a lasting peace. The | |
two brothers were taken on board ship, and Master John Rolfe and Master | |
Sparkes were sent to negotiate with the King. Powhatan did not show | |
himself, but his brother Apachamo, his successor, promised to use his | |
best efforts to bring about a peace, and the expedition returned to | |
Jamestown. | |
"Long before this time," Hamor relates, "a gentleman of approved | |
behaviour and honest carriage, Master John Rolfe, had been in love with | |
Pocahuntas and she with him, which thing at the instant that we were | |
in parlee with them, myselfe made known to Sir Thomas Dale, by a letter | |
from him [Rolfe] whereby he entreated his advice and furtherance to his | |
love, if so it seemed fit to him for the good of the Plantation, and | |
Pocahuntas herself acquainted her brethren therewith." Governor Dale | |
approved this, and consequently was willing to retire without other | |
conditions. "The bruite of this pretended marriage [Hamor continues] | |
came soon to Powhatan's knowledge, a thing acceptable to him, as | |
appeared by his sudden consent thereunto, who some ten daies after sent | |
an old uncle of hirs, named Opachisco, to give her as his deputy in the | |
church, and two of his sonnes to see the mariage solemnized which was | |
accordingly done about the fifth of April [1614], and ever since we have | |
had friendly commerce and trade, not only with Powhatan himself, but | |
also with his subjects round about us; so as now I see no reason why the | |
collonie should not thrive a pace." | |
This marriage was justly celebrated as the means and beginning of a firm | |
peace which long continued, so that Pocahontas was again entitled to the | |
grateful remembrance of the Virginia settlers. Already, in 1612, a plan | |
had been mooted in Virginia of marrying the English with the natives, | |
and of obtaining the recognition of Powhatan and those allied to him as | |
members of a fifth kingdom, with certain privileges. Cunega, the Spanish | |
ambassador at London, on September 22, 1612, writes: "Although some | |
suppose the plantation to decrease, he is credibly informed that there | |
is a determination to marry some of the people that go over to Virginia; | |
forty or fifty are already so married, and English women intermingle and | |
are received kindly by the natives. A zealous minister hath been wounded | |
for reprehending it." | |
Mr. John Rolfe was a man of industry, and apparently devoted to the | |
welfare of the colony. He probably brought with him in 1610 his wife, | |
who gave birth to his daughter Bermuda, born on the Somers Islands at | |
the time of the shipwreck. We find no notice of her death. Hamor gives | |
him the distinction of being the first in the colony to try, in 1612, | |
the planting and raising of tobacco. "No man [he adds] hath labored to | |
his power, by good example there and worthy encouragement into England | |
by his letters, than he hath done, witness his marriage with Powhatan's | |
daughter, one of rude education, manners barbarous and cursed | |
generation, meerely for the good and honor of the plantation: and | |
least any man should conceive that some sinister respects allured him | |
hereunto, I have made bold, contrary to his knowledge, in the end of my | |
treatise to insert the true coppie of his letter written to Sir Thomas | |
Dale." | |
The letter is a long, labored, and curious document, and comes nearer to | |
a theological treatise than any love-letter we have on record. It reeks | |
with unction. Why Rolfe did not speak to Dale, whom he saw every day, | |
instead of inflicting upon him this painful document, in which the | |
flutterings of a too susceptible widower's heart are hidden under a | |
great resolve of self-sacrifice, is not plain. | |
The letter protests in a tedious preamble that the writer is moved | |
entirely by the Spirit of God, and continues: | |
"Let therefore this my well advised protestation, which here I make | |
between God and my own conscience, be a sufficient witness, at the | |
dreadful day of judgment (when the secrets of all men's hearts shall be | |
opened) to condemne me herein, if my chiefest interest and purpose be | |
not to strive with all my power of body and mind, in the undertaking | |
of so weighty a matter, no way led (so far forth as man's weakness may | |
permit) with the unbridled desire of carnall affection; but for the good | |
of this plantation, for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of | |
God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge | |
of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas. | |
To whom my heartie and best thoughts are, and have a long time bin so | |
entangled, and inthralled in so intricate a laborinth, that I was even | |
awearied to unwinde myself thereout." | |
Master Rolfe goes on to describe the mighty war in his meditations on | |
this subject, in which he had set before his eyes the frailty of mankind | |
and his proneness to evil and wicked thoughts. He is aware of God's | |
displeasure against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange | |
wives, and this has caused him to look about warily and with good | |
circumspection "into the grounds and principall agitations which should | |
thus provoke me to be in love with one, whose education hath bin rude, | |
her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in | |
all nurtriture from myselfe, that oftentimes with feare and trembling, | |
I have ended my private controversie with this: surely these are | |
wicked instigations, fetched by him who seeketh and delighteth in man's | |
distruction; and so with fervent prayers to be ever preserved from such | |
diabolical assaults (as I looke those to be) I have taken some rest." | |
The good man was desperately in love and wanted to marry the Indian, and | |
consequently he got no peace; and still being tormented with her image, | |
whether she was absent or present, he set out to produce an ingenious | |
reason (to show the world) for marrying her. He continues: | |
"Thus when I thought I had obtained my peace and quietnesse, beholde | |
another, but more gracious tentation hath made breaches into my holiest | |
and strongest meditations; with which I have been put to a new triall, | |
in a straighter manner than the former; for besides the weary passions | |
and sufferings which I have dailey, hourely, yea and in my sleepe | |
indured, even awaking me to astonishment, taxing me with remissnesse, | |
and carelessnesse, refusing and neglecting to perform the duteie of a | |
good Christian, pulling me by the eare, and crying: Why dost thou not | |
indeavor to make her a Christian? And these have happened to my greater | |
wonder, even when she hath been furthest seperated from me, which | |
in common reason (were it not an undoubted work of God) might breede | |
forgetfulnesse of a far more worthie creature." | |
He accurately describes the symptoms and appears to understand the | |
remedy, but he is after a large-sized motive: | |
"Besides, I say the holy Spirit of God hath often demanded of me, why I | |
was created? If not for transitory pleasures and worldly vanities, but | |
to labour in the Lord's vineyard, there to sow and plant, to nourish and | |
increase the fruites thereof, daily adding with the good husband in the | |
gospell, somewhat to the tallent, that in the ends the fruites may be | |
reaped, to the comfort of the labourer in this life, and his salvation | |
in the world to come.... Likewise, adding hereunto her great appearance | |
of love to me, her desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge | |
of God, her capablenesse of understanding, her aptness and willingness | |
to receive anie good impression, and also the spirituall, besides her | |
owne incitements stirring me up hereunto." | |
The "incitements" gave him courage, so that he exclaims: "Shall I be of | |
so untoward a disposition, as to refuse to lead the blind into the right | |
way? Shall I be so unnatural, as not to give bread to the hungrie, or | |
uncharitable, as not to cover the naked?" | |
It wasn't to be thought of, such wickedness; and so Master Rolfe screwed | |
up his courage to marry the glorious Princess, from whom thousands | |
of people were afterwards so anxious to be descended. But he made the | |
sacrifice for the glory of the country, the benefit of the plantation, | |
and the conversion of the unregenerate, and other and lower motive | |
he vigorously repels: "Now, if the vulgar sort, who square all men's | |
actions by the base rule of their own filthinesse, shall tax or taunt | |
mee in this my godly labour: let them know it is not hungry appetite, to | |
gorge myselfe with incontinency; sure (if I would and were so sensually | |
inclined) I might satisfy such desire, though not without a seared | |
conscience, yet with Christians more pleasing to the eie, and less | |
fearefull in the offense unlawfully committed. Nor am I in so desperate | |
an estate, that I regard not what becometh of me; nor am I out of hope | |
but one day to see my country, nor so void of friends, nor mean in | |
birth, but there to obtain a mach to my great con'tent.... But shall it | |
please God thus to dispose of me (which I earnestly desire to fulfill | |
my ends before set down) I will heartily accept of it as a godly taxe | |
appointed me, and I will never cease (God assisting me) untill I have | |
accomplished, and brought to perfection so holy a worke, in which I will | |
daily pray God to bless me, to mine and her eternal happiness." | |
It is to be hoped that if sanctimonious John wrote any love-letters to | |
Amonata they had less cant in them than this. But it was pleasing to Sir | |
Thomas Dale, who was a man to appreciate the high motives of Mr. Rolfe. | |
In a letter which he despatched from Jamestown, June 18, 1614, to a | |
reverend friend in London, he describes the expedition when Pocahontas | |
was carried up the river, and adds the information that when she went on | |
shore, "she would not talk to any of them, scarcely to them of the best | |
sort, and to them only, that if her father had loved her, he would not | |
value her less than old swords, pieces, or axes; wherefore she would | |
still dwell with the Englishmen who loved her." | |
"Powhatan's daughter [the letter continues] I caused to be carefully | |
instructed in Christian Religion, who after she had made some good | |
progress therein, renounced publically her countrey idolatry, openly | |
confessed her Christian faith, was, as she desired, baptized, and is | |
since married to an English Gentleman of good understanding (as by his | |
letter unto me, containing the reasons for his marriage of her you may | |
perceive), an other knot to bind this peace the stronger. Her father | |
and friends gave approbation to it, and her uncle gave her to him in | |
the church; she lives civilly and lovingly with him, and I trust will | |
increase in goodness, as the knowledge of God increaseth in her. She | |
will goe into England with me, and were it but the gayning of this one | |
soule, I will think my time, toile, and present stay well spent." | |
Hamor also appends to his narration a short letter, of the same date | |
with the above, from the minister Alexander Whittaker, the genuineness | |
of which is questioned. In speaking of the good deeds of Sir Thomas Dale | |
it says: "But that which is best, one Pocahuntas or Matoa, the | |
daughter of Powhatan, is married to an honest and discreet English | |
Gentleman--Master Rolfe, and that after she had openly renounced her | |
countrey Idolatry, and confessed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was | |
baptized, which thing Sir Thomas Dale had laboured a long time to ground | |
her in." If, as this proclaims, she was married after her conversion, | |
then Rolfe's tender conscience must have given him another twist for | |
wedding her, when the reason for marrying her (her conversion) had | |
ceased with her baptism. His marriage, according to this, was a pure | |
work of supererogation. It took place about the 5th of April, 1614. It | |
is not known who performed the ceremony. | |
How Pocahontas passed her time in Jamestown during the period of her | |
detention, we are not told. Conjectures are made that she was an inmate | |
of the house of Sir Thomas Dale, or of that of the Rev. Mr. Whittaker, | |
both of whom labored zealously to enlighten her mind on religious | |
subjects. She must also have been learning English and civilized ways, | |
for it is sure that she spoke our language very well when she went to | |
London. Mr. John Rolfe was also laboring for her conversion, and we may | |
suppose that with all these ministrations, mingled with her love of Mr. | |
Rolfe, which that ingenious widower had discovered, and her desire to | |
convert him into a husband, she was not an unwilling captive. Whatever | |
may have been her barbarous instincts, we have the testimony of Governor | |
Dale that she lived "civilly and lovingly" with her husband. | |
STORY OF POCAHONTAS, CONTINUED | |
Sir Thomas Dale was on the whole the most efficient and discreet | |
Governor the colony had had. One element of his success was no doubt the | |
change in the charter of 1609. By the first charter everything had | |
been held in common by the company, and there had been no division of | |
property or allotment of land among the colonists. Under the new regime | |
land was held in severalty, and the spur of individual interest began | |
at once to improve the condition of the settlement. The character of the | |
colonists was also gradually improving. They had not been of a sort | |
to fulfill the earnest desire of the London promoter's to spread vital | |
piety in the New World. A zealous defense of Virginia and Maryland, | |
against "scandalous imputation," entitled "Leah and Rachel; or, The | |
Two Fruitful Sisters," by Mr. John Hammond, London, 1656, considers | |
the charges that Virginia "is an unhealthy place, a nest of rogues, | |
abandoned women, dissolut and rookery persons; a place of intolerable | |
labour, bad usage and hard diet"; and admits that "at the first | |
settling, and for many years after, it deserved most of these | |
aspersions, nor were they then aspersions but truths.... There were | |
jails supplied, youth seduced, infamous women drilled in, the provision | |
all brought out of England, and that embezzled by the Trustees." | |
Governor Dale was a soldier; entering the army in the Netherlands as a | |
private he had risen to high position, and received knighthood in 1606. | |
Shortly after he was with Sir Thomas Gates in South Holland. The States | |
General in 1611 granted him three years' term of absence in Virginia. | |
Upon his arrival he began to put in force that system of industry and | |
frugality he had observed in Holland. He had all the imperiousness of a | |
soldier, and in an altercation with Captain Newport, occasioned by some | |
injurious remarks the latter made about Sir Thomas Smith, the treasurer, | |
he pulled his beard and threatened to hang him. Active operations for | |
settling new plantations were at once begun, and Dale wrote to Cecil, | |
the Earl of Salisbury, for 2,000 good colonists to be sent out, for the | |
three hundred that came were "so profane, so riotous, so full of mutiny, | |
that not many are Christians but in name, their bodies so diseased and | |
crazed that not sixty of them may be employed." He served afterwards | |
with credit in Holland, was made commander of the East Indian fleet in | |
1618, had a naval engagement with the Dutch near Bantam in 1619, and | |
died in 1620 from the effects of the climate. He was twice married, and | |
his second wife, Lady Fanny, the cousin of his first wife, survived him | |
and received a patent for a Virginia plantation. | |
Governor Dale kept steadily in view the conversion of the Indians to | |
Christianity, and the success of John Rolfe with Matoaka inspired | |
him with a desire to convert another daughter of Powhatan, of whose | |
exquisite perfections he had heard. He therefore despatched Ralph Hamor, | |
with the English boy, Thomas Savage, as interpreter, on a mission to | |
the court of Powhatan, "upon a message unto him, which was to deale with | |
him, if by any means I might procure a daughter of his, who (Pocahuntas | |
being already in our possession) is generally reported to be his delight | |
and darling, and surely he esteemed her as his owne Soule, for surer | |
pledge of peace." This visit Hamor relates with great naivete. | |
At his town of Matchcot, near the head of York River, Powhatan | |
himself received his visitors when they landed, with great cordiality, | |
expressing much pleasure at seeing again the boy who had been presented | |
to him by Captain Newport, and whom he had not seen since he gave him | |
leave to go and see his friends at Jamestown four years before; he also | |
inquired anxiously after Namontack, whom he had sent to King James's | |
land to see him and his country and report thereon, and then led the way | |
to his house, where he sat down on his bedstead side. "On each hand of | |
him was placed a comely and personable young woman, which they called | |
his Queenes, the howse within round about beset with them, the outside | |
guarded with a hundred bowmen." | |
The first thing offered was a pipe of tobacco, which Powhatan "first | |
drank," and then passed to Hamor, who "drank" what he pleased and then | |
returned it. The Emperor then inquired how his brother Sir Thomas Dale | |
fared, "and after that of his daughter's welfare, her marriage, his | |
unknown son, and how they liked, lived and loved together." Hamor | |
replied "that his brother was very well, and his daughter so well | |
content that she would not change her life to return and live with him, | |
whereat he laughed heartily, and said he was very glad of it." | |
Powhatan then desired to know the cause of his unexpected coming, and | |
Mr. Hamor said his message was private, to be delivered to him without | |
the presence of any except one of his councilors, and one of the guides, | |
who already knew it. | |
Therefore the house was cleared of all except the two Queens, who may | |
never sequester themselves, and Mr. Hamor began his palaver. First there | |
was a message of love and inviolable peace, the production of presents | |
of coffee, beads, combs, fish-hooks, and knives, and the promise of | |
a grindstone when it pleased the Emperor to send for it. Hamor then | |
proceeded: | |
"The bruite of the exquesite perfection of your youngest daughter, being | |
famous through all your territories, hath come to the hearing of your | |
brother, Sir Thomas Dale, who for this purpose hath addressed me hither, | |
to intreate you by that brotherly friendship you make profession of, to | |
permit her (with me) to returne unto him, partly for the desire which | |
himselfe hath, and partly for the desire her sister hath to see her of | |
whom, if fame hath not been prodigall, as like enough it hath not, your | |
brother (by your favour) would gladly make his nearest companion, wife | |
and bed fellow [many times he would have interrupted my speech, which | |
I entreated him to heare out, and then if he pleased to returne me | |
answer], and the reason hereof is, because being now friendly and firmly | |
united together, and made one people [as he supposeth and believes] in | |
the bond of love, he would make a natural union between us, principally | |
because himself hath taken resolution to dwel in your country so long as | |
he liveth, and would not only therefore have the firmest assurance hee | |
may, of perpetuall friendship from you, but also hereby binde himselfe | |
thereunto." | |
Powhatan replied with dignity that he gladly accepted the salute of love | |
and peace, which he and his subjects would exactly maintain. But as to | |
the other matter he said: "My daughter, whom my brother desireth, I sold | |
within these three days to be wife to a great Weroance for two bushels | |
of Roanoke [a small kind of beads made of oyster shells], and it is true | |
she is already gone with him, three days' journey from me." | |
Hamor persisted that this marriage need not stand in the way; "that if | |
he pleased herein to gratify his Brother he might, restoring the Roanoke | |
without the imputation of injustice, take home his daughter again, the | |
rather because she was not full twelve years old, and therefore not | |
marriageable; assuring him besides the bond of peace, so much the | |
firmer, he should have treble the price of his daughter in beads, | |
copper, hatchets, and many other things more useful for him." | |
The reply of the noble old savage to this infamous demand ought to have | |
brought a blush to the cheeks of those who made it. He said he loved his | |
daughter as dearly as his life; he had many children, but he delighted | |
in none so much as in her; he could not live if he did not see her | |
often, as he would not if she were living with the whites, and he | |
was determined not to put himself in their hands. He desired no other | |
assurance of friendship than his brother had given him, who had already | |
one of his daughters as a pledge, which was sufficient while she lived; | |
"when she dieth he shall have another child of mine." And then he broke | |
forth in pathetic eloquence: "I hold it not a brotherly part of your | |
King, to desire to bereave me of two of my children at once; further | |
give him to understand, that if he had no pledge at all, he should not | |
need to distrust any injury from me, or any under my subjection; there | |
have been too many of his and my men killed, and by my occasion there | |
shall never be more; I which have power to perform it have said it; no | |
not though I should have just occasion offered, for I am now old and | |
would gladly end my days in peace; so as if the English offer me any | |
injury, my country is large enough, I will remove myself farther from | |
you." | |
The old man hospitably entertained his guests for a day or two, loaded | |
them with presents, among which were two dressed buckskins, white as | |
snow, for his son and daughter, and, requesting some articles sent him | |
in return, bade them farewell with this message to Governor Dale: "I | |
hope this will give him good satisfaction, if it do not I will go three | |
days' journey farther from him, and never see Englishmen more." It | |
speaks well for the temperate habits of this savage that after he had | |
feasted his guests, "he caused to be fetched a great glass of sack, some | |
three quarts or better, which Captain Newport had given him six or seven | |
years since, carefully preserved by him, not much above a pint in all | |
this time spent, and gave each of us in a great oyster shell some three | |
spoonfuls." | |
We trust that Sir Thomas Dale gave a faithful account of all this to his | |
wife in England. | |
Sir Thomas Gates left Virginia in the spring of 1614 and never returned. | |
After his departure scarcity and severity developed a mutiny, and six | |
of the settlers were executed. Rolfe was planting tobacco (he has the | |
credit of being the first white planter of it), and his wife was getting | |
an inside view of Christian civilization. | |
In 1616 Sir Thomas Dale returned to England with his company and John | |
Rolfe and Pocahontas, and several other Indians. They reached Plymouth | |
early in June, and on the 20th Lord Carew made this note: "Sir Thomas | |
Dale returned from Virginia; he hath brought divers men and women of | |
thatt countrye to be educated here, and one Rolfe who married a daughter | |
of Pohetan (the barbarous prince) called Pocahuntas, hath brought his | |
wife with him into England." On the 22d Sir John Chamberlain wrote to | |
Sir Dudley Carlton that there were "ten or twelve, old and young, of | |
that country." | |
The Indian girls who came with Pocahontas appear to have been a great | |
care to the London company. In May, 1620, is a record that the company | |
had to pay for physic and cordials for one of them who had been living | |
as a servant in Cheapside, and was very weak of a consumption. The same | |
year two other of the maids were shipped off to the Bermudas, after | |
being long a charge to the company, in the hope that they might there | |
get husbands, "that after they were converted and had children, they | |
might be sent to their country and kindred to civilize them." One of | |
them was there married. The attempt to educate them in England was not | |
very successful, and a proposal to bring over Indian boys obtained this | |
comment from Sir Edwin Sandys: | |
"Now to send for them into England, and to have them educated here, he | |
found upon experience of those brought by Sir Thomas Dale, might be far | |
from the Christian work intended." One Nanamack, a lad brought over by | |
Lord Delaware, lived some years in houses where "he heard not much of | |
religion but sins, had many times examples of drinking, swearing and | |
like evils, ran as he was a mere Pagan," till he fell in with a | |
devout family and changed his life, but died before he was baptized. | |
Accompanying Pocahontas was a councilor of Powhatan, one Tomocomo, the | |
husband of one of her sisters, of whom Purchas says in his "Pilgrimes": | |
"With this savage I have often conversed with my good friend Master | |
Doctor Goldstone where he was a frequent geust, and where I have seen | |
him sing and dance his diabolical measures, and heard him discourse of | |
his country and religion.... Master Rolfe lent me a discourse which | |
I have in my Pilgrimage delivered. And his wife did not only accustom | |
herself to civility, but still carried herself as the daughter of a | |
king, and was accordingly respected, not only by the Company which | |
allowed provision for herself and her son, but of divers particular | |
persons of honor, in their hopeful zeal by her to advance Christianity. | |
I was present when my honorable and reverend patron, the Lord Bishop of | |
London, Doctor King, entertained her with festival state and pomp beyond | |
what I had seen in his great hospitality offered to other ladies. At | |
her return towards Virginia she came at Gravesend to her end and grave, | |
having given great demonstration of her Christian sincerity, as the | |
first fruits of Virginia conversion, leaving here a goodly memory, | |
and the hopes of her resurrection, her soul aspiring to see and enjoy | |
permanently in heaven what here she had joyed to hear and believe of her | |
blessed Saviour. Not such was Tomocomo, but a blasphemer of what he knew | |
not and preferring his God to ours because he taught them (by his own | |
so appearing) to wear their Devil-lock at the left ear; he acquainted me | |
with the manner of that his appearance, and believed that their Okee or | |
Devil had taught them their husbandry." | |
Upon news of her arrival, Captain Smith, either to increase his own | |
importance or because Pocahontas was neglected, addressed a letter or | |
"little booke" to Queen Anne, the consort of King James. This letter is | |
found in Smith's "General Historie" ( 1624), where it is introduced | |
as having been sent to Queen Anne in 1616. Probably he sent her such a | |
letter. We find no mention of its receipt or of any acknowledgment of | |
it. Whether the "abstract" in the "General Historie" is exactly like | |
the original we have no means of knowing. We have no more confidence in | |
Smith's memory than we have in his dates. The letter is as follows: | |
"To the most high and vertuous Princesse Queene Anne of Great Brittaine. | |
"Most ADMIRED QUEENE. | |
"The love I beare my God, my King and Countrie hath so oft emboldened me | |
in the worst of extreme dangers, that now honestie doth constraine mee | |
presume thus farre beyond my selfe, to present your Majestie this short | |
discourse: if ingratitude be a deadly poyson to all honest vertues, | |
I must be guiltie of that crime if I should omit any meanes to bee | |
thankful. So it is. | |
"That some ten yeeres agoe being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the | |
power of Powhaten, their chiefe King, I received from this great Salvage | |
exceeding great courtesie, especially from his sonne Nantaquaus, the | |
most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit, I ever saw in a Salvage and | |
his sister Pocahontas, the Kings most deare and well-beloved daughter, | |
being but a childe of twelve or thirteen yeeres of age, whose | |
compassionate pitifull heart, of desperate estate, gave me much cause | |
to respect her: I being the first Christian this proud King and his grim | |
attendants ever saw, and thus enthralled in their barbarous power, I | |
cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in the power of | |
those my mortall foes to prevent notwithstanding al their threats. After | |
some six weeks fatting amongst those Salvage Courtiers, at the minute of | |
my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her owne braines to save | |
mine, and not onely that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was | |
safely conducted to Jamestowne, where I found about eight and thirty | |
miserable poore and sicke creatures, to keepe possession of all those | |
large territories of Virginia, such was the weaknesse of this poore | |
Commonwealth, as had the Salvages not fed us, we directly had starved. | |
"And this reliefe, most gracious Queene, was commonly brought us by | |
this Lady Pocahontas, notwithstanding all these passages when inconstant | |
Fortune turned our Peace to warre, this tender Virgin would still not | |
spare to dare to visit us, and by her our jarres have been oft appeased, | |
and our wants still supplyed; were it the policie of her father thus to | |
imploy her, or the ordinance of God thus to make her his instrument, or | |
her extraordinarie affection to our Nation, I know not: but of this I am | |
sure: when her father with the utmost of his policie and power, sought | |
to surprize mee, having but eighteene with mee, the dark night could not | |
affright her from comming through the irksome woods, and with watered | |
eies gave me intilligence, with her best advice to escape his furie: | |
which had hee known hee had surely slaine her. Jamestowne with her wild | |
traine she as freely frequented, as her father's habitation: and during | |
the time of two or three yeares, she next under God, was still the | |
instrument to preserve this Colonie from death, famine and utter | |
confusion, which if in those times had once beene dissolved, Virginia | |
might have laine as it was at our first arrivall to this day. Since | |
then, this buisinesse having been turned and varied by many accidents | |
from that I left it at: it is most certaine, after a long and | |
troublesome warre after my departure, betwixt her father and our | |
Colonie, all which time shee was not heard of, about two yeeres longer, | |
the Colonie by that meanes was releived, peace concluded, and at last | |
rejecting her barbarous condition, was maried to an English Gentleman, | |
with whom at this present she is in England; the first Christian ever of | |
that Nation, the first Virginian ever spake English, or had a childe | |
in mariage by an Englishman, a matter surely, if my meaning bee truly | |
considered and well understood, worthy a Princes understanding. | |
"Thus most gracious Lady, I have related to your Majestic, what at your | |
best leasure our approved Histories will account you at large, and done | |
in the time of your Majesties life, and however this might bee presented | |
you from a more worthy pen, it cannot from a more honest heart, as yet | |
I never begged anything of the State, or any, and it is my want of | |
abilitie and her exceeding desert, your birth, meanes, and authoritie, | |
her birth, vertue, want and simplicitie, doth make mee thus bold, humbly | |
to beseech your Majestic: to take this knowledge of her though it be | |
from one so unworthy to be the reporter, as myselfe, her husband's | |
estate not being able to make her fit to attend your Majestic: the most | |
and least I can doe, is to tell you this, because none so oft hath tried | |
it as myselfe: and the rather being of so great a spirit, however her | |
station: if she should not be well received, seeing this Kingdome | |
may rightly have a Kingdome by her meanes: her present love to us and | |
Christianitie, might turne to such scorne and furie, as to divert all | |
this good to the worst of evill, when finding so great a Queene should | |
doe her some honour more than she can imagine, for being so kinde to | |
your servants and subjects, would so ravish her with content, as endeare | |
her dearest bloud to effect that, your Majestic and all the Kings honest | |
subjects most earnestly desire: and so I humbly kisse your gracious | |
hands." | |
The passage in this letter, "She hazarded the beating out of her owne | |
braines to save mine," is inconsistent with the preceding portion of the | |
paragraph which speaks of "the exceeding great courtesie" of Powhatan; | |
and Smith was quite capable of inserting it afterwards when he made up | |
his | |
"General Historie." | |
Smith represents himself at this time--the last half of 1616 and the | |
first three months of 1617--as preparing to attempt a third voyage to | |
New England (which he did not make), and too busy to do Pocahontas the | |
service she desired. She was staying at Branford, either from neglect | |
of the company or because the London smoke disagreed with her, and there | |
Smith went to see her. His account of his intercourse with her, the only | |
one we have, must be given for what it is worth. According to this she | |
had supposed Smith dead, and took umbrage at his neglect of her. He | |
writes: | |
"After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured | |
her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humour, her husband | |
with divers others, we all left her two or three hours repenting myself | |
to have writ she could speak English. But not long after she began to | |
talke, remembering me well what courtesies she had done: saying, 'You | |
did promise Powhatan what was yours should be his, and he the like to | |
you; you called him father, being in his land a stranger, and by the | |
same reason so must I do you:' which though I would have excused, I | |
durst not allow of that title, because she was a king's daughter. With | |
a well set countenance she said: 'Were you not afraid to come into my | |
father's country and cause fear in him and all his people (but me), and | |
fear you have I should call you father; I tell you then I will, and | |
you shall call me childe, and so I will be forever and ever, your | |
contrieman. They did tell me alwaies you were dead, and I knew no other | |
till I came to Plymouth, yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seek | |
you, and know the truth, because your countriemen will lie much."' | |
This savage was the Tomocomo spoken of above, who had been sent by | |
Powhatan to take a census of the people of England, and report what they | |
and their state were. At Plymouth he got a long stick and began to make | |
notches in it for the people he saw. But he was quickly weary of that | |
task. He told Smith that Powhatan bade him seek him out, and get him | |
to show him his God, and the King, Queen, and Prince, of whom Smith had | |
told so much. Smith put him off about showing his God, but said he had | |
heard that he had seen the King. This the Indian denied, James probably | |
not coming up to his idea of a king, till by circumstances he was | |
convinced he had seen him. Then he replied very sadly: "You gave | |
Powhatan a white dog, which Powhatan fed as himself, but your king gave | |
me nothing, and I am better than your white dog." | |
Smith adds that he took several courtiers to see Pocahontas, and "they | |
did think God had a great hand in her conversion, and they have seen | |
many English ladies worse favoured, proportioned, and behavioured;" and | |
he heard that it had pleased the King and Queen greatly to esteem her, | |
as also Lord and Lady Delaware, and other persons of good quality, both | |
at the masques and otherwise. | |
Much has been said about the reception of Pocahontas in London, but | |
the contemporary notices of her are scant. The Indians were objects of | |
curiosity for a time in London, as odd Americans have often been since, | |
and the rank of Pocahontas procured her special attention. She was | |
presented at court. She was entertained by Dr. King, Bishop of London. | |
At the playing of Ben Jonson's "Christmas his Mask" at court, January | |
6, 1616-17, Pocahontas and Tomocomo were both present, and Chamberlain | |
writes to Carleton: "The Virginian woman Pocahuntas with her father | |
counsellor have been with the King and graciously used, and both she and | |
her assistant were pleased at the Masque. She is upon her return though | |
sore against her will, if the wind would about to send her away." | |
Mr. Neill says that "after the first weeks of her residence in England | |
she does not appear to be spoken of as the wife of Rolfe by the letter | |
writers," and the Rev. Peter Fontaine says that "when they heard that | |
Rolfe had married Pocahontas, it was deliberated in council whether he | |
had not committed high treason by so doing, that is marrying an Indian | |
princesse." | |
It was like James to think so. His interest in the colony was never | |
the most intelligent, and apt to be in things trivial. Lord Southampton | |
(Dec. 15, 1609) writes to Lord Salisbury that he had told the King of | |
the Virginia squirrels brought into England, which are said to fly. The | |
King very earnestly asked if none were provided for him, and said he was | |
sure Salisbury would get him one. Would not have troubled him, "but that | |
you know so well how he is affected to these toys." | |
There has been recently found in the British Museum a print of a | |
portrait of Pocahontas, with a legend round it in Latin, which is | |
translated: "Matoaka, alias Rebecka, Daughter of Prince Powhatan, | |
Emperor of Virginia; converted to Christianity, married Mr. Rolff; died | |
on shipboard at Gravesend 1617." This is doubtless the portrait engraved | |
by Simon De Passe in 1616, and now inserted in the extant copies of the | |
London edition of the "General Historie," 1624. It is not probable that | |
the portrait was originally published with the "General Historie." The | |
portrait inserted in the edition of 1624 has this inscription: | |
Round the portrait: | |
"Matoaka als Rebecca Filia Potentiss Princ: Pohatani Imp: Virginim." | |
In the oval, under the portrait: | |
"Aetatis suae 21 A. | |
1616" | |
Below: | |
"Matoaks als Rebecka daughter to the mighty Prince Powhatan Emprour of | |
Attanoughkomouck als virginia converted and baptized in the Christian | |
faith, and wife to the worth Mr. job Rolff. i: Pass: sculp. Compton | |
Holland excud." | |
Camden in his "History of Gravesend" says that everybody paid this | |
young lady all imaginable respect, and it was believed she would have | |
sufficiently acknowledged those favors, had she lived to return to her | |
own country, by bringing the Indians to a kinder disposition toward the | |
English; and that she died, "giving testimony all the time she lay sick, | |
of her being a very good Christian." | |
The Lady Rebecka, as she was called in London, died on shipboard at | |
Gravesend after a brief illness, said to be of only three days, probably | |
on the 21st of March, 1617. I have seen somewhere a statement, which | |
I cannot confirm, that her disease was smallpox. St. George's Church, | |
where she was buried, was destroyed by fire in 1727. The register of | |
that church has this record: | |
"1616, May 21 Rebecca Wrothe | |
Wyff of Thomas Wroth gent | |
A Virginia lady borne, here was buried | |
in ye chaunncle." | |
Yet there is no doubt, according to a record in the Calendar of State | |
Papers, dated "1617, 29 March, London," that her death occurred March | |
21, 1617. | |
John Rolfe was made Secretary of Virginia when Captain Argall became | |
Governor, and seems to have been associated in the schemes of that | |
unscrupulous person and to have forfeited the good opinion of the | |
company. August 23, 1618, the company wrote to Argall: "We cannot | |
imagine why you should give us warning that Opechankano and the natives | |
have given the country to Mr. Rolfe's child, and that they reserve it | |
from all others till he comes of years except as we suppose as some | |
do here report it be a device of your own, to some special purpose for | |
yourself." It appears also by the minutes of the company in 1621 that | |
Lady Delaware had trouble to recover goods of hers left in Rolfe's hands | |
in Virginia, and desired a commission directed to Sir Thomas Wyatt and | |
Mr. George Sandys to examine what goods of the late "Lord Deleware had | |
come into Rolfe's possession and get satisfaction of him." This George | |
Sandys is the famous traveler who made a journey through the Turkish | |
Empire in 1610, and who wrote, while living in Virginia, the first book | |
written in the New World, the completion of his translation of Ovid's | |
"Metamorphosis." | |
John Rolfe died in Virginia in 1622, leaving a wife and children. | |
This is supposed to be his third wife, though there is no note of his | |
marriage to her nor of the death of his first. October 7, 1622, his | |
brother Henry Rolfe petitioned that the estate of John should be | |
converted to the support of his relict wife and children and to his own | |
indemnity for having brought up John's child by Powhatan's daughter. | |
This child, named Thomas Rolfe, was given after the death of Pocahontas | |
to the keeping of Sir Lewis Stukely of Plymouth, who fell into evil | |
practices, and the boy was transferred to the guardianship of his uncle | |
Henry Rolfe, and educated in London. When he was grown up he returned | |
to Virginia, and was probably there married. There is on record his | |
application to the Virginia authorities in 1641 for leave to go into the | |
Indian country and visit Cleopatra, his mother's sister. He left an only | |
daughter who was married, says Stith (1753), "to Col. John Bolling; by | |
whom she left an only son, the late Major John Bolling, who was father | |
to the present Col. John Bolling, and several daughters, married to | |
Col. Richard Randolph, Col. John Fleming, Dr. William Gay, Mr. Thomas | |
Eldridge, and Mr. James Murray." Campbell in his "History of Virginia" | |
says that the first Randolph that came to the James River was an | |
esteemed and industrious mechanic, and that one of his sons, Richard, | |
grandfather of the celebrated John Randolph, married Jane Bolling, the | |
great granddaughter of Pocahontas. | |
In 1618 died the great Powhatan, full of years and satiated with | |
fighting and the savage delights of life. He had many names and titles; | |
his own people sometimes called him Ottaniack, sometimes Mamauatonick, | |
and usually in his presence Wahunsenasawk. He ruled, by inheritance and | |
conquest, with many chiefs under him, over a large territory with not | |
defined borders, lying on the James, the York, the Rappahannock, the | |
Potomac, and the Pawtuxet Rivers. He had several seats, at which he | |
alternately lived with his many wives and guard of bowmen, the chief of | |
which at the arrival of the English was Werowomocomo, on the Pamunkey | |
(York) River. His state has been sufficiently described. He is said | |
to have had a hundred wives, and generally a dozen--the | |
youngest--personally attending him. When he had a mind to add to his | |
harem he seems to have had the ancient oriental custom of sending into | |
all his dominions for the fairest maidens to be brought from whom to | |
select. And he gave the wives of whom he was tired to his favorites. | |
Strachey makes a striking description of him as he appeared about 1610: | |
"He is a goodly old man not yet shrincking, though well beaten with cold | |
and stormeye winters, in which he hath been patient of many necessityes | |
and attempts of his fortune to make his name and famely great. He is | |
supposed to be little lesse than eighty yeares old, I dare not saye how | |
much more; others saye he is of a tall stature and cleane lymbes, of a | |
sad aspect, rownd fatt visaged, with graie haires, but plaine and thin, | |
hanging upon his broad showlders; some few haires upon his chin, and so | |
on his upper lippe: he hath been a strong and able salvadge, synowye, | |
vigilant, ambitious, subtile to enlarge his dominions:... cruell he hath | |
been, and quarellous as well with his own wcrowanccs for trifles, and | |
that to strike a terrour and awe into them of his power and condicion, | |
as also with his neighbors in his younger days, though now delighted in | |
security and pleasure, and therefore stands upon reasonable conditions | |
of peace with all the great and absolute werowances about him, and is | |
likewise more quietly settled amongst his own." | |
It was at this advanced age that he had the twelve favorite young wives | |
whom Strachey names. All his people obeyed him with fear and adoration, | |
presenting anything he ordered at his feet, and trembling if he frowned. | |
His punishments were cruel; offenders were beaten to death before him, | |
or tied to trees and dismembered joint by joint, or broiled to death on | |
burning coals. Strachey wondered how such a barbarous prince should put | |
on such ostentation of majesty, yet he accounted for it as belonging to | |
the necessary divinity that doth hedge in a king: "Such is (I believe) | |
the impression of the divine nature, and however these (as other | |
heathens forsaken by the true light) have not that porcion of the | |
knowing blessed Christian spiritt, yet I am perswaded there is an | |
infused kind of divinities and extraordinary (appointed that it shall | |
be so by the King of kings) to such as are his ymedyate instruments on | |
earth." | |
Here is perhaps as good a place as any to say a word or two about the | |
appearance and habits of Powhatan's subjects, as they were observed | |
by Strachey and Smith. A sort of religion they had, with priests or | |
conjurors, and houses set apart as temples, wherein images were kept | |
and conjurations performed, but the ceremonies seem not worship, but | |
propitiations against evil, and there seems to have been no conception | |
of an overruling power or of an immortal life. Smith describes a | |
ceremony of sacrifice of children to their deity; but this is doubtful, | |
although Parson Whittaker, who calls the Indians "naked slaves of the | |
devil," also says they sacrificed sometimes themselves and sometimes | |
their own children. An image of their god which he sent to England | |
"was painted upon one side of a toadstool, much like unto a deformed | |
monster." And he adds: "Their priests, whom they call Quockosoughs, are | |
no other but such as our English witches are." This notion I believe | |
also pertained among the New England colonists. There was a belief | |
that the Indian conjurors had some power over the elements, but not a | |
well-regulated power, and in time the Indians came to a belief in the | |
better effect of the invocations of the whites. In "Winslow's Relation," | |
quoted by Alexander Young in his "Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers," | |
under date of July, 1623, we read that on account of a great drought | |
a fast day was appointed. When the assembly met the sky was clear. The | |
exercise lasted eight or nine hours. Before they broke up, owing to | |
prayers the weather was overcast. Next day began a long gentle rain. | |
This the Indians seeing, admired the goodness of our God: "showing the | |
difference between their conjuration and our invocation in the name | |
of God for rain; theirs being mixed with such storms and tempests, as | |
sometimes, instead of doing them good, it layeth the corn flat on the | |
ground; but ours in so gentle and seasonable a manner, as they never | |
observed the like." | |
It was a common opinion of the early settlers in Virginia, as it was of | |
those in New England, that the Indians were born white, but that they | |
got a brown or tawny color by the use of red ointments, made of earth | |
and the juice of roots, with which they besmear themselves either | |
according to the custom of the country or as a defense against the | |
stinging of mosquitoes. The women are of the same hue as the men, says | |
Strachey; "howbeit, it is supposed neither of them naturally borne so | |
discolored; for Captain Smith (lyving sometymes amongst them) affirmeth | |
how they are from the womb indifferent white, but as the men, so doe the | |
women," "dye and disguise themselves into this tawny cowler, esteeming | |
it the best beauty to be nearest such a kind of murrey as a sodden | |
quince is of," as the Greek women colored their faces and the ancient | |
Britain women dyed themselves with red; "howbeit [Strachey slyly adds] | |
he or she that hath obtained the perfected art in the tempering of this | |
collour with any better kind of earth, yearb or root preserves it not | |
yet so secrett and precious unto herself as doe our great ladyes their | |
oyle of talchum, or other painting white and red, but they frindly | |
communicate the secret and teach it one another." | |
Thomas Lechford in his "Plain Dealing; or Newes from New England," | |
London, 1642, says: "They are of complexion swarthy and tawny; their | |
children are borne white, but they bedawbe them with oyle and colors | |
presently." | |
The men are described as tall, straight, and of comely proportions; no | |
beards; hair black, coarse, and thick; noses broad, flat, and full at | |
the end; with big lips and wide mouths', yet nothing so unsightly as | |
the Moors; and the women as having "handsome limbs, slender arms, pretty | |
hands, and when they sing they have a pleasant tange in their voices. | |
The men shaved their hair on the right side, the women acting as | |
barbers, and left the hair full length on the left side, with a lock an | |
ell long." A Puritan divine--"New England's Plantation, 1630"--says of | |
the Indians about him, "their hair is generally black, and cut before | |
like our gentlewomen, and one lock longer than the rest, much like to | |
our gentlemen, which fashion I think came from hence into England." | |
Their love of ornaments is sufficiently illustrated by an extract from | |
Strachey, which is in substance what Smith writes: | |
"Their eares they boare with wyde holes, commonly two or three, and in | |
the same they doe hang chaines of stayned pearle braceletts, of white | |
bone or shreeds of copper, beaten thinne and bright, and wounde up | |
hollowe, and with a grate pride, certaine fowles' legges, eagles, | |
hawkes, turkeys, etc., with beasts clawes, bears, arrahacounes, | |
squirrells, etc. The clawes thrust through they let hang upon the cheeke | |
to the full view, and some of their men there be who will weare in these | |
holes a small greene and yellow-couloured live snake, neere half a yard | |
in length, which crawling and lapping himself about his neck oftentymes | |
familiarly, he suffreeth to kisse his lippes. Others weare a dead ratt | |
tyed by the tayle, and such like conundrums." | |
This is the earliest use I find of our word "conundrum," and the sense | |
it bears here may aid in discovering its origin. | |
Powhatan is a very large figure in early Virginia history, and deserves | |
his prominence. He was an able and crafty savage, and made a good fight | |
against the encroachments of the whites, but he was no match for | |
the crafty Smith, nor the double-dealing of the Christians. There is | |
something pathetic about the close of his life, his sorrow for the death | |
of his daughter in a strange land, when he saw his territories overrun | |
by the invaders, from whom he only asked peace, and the poor privilege | |
of moving further away from them into the wilderness if they denied him | |
peace. | |
In the midst of this savagery Pocahontas blooms like a sweet, wild rose. | |
She was, like the Douglas, "tender and true." Wanting apparently the | |
cruel nature of her race generally, her heroic qualities were all of the | |
heart. No one of all the contemporary writers has anything but gentle | |
words for her. Barbarous and untaught she was like her comrades, but of | |
a gentle nature. Stripped of all the fictions which Captain Smith has | |
woven into her story, and all the romantic suggestions which later | |
writers have indulged in, she appears, in the light of the few facts | |
that industry is able to gather concerning her, as a pleasing and | |
unrestrained Indian girl, probably not different from her savage sisters | |
in her habits, but bright and gentle; struck with admiration at the | |
appearance of the white men, and easily moved to pity them, and so | |
inclined to a growing and lasting friendship for them; tractable and apt | |
to learn refinements; accepting the new religion through love for those | |
who taught it, and finally becoming in her maturity a well-balanced, | |
sensible, dignified Christian woman. | |
According to the long-accepted story of Pocahontas, she did something | |
more than interfere to save from barbarous torture and death a stranger | |
and a captive, who had forfeited his life by shooting those who | |
opposed his invasion. In all times, among the most savage tribes and in | |
civilized society, women have been moved to heavenly pity by the sight | |
of a prisoner, and risked life to save him--the impulse was as natural | |
to a Highland lass as to an African maid. Pocahontas went further than | |
efforts to make peace between the superior race and her own. When the | |
whites forced the Indians to contribute from their scanty stores to the | |
support of the invaders, and burned their dwellings and shot them on | |
sight if they refused, the Indian maid sympathized with the exposed | |
whites and warned them of stratagems against them; captured herself by a | |
base violation of the laws of hospitality, she was easily reconciled to | |
her situation, adopted the habits of the foreigners, married one of her | |
captors, and in peace and in war cast in her lot with the strangers. | |
History has not preserved for us the Indian view of her conduct. | |
It was no doubt fortunate for her, though perhaps not for the colony, | |
that her romantic career ended by an early death, so that she always | |
remains in history in the bloom of youth. She did not live to be pained | |
by the contrast, to which her eyes were opened, between her own and her | |
adopted people, nor to learn what things could be done in the Christian | |
name she loved, nor to see her husband in a less honorable light than | |
she left him, nor to be involved in any way in the frightful massacre | |
of 1622. If she had remained in England after the novelty was over, she | |
might have been subject to slights and mortifying neglect. The struggles | |
of the fighting colony could have brought her little but pain. Dying | |
when she did, she rounded out one of the prettiest romances of all | |
history, and secured for her name the affection of a great nation, whose | |
empire has spared little that belonged to her childhood and race, except | |
the remembrance of her friendship for those who destroyed her people. | |
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Pocahantas, by Charles Dudley Warner | |
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