USA > Virginia > History of the colony and ancient dominion of Virginia > Part 7
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* Smith, i. 239.
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he would not lead them himself; that would never see his men want what he had, or could by any means procure; that would rather want than borrow, and rather starve than not pay; that loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and avarice worse than death; "whose adventures were our lives, and whose loss our deaths." Another of his soldiers said of him :-
"I never knew a warrior but thee, From wine, tobacco, debts, dice, oaths, so free."
From the time of Smith's departure from Virginia to the year 1614, little is known of him. In that year he made his first voyage to New England. In the following year, after many dis- appointments, sailing again in a small vessel for that country, after a running fight with, and narrow escape from, two French privateers, near Fayal, he was captured, near Flores, by a half- piratical French squadron. After long detention he was carried to Rochelle, in France, and there charged with having burned Port Royal, in New France, which act had been committed by Captain Argall. Smith, at length, at the utmost hazard, escaped from his captors, and being assisted by several of the inhabitants of Rochelle, especially by Madame Chanoyes, he was enabled to return to England. The protective sympathy exhibited toward him, at several critical conjunctures, is thus mentioned in some complimentary verses prefixed to his History of Virginia :-
" Tragabigzanda, Callamata's love, Deare Pocahontas, Madam Shanoi's too, Who did what love with modesty could do."
In 1616 Smith published his "Description of New England," composed while he was a prisoner on board of the French piratical vessel, in order, as he says, to keep his perplexed thoughts from too much meditation on his miserable condition. The Plymouth Company now conferred upon him the title of Admiral of New England. It was during this year that Pocahontas visited Eng- land. After this time, Smith never again visited America. When, in 1622, the news of the massacre reached England, he proposed to come over to Virginia with a proper force to reduce the savages to subjection, but his proposal was not accepted.
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. HISTORY OF THE COLONY AND
Captain Smith received little or no recompense for his colonial discoveries, labors, and sacrifices ; and after having spent five years, and more than five hundred pounds, in the service of Virginia and New England, he complains that in neither of those countries has he one foot of land, nor even the house that he built, nor the ground that he cultivated with his own hands, nor even any con- tent or satisfaction at all, while he beheld those countries bestowed upon men who neither could have them, nor even know of them but by his descriptions. It is remarkable that in his "Newes from Virginia," published in 1608, no allusion is made to his rescue by Pocahontas. In 1612 appeared his work entitled "A Map of Virginia, with a Description of the Country, Commodi- ties, People, Government, and Religion, etc.," and in 1620, "New England Trials." In 1626 was published his "General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles," the greater part of which had already been published in 1625, by Purchas, in his "Pilgrim." The second and sixth books of this history were composed by Smith himself; the third was compiled by Rev. William Simons, Doctor of Divinity, and the rest by Smith from the letters and journals of about thirty different writers. During the year 1625 he published "An Accidence, or the Pathway to Experience necessary for all young Seamen," and in 1627 "A Sea Grammar." In 1630 he gave to the public "The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from 1593 to 1629." This work, together with "The General History," was republished by Rev. Dr. John H. Rice, in 1819, at Richmond, Virginia. The copy is exact and complete, except some maps and engravings of but little value. The obsolete orthography and typography of the work confines it to a limited circle of readers. It is now out of print and rare. In 1631 Smith published "Ad- vertisements for the unexperienced planters of New England, or anywhere," etc., said to be the most elaborate of his productions. The learned, judicious, and accurate historian, Grahame, considers Smith's writings on colonization, superior to those of Lord Bacon. At the time of his death, Smith was engaged in com- posing a "History of the Sea." So famous was he in his own day, that he complains of some extraordinary incidents in his life
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having been misrepresented on the stage. He was gifted by na- ture with a person and address of singular fascination. He mar- ried, and the author of a recent interesting English book of travels, a lineal descendant, refers with just pride to his distin- guished ancestor: "On the upper waters of the Alt, near the celebrated Rothen Thurm, (or Red Tower,) several severe engage- ments ushered in the seventeenth century. It was at this time that the wave of Mohammedan conquest rolled on, and broke over Hungary, Transylvania, and Wallachia, and, whether ad- vancing or retiring, swept those unfortunate lands with equal severity. Sigismund Bathori, after holding his own for awhile in Transylvania against the emperor, was obliged to succumb; the Voyvode of Wallachia, appointed by the Porte, aroused, by his cruelties, an insurrection against him, and the moment ap- peared favorable for thrusting back the Turkish power beyond the Danube. The Austrian party not only appointed a new Voy- vode, but marched a large army, chiefly Hungarian, into the country, and were at first victorious, in a well-contested battle. But, at length, between the river and the heights of the Rothen Thurm range, the Christian army was attacked with impetuosity by a far greater number, composed principally of Tartars, and was entirely cut to pieces. In this catastrophe several English officers, serving with the Hungarian army, were slain; and an ancestor of the author's, who was left for dead on the field, after describing this 'dismall battell,' gives their names, and observes that 'they did what men could do, and when they could do no more, left there their bodies in testimony of their mind.'"*
Captain John Smith died at London, 1631, in the fifty-second year of his age. He was buried in St. Sepulchre's Church, Skinner Street, London; and from Stowe's Survey of London, printed in 1633, it appears there was a tablet erected to his me- mory in that church, inscribed with his motto, "Vincere est vivere," and the following epitaph :-
Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings, Subdued large territories, and done things Which, to the world, impossible would seem, But that the truth is held in more esteem.
* A Year with the Turks, by Warington W. Smyth, A.M., 27.
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Shall I report his former service done In honor of God and Christendom, How that he did divide from pagans three Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry ; For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, (King of Hungarion,) Did give him a coat of arms to wear, Those conquered heads got by his sword and spear ? Or shall I tell of his adventures since Done in Virginia, that large continent, How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens fly as wind doth smoke, And made their land, being of so large a station,
A habitation for our Christian nation, Where God is glorified, their wants supplied, Which else for necessaries might have died ? But what avails his conquest ? now he lies Interred in earth, a prey for worms and flies. O may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep, Return to judgment, and that after thence With angels he may have his recompense.
The tablet was destroyed by the great fire in the year 1666, and all now remaining to the memory of Captain Smith is a large flat stone, in front of the communion-table, engraved with his coat of arms, upon which the three Turks' heads are still distin- guishable .* The historian Grahame concludes a notice of him in these words: "But Smith's renown will break forth again, and once more be commensurate with his desert. It will grow with the growth of men and letters in America, and whole nations of its admirers have yet to be born." A complete edition of his works would be a valuable addition to American historical litera- ture. The sculptor's art ought to present a fitting memorial of him and of Pocahontas, in the metropolis of Virginia.
* Godwin's Churches of London, i. 9.
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CHAPTER VI.
The Indians of Virginia-Their Form and Features-Mode of wearing their Hair-Clothing-Ornaments-Manner of Living-Diet-Towns and Cabins- Arms and Implements-Religion-Medicine-The Seasons-Hunting-Sham- · fights -- Music-Indian Character.
THE mounds-monuments of a primitive race, found scattered over many parts of North America, especially in the valley of the Mississippi-have long attracted the attention of men curious in such speculations. These heir-looms of dim, oblivious centuries, seem to whisper mysteriously of a shadowy race, populous, noma- dic, not altogether uncivilized, idolatrous, worshipping "in high places." The Anglo-Saxon ploughshare is busy in obliterating these memorials, but many yet survive, and many, perhaps, re- main yet to be discovered. Whether they were the work of the progenitors of the Indians, or of a race long since extinct, is a question for such as have taste and leisure for such abstruse in- quiries. The general absence of written language and of archi- tectural remains, indicates a low grade of civilization, and yet the relics that have been disinterred, and the enormous extent of some of their earth-works, would argue a degree of art, and of collective industry, to which the Indians are entire strangers. We may, at the least, conclude that either they, in the lapse of ages, have greatly degenerated, or that the mound-makers were a distinct and superior race. Some of these mounds are found in Virginia. The most remarkable of these is the Mammoth Mound, in the County of Marshall. Mr. Jefferson* was of opinion that there is nothing extant in Virginia deserving the name of an Indian monument, as he would not dignify with that name their stone arrow-points, tomakawks, pipes, and rude images. Of labor on a large scale there is no remain, unless it be the bar- rows, or mounds, of which many are found all over this country.
* Notes on Va., 104, ed. 1853.
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They are of different sizes; some of them constructed of earth, and some of loose stones. That they were repositories of the dead is obvious, but on what occasion they were constructed is a matter of doubt. Mr. Jefferson opened one of them near Monticello, and found it filled with human bones. The Mammoth Mound in Marshall County is 69 feet high, 900 in circumference at the base; in shape the frustrum of a cone, with a flat top 50 feet in diameter. An oak standing on the top has been estimated to be five hundred years old. In the interior have been dis- covered vaults, with pieces of timber, human skeletons, ivory beads, and other ivory ornaments, sea-shells, copper bracelets around the wrists of skeletons, with laminated mica, and a stone with hieroglyphic characters inscribed on it, in the opinion of some, of African origin. The whole mass of the mound is studded with blue spots, supposed to have been occasioned by depo- sites of the remains of human bodies consumed by fire. Seven lesser mounds are connected with the main one by low entrench- ments. Some rude towers of stone, greatly dilapidated, are also found in the neighborhood. Porcelain beads are picked up, and a stone idol has been found, as also tubes of lead, blue steatite, syphon-like, drilled, twelve inches long, and finely polished.
The places of habitation of the Indians may yet be identified along the banks of rivers, by the deposites of shells of oysters and muscles, which they subsisted upon, as also of ashes and charred wood, arrow-points, fragments of pottery, pipes, tomahawks, mortars, etc. Vestiges may be traced of their moving back their cabins when urged by the accumulation of shells and ashes. Standing on such a spot one's fancy may almost repeople it with the shadowy forms of the aborigines, and imagine the flames of the council-fire projecting its red glare upon the face of the York or the James, and hear their wild cries mingling with the dash of waves and the roar of the forest. Here they rejoice over their victories, plan new enterprises of blood, and celebrate the war- dance by the rude music of the drum and the rattle, commingled with their own discordant yells.
The Indians of Virginia were tall, erect, and well-proportioned, with prominent cheek-bones; eyes dark and brilliant, with an animal expression, and a sort of squint; their hair dark and
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straight. The chiefs were distinguished by a long pendant lock. The Indians had little or no beard, and the women served as barbers, eradicating the beard, and grating away the hair with two shells. Like all savages, they were fond of toys and tawdry ornaments. The principal garment was a mantle, in winter dressed with the fur in, in summer with it out; but the common sort had scarce anything to hide their nakedness, save grass or leaves, and in summer they all went nearly naked. The females always wore a cincture around the middle. Some covered them- selves with a mantle of curiously interwoven turkey feathers, pretty and comfortable. The greater part went barefoot; some wore moccasins, a rude sandal of buckskin. Some of the women tattooed their skins with grotesque figures. They adorned the ear with pendants of copper, or a small living snake, yellow or green, or a dead rat, and the head with a bird's wing, a feather, the rattle of a rattlesnake, or the hand of an enemy. They stained the head and shoulder red with the juice of the puccoon.
The red men dwelt for the most part on the banks of rivers. They spent the time in fishing, hunting, war, or indolence, de- spising domestic labor, and assigning it to the women. These made mats, baskets, pottery, hollowed out stone-mortars, pounded the corn in them, made bread, cooked, planted corn, gathered it, carried burdens, etc. Infants were inured to hardship and ex- posure. The Indians kindled a fire quickly "by chafing a dry pointed stick in a hole of a little square piece of wood, which, taking fire, sets fire to moss, leaves, or any such dry thing." They subsisted upon fish, game, the natural fruits of the earth, and corn, which they planted. The tuckahoe-root, during the summer, was an important article of diet in marshy places. Their cookery was not less rude than their other habits, yet pone and hominy have been borrowed from them, as also, it is said, the mode of barbecuing meat. Pone, according to the historian Beverley, is derived "not from the Latin panis, but from oppone," an Indian word; according to Smith, ponap signifies meal-dump- lings. The natives did not refuse to eat grubs, snakes, and the insect locust. Their bread was sometimes made of wild oats, or the seed of the sunflower, but mostly of corn. Their salt was only such as could be procured from ashes. They were fond of
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roasting ears of corn, and they welcomed the crop with the festi- val of the green-corn dance. From walnuts and hickory-nuts, pounded in a mortar, they expressed a liquid called pawcohic- cora. The hickory-tree is indigenous in America. Beverley has fallen into a curious mistake in saying that the peach-tree is a native of this country. Indian-corn and tobacco, although called indigenous, appear to have grown only when cultivated. They are never found of wild spontaneous growth. In their journeys the Indians were in the habit of providing themselves with rockahominy, or corn parched and reduced to a powder.
They dwelt in towns, the cabins being constructed of saplings bent over at the top and tied together, and thatched with reeds, or covered with mats or bark, the smoke escaping through an aperture at the apex. The door, if any, consisted of a pendant mat. They sate on the ground, the better sort on matchcoats or mats. Their fortifications consisted of palisades ten or twelve feet high, sometimes encompassing an entire town, sometimes a part. Within these enclosures they preserved, with pious care, their idols and relics, and the remains of their chiefs. In hunt- ing and war they used the bow and arrow-the bow usually of locust, the arrow of reed, or a wand. The Indian notched his arrow with a beaver's tooth set in a stick, which he used in the place of a file. The arrow was winged with a turkey-feather, fastened with a sort of glue extracted from the velvet horns of the deer. The arrow was headed with an arrow-point of stone, often made of white quartz, and exquisitely formed, some barbed, some with a serrate edge. These are yet to be found in every part of the country. For knives the red men made use of sharp- ened reeds, or shells, or stone; and for hatchets, tomahawks of stone, sharpened at one end or both. Those sharpened only at one end, at the other were either curved to a tapering point, or spheroidally rounded off, so as to serve the purpose of a hammer for breaking or pounding. In the middle a circular indenture was made, to secure the tomahawk to the handle. They soon, however, procured iron hatchets from the English. Trees the Indians felled by fire; canoes were made by dint of burning and scraping with shells and tomahawks. Some of their canoes were not less than forty or fifty feet long. Canoe is a West Indian
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word, the Powhatan word is quintan, or aquintan .* The women manufactured a thread, or string of bark, or of a kind of grass called pemminaw, or of the sinews of the deer. A large pipe, adorned with the wings of a bird, or with beads, was the symbol of friendship, called the pipe of peace. A war-chief was styled werowance, and a war-council, matchacomoco. In war, like all savages, they relied mainly on surprise, treachery, and ambus- cade; in the open field they were timid; and their cruelty, as usual, was proportionate to their cowardice.
The Virginia Indians were of course idolatrous, and their chief idol, called Okee, represented the spirit of evil, to appease whom they burnt sacrifices. They were greatly under the influence and control of their priests and conjurors, who wore a grotesque dress, performed a variety of divinations, conjurations, and enchant- ments, called powwowings, after the manner of wizards, and by their superior cunning and shrewdness, and some scanty know- ledge of medicine, contrived to render themselves objects of vene- ration, and to live upon the labor of others. The superstition of the savages was commensurate with their ignorance. Near the falls of the James River, about a mile back from the river, there were some impressions on a rock like the footsteps of a giant, being about five feet apart, which the Indians averred to be the footprints of their god. They submitted with Spartan fortitude to cruel tortures imposed by their idolatry, especially in the mys- terious and horrid ordeal of huskanawing. The avowed object of this ordeal was to obliterate forever from the memory of the youths subjected to it all recollection of their previous lives. The house in which they kept the Okee was called Quioccasan, and was surrounded by posts, with human faces rudely carved and painted on them. Altars on which sacrifices were offered, were held in great veneration.
The diseases of the Indians were not numerous; their reme- dies few and simple, their physic consisting mainly of the bark and roots of trees. Sweating was a favorite remedy, and every town was provided with a sweat-house. The patient, issuing from
* Strachey's Virginia Britannica.
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the heated atmosphere, plunged himself in cold water, after the manner of the Russian bath.
The Indians celebrated certain festivals by pastimes, games, and songs. The year they divided into five seasons, Cattapeak, the budding time of spring; Messinough, roasting ear time; Co- hattayough, summer ; Taquitock, the fall of the leaf; and Popanow, winter, sometimes called Cohonk, after the cry of the migratory wild-geese. Engaged from their childhood in fishing and hunting, they became expert and familiar with the haunts of game and fish. The luggage of hunting parties was carried by the women. Deer were taken by surrounding them, and kindling fires en- closing them in a circle, till they were killed; sometimes they were driven into the water, and there captured. The Indian, hunting alone, would stalk behind the skin of a deer. Game being abundant in the mountain country, hunting parties repaired to the heads of the rivers at the proper season, and this probably engendered the continual hostilities that existed between the Pow- hatans of the tide-water region and the Monacans, on the upper waters of the James, and the Mannahoacks, at the head of the Rappahannock. The savages were in the habit of exercising themselves in sham-fights. Upon the first discharge of arrows they burst forth in horrid shrieks and the war-whoop, so that as many infernal hell-hounds could not have been more terrific. " All their actions, cries, and gestures, in charging and retreat- ing," says Captain Smith, "were so strained to the height of their quality and nature, that the strangeness thereof made it seem very delightful." For their music they used a thick cane, on which they piped as on a recorder. They had also a rude sort of drum, and rattles of gourds or pumpkins. The chastity of their women was not held in much value, but wives were careful not to be suspected without the consent of their husbands.
The Indians were hospitable, in their manners exhibiting that imperturbable equanimity and uniform self-possession and repose which distinguish the refined society of a high civilization. Ex- tremes meet. Yet the Indians were in everything wayward and inconstant, unless where restrained by fear; cunning, quick of apprehension, and ingenious; some were brave; most of them
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timorous and cautious; all savage. Not ungrateful for benefits, they seldom forgave an injury. They rarely stole from each other, lest their conjurors should reveal the offence, and they should be punished .*
* Smith, ii. 129, 137 ; Beverley, B. iii. ; Drake's Book of the Indians; Thatcher's Lives of the Indians ; Bancroft's History of U. S., vol. iii. cap. xxii.
CHAPTER VII.
1609-1614.
Condition of the Colony at the time of Smith's Departure-Assaults of Indians -" The Starving Time "-The Sea-Venture-Situation of the English on the Island of Bermuda-They Embark for Virginia-Arrive at Jamestown- Jamestown abandoned-Colonists meet Lord Delaware's Fleet-Return to Jamestown -- Delaware's Discipline-The Church at Jamestown-Sir George Somers - Delaware returns to England -Percy, Governor- New Charter- Sir Thomas Dale, Governor-Martial Laws-Henrico Founded-Plantations and Hundreds settled-Argall makes Pocahontas a Prisoner-Dale's expedition up York River-Rolfe visits Powhatan-Dale returns to Jamestown-Rolfe marries Pocahontas-The Chickahominies enter into Treaty of Peace-Com- munity of Goods abolished-Argall's Expeditions against the French in Aca- dia-Captures Fort at New Amsterdam.
CAPTAIN SMITH, upon embarking for England, left at James- town three ships, seven boats, a sufficient stock of provision, four hundred and ninety odd settlers, twenty pieces of cannon, three hundred muskets, with other guns, pikes, swords, and ammuni- tion, and one hundred soldiers acquainted with the Indian lan- guage, and the nature of the country .* The settlers were, for the most part, poor gentlemen, serving-men, libertines; and with such materials the wonder is, not that the settlement was re- tarded by many disasters, but that it was effected at all. Lord Bacon says: "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, wicked, condemned men, with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation, for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mis- chief; spend victuals and be quickly weary."} Immediately upon
* The colony was provided with fishing-nets, working tools, apparel, six mares and a horse, five or six hundred swine, with some goats and sheep. Jamestown was strongly fortified with palisades, and contained fifty or sixty houses. There were, besides, five or six other forts and plantations. There was only one carpenter in the colony ; three others were learning that trade. There were two blacksmiths and two sailors.
¡ Bacon's Essays, 123.
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Smith's departure the Indians renewed their attacks. Percy, the Earl of Northumberland's brother, for a time administered the government; but it soon fell into the hands of the seditious male- contents. Provisions growing scarce, West and Ratcliffe em- barked in small vessels to procure corn. Ratcliffe, inveigled by Powhatan, was slain with thirty of his companions, two only escaping, of whom one, a boy, Henry Spilman, a young gentle- man well descended, was rescued by Pocahontas, and he after- wards lived for many years among the Patawomekes, acquired their language, and often proved serviceable as an interpreter for his countrymen. He was slain by the savages, on the banks of the Potomac, in 1622. The loss of Captain Smith was soon felt by the colonists : they were now continually exposed to the arrow and the tomahawk; the common store was consumed by the com- manders and the savages; swords and guns were bartered with the Indians for food; and within six months after Smith's departure the number of English in Virginia was reduced from five hundred to sixty men, women, and children. These found themselves in a starving condition, subsisting on roots, herbs, acorns, walnuts, berries, and fish. Starch became an article of diet, and even dogs, cats, rats, snakes, toadstools, and the skins of horses. The body of an Indian was disinterred and eaten; nay, at last, the colonists preyed on the dead bodies of each other. It was even alleged that a husband murdered his wife for a cannibal re- past; upon his trial, however, it appeared that the cannibalism was feigned, to palliate the murder. He was put to death- being burned according to law. This was long afterwards re- membered as "the starving time." Sir Thomas Smith, treasurer of the Virginia Company, was bitterly. denounced by the suffer- ers for neglecting to send out the necessary supplies. The hap- piest day that many of them expected ever to see, was when the Indians had killed a mare, the people wishing, while the carcass was boiling, "that Sir Thomas was upon her back in the kettle." It seemed to them as if the Earl of Salisbury's threat of aban- doning the colony to its fate, was now to be actually carried into effect; but it is to be recollected that a large portion of ample supplies, that had been sent out from England for the colony, had been lost by storm and shipwreck.
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