USA > Virginia > Old Virginia and her neighbours > Part 8
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1 The Englishmen were bewildered by barbarie usages utterly
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
When Newport and Smith returned to James- town, they found that it had been attacked by a force of 200 Indians. Wingfield had beaten them off, but one Englishman was killed and eleven were wounded. In the course of the next two weeks these enemies were very annoying; they would crouch in the tall grass about the fort and pick off a man with their barbed stone - tipped arrows. Hakluyt had warned the settlers against building near the edge of a wood ; 1 it seems strange that bitter experience was needed to teach them that danger might lurk in long grass. Presently some of their new acquaintances from the Pow- hatan tribe came to the fort and told Newport that the assailants were from a hostile tribe against which they would willingly form an alliance ; and they furthermore advised him to cut his grass, which seems to prove that they were sincere in what they said.
Smith now demanded a trial on the charges which had led to his imprisonment. In spite of objections from Wingfield a jury was granted, and foreign to their experience. Kinship among these Indians, as so generally among barbarians and savages, was reckoned through females only, and when the English visitors were told that The Powhatan's office would descend to his maternal brothers. even though he had sons living, the information was evidently correct, but they found it hard to understand or be- lieve. So when one of the chiefs on the James River insisted upon giving back some powder and balls which one of his men had stolen, it was regarded as a proof of strict honesty and friendliness, whereas the more probable explanation is that a prudent Indian. at that early time, would consider it bad medi- cine to handle the thunder-and-lightuing stuff or keep it about one. See my Beginnings of New England, p. S5.
1 See above, p. 75.
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Smith was acquitted of all the charges ; so that on the 10th of June he was allowed to take his seat in the Council. On the 15th the fort was finished, and on the 22d Captain Newport sailed for Eng- land with a cargo of sassafras and fine wood for wainscoting. He took the direct route home- ward, for need was now visibly pressing.
Newport promised to be back in Virginia within
Sails for England twenty weeks, but all the food he could
June 22, leave in the fort was reckoned to be
1607. scarcely enough for fifteen weeks, so that
the company were put upon short rations. Accord- ing to Studley, 105 persons were left at James- town, of whom besides the 6 councillors, the cler- gyman and the surgeon, there were mentioned by name 29 gentlemen, 6 carpenters, 1 mason, 2 bricklayers, 1 blacksmith, 1 sailor, 1 drummer. 1 tailor, 1 barber, 12 labourers, and 4 boys, with 38 whom he neither names or classifies but simply mentions as "divers others." The food left in store for this company was not appetizing. After the ship had gone, says Richard Potts, "there re- mained neither tavern, beer-house, nor place of relief but the common kettle; . . . and that was half a pint of wheat and as much barley, boiled with water, for a man a day; and this, having fried some 26 weeks in the ship's hold. contained as many worms as grains. . . . Our [only] drink was water. . . . Had we been as free from all sins as gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints." 1 Chickens were raised. but not enough for so many mouths, and as there 1 Smith's Works, ed. Arber, p. 95.
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
were no cattle or sheep a nourishing diet of meat and milk was out of the question. Nor do we find much mention of game, though Sufferings of the colonists. there were some who warded off the pangs of starvation by catching crabs and sturgeon in the river. With such inadequate diet, with unfamiliar kinds of labour, and with the frightful heat of an American summer, the condition of the settlers soon came to be pitiable. Disease soon added to their sufferings. Fevers lurked in the air of Jamestown. Before the end of September more than fifty of the company were in their graves. The situation is graphically described by one of the survivors, the Hon. George Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland: "There were neuer Englishmen left in a forreigne Countrey in such miserie as wee were in this new discovered Vir- ginia. Wee watched euery three nights, lying on the bare . . . ground, what weather soeuer came ; [and] warded all the next day; which brought our men to bee most feeble wretches. Our food was but a small Can of Barlie sodden in water to fiue men a day. Our drink cold water taken out of the River ; which was at a floud verie Percy's account.
salt: at a low tide full of slime and
filth; which was the destruction of many of our men. . Thus we lived for the space of fine months in this miserable distresse, not hauing fiue able men to man our Bulwarkes upon any occasion. If it had not pleased God to haue put a terrour in the Sauages hearts, we had all perished by those vild and cruell Pagans, being in that weake estate as we were ; our men night and day groaning in
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every corner of the Fort most pittiful to heare. If there were any conscience in men, it would make their harts to bleed to heare the pitifull murmur- ings and outeries of our sick men without reliefe, euery night and day for the space of sixe weekes : some departing out of the World, many times three or foure in a night; in the morning their bodies being trailed out of their Cabines like Dogges, to be buried. In this sort did I see the mortalitie of diners of our people." 1
In such a state of things our colonists would have been more than human had they shown very amiable tempers. From the early wanderings of the Spaniards in Darien down to the recent marches of Stanley in Africa, men struggling with the wilderness have fiercely quarrelled. Quarrels. The fever at Jamestown carried off Cap- tain Gosnoll in August, and after his death the feud between Smith's friends and Wingfield's flamed up with fresh virulence. Both gentlemen have left printed statements, and in our time the quarrel is between historians as to which to be- lieve. Perhaps it is Smith's detractors who are just at this moment the more impetuous and impla- cable, appealing as they do to the churlish feel- ing that delights in seeing long-established rep- utations assailed. Such writers will tell you as positively as if there could be no doubt about it, that Smith was engaged in a plot with two other members of the Council to depose Wingfield from his presideney and establish a " triumvirate " over that tiny woodland company. Others will assert,
1 Smith's Works, p. Ixxii.
4
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THE LAND OF THIE POWHATANS.
with equal confidence, that Wingfield was a tyrant whose ruthless rule became insupportable. A peru- sal of his " Discourse of Virginia," written in 1608 in defence of his conduct, should make it clear, I think, that he was an honourable gentleman. but ill fitted for the trying situation in which he found himself. To control the rations of so many hun- gry men was no pleasant or easy matter. It was charged against Wingfield that he kept back sundry dainties, and especially some wine and spirits for himself and a few favoured friends ; but his quite plausible defence is that he reserved two gallons of sack for the communion table and a few bottles of brandy for extreme emergencies, but the other members of the Council. whose flasks were all empty, "did long for to sup up that little remnant ! " 1 At length a suspicion arose that he intended to take one of the small vessels Wingfield deposed ; Ratcliffe chosen presi- dent, Sept., IGOT. that remained in the river and abandon the colony. Early in September the Council deposed him- and elected John Ratcliffe in his place. A few days later Wingfield was condemned to pay heavy damages to Smith for defaming his character. "Then Master Re- corder," says poor Wingfield, " did very learnedly comfort me that if I had wrong I might bring my writ of error in London ; whereat I smiled. . . . I tould Master President I . . . prayed they would be more sparing of law vntill wee had more witt or wealthe." 2
An awful dignity hedged about the sacred per-
1 Neill's Virginia Company, p. 19.
2 Smith's Works, p. Ixxxiv.
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son of the president of that little colony of fifty men. One day President Ratcliffe beat James Reed, the blacksmith, who so far forgot himself as to strike back, and for that heinous offence was condemned to be hanged ; but when Execution of a member already upon the fatal ladder, and, so of the Council. to speak, in extremis, like Reynard the Fox, the resourceful blacksmith made his peace with the law by revealing a horrid scheme of mutiny conceived by George Kendall, a member of the Council." Of the details of the affair no- thing is known save that Kendall was found guilty, and instead of a plebeian hanging there was an aristocratie shooting. In telling the story Wing- field observes that if such goings-on were to be. heard of in England, " I fear it would drive many well-affected myndes from this honourable action of Virginia."
Wingfield's pamphlet freely admits that Smith's activity in trading with the Indians for corn was of great service to the suffering colony. With the coming of autumn so many wild fowl were shot that the diet was much improved. On the 10th of December Smith started on an exploring expedi- tion up the Chickahominy River. Having gone as far as his shallop would take him, he left seven men to guard it while he went on in a canoe with only two white men and two Indian guides. This little party had arrived at White Oak Swamp, or somewhere in that neighbourhood, when they were suddenly attacked by 200 Indians led by Opekan- kano, a brother of The Powhatan. Smith's two comrades were killed, and he was captured after
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
a sturdy resistance, but not until he had slain two Indians with his pistol. It was quite Smith is captured by Opekan- kano, like the quick-witted man to take out his ivory pocket compass, and to entertain the childish minds of the barbarians with its quiv- ering needle which they could plainly see through the glass, but, strange to say, could not feel when they tried to touch it. Very like him it was to improve the occasion with a brief discourse on star craft, eked out no doubt with abundant ges- ticulation, which may have led his hearers to regard him as a wizard. There seems to have been a difference of opinion among them. They tied Smith to a tree, and the fate of Saint Sebas- tian seemed in store for him, when Opekankano held up the compass ; then the captive was untied, and they marched away through the forest, taking him with them.
It is not at all clear why the red men should have made this attack. Hitherto the Powhatans had seemed friendly to the white men and desirous of an alliance with them. There is a vague tradi- tional impression that Opekankano was one of a party opposed to such a policy ; so that his atti- tude might remind us of the attitude of Montezu- ma's brother Cuitlahuatzin toward the army of Cortes approaching Mexico. Such a view is not improbable. Wingfield, moreover, tells us that two or three years before the arrival of the Eng- lish at Jamestown some white men had ascended a river to the northward, probably the Pamunkey or the Rappahannock, and had forcibly kidnapped some Indians. If there is- truth in this, the kid-
102 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
nappers may have belonged to the ill-fated expedi- tion of Bartholomew Gilbert. Wingfield says that Opekankano carried Smith about the country to several villages to see if anybody could identify him with the leader of that kidnapping who takes him to We- party. Smith's narrative confirms this row oco- moco, Jan., statement, and adds that it was agreed
1608.
that the captain in question was a much taller man than he. His story is full of observa- tions on the country. Opekankano's village con- sisted of four or five communal houses, each about a hundred feet in length, and from the sandy hill in which it stood some scores of such houses could be seen scattered about the plain. At length Smith was brought to Werowocomoco and into the presence of The Powhatan, who received him in just such a long wigwam. The elderly chieftain sat before the fireplace, on a kind of bench, and was covered with a robe of raccoon skins, all with the tails on and hanging like ornamental tassels. Beside him sat his young squaws, a row of women with their faces and bare shoulders painted bright red and chains of white shell beads about their necks stood around by the walls, and in front of them stood the grim warriors.
This was on the 5th of January, 1608, and on the 8th Smith returned to Jamestown, escorted by four Indians. What had happened to him in the interval ? In his own writings we have two differ- ent accounts. In his tract published under the title. " A True Relation," - which was merely a let er written by him in or about June, 1608, to a " worshipful frient", in London and there pub-
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
lished, apparently without his knowledge, in Au- gust, - Smith simply says that The Powhatan treated him very courteously and sent him back to Jamestown. But in the " General History of Virginia," a far more elaborate and circumstantial narrative, published in London in 1624, written partly by Smith himself and partly by others of the colony, we get a much fuller story. We are told that after he had been introduced to The Powhatan's long wigwam, as above described, the Indians debated together and presently two big stones were placed before the chief, and Smith was dragged thither and his head laid upon them ; but even while warriors were by Pocahon- The rescue standing, with clubs in hand, to beat his tas. brains out, the chief's young daughter Pocahontas rushed up and embraced him and laid her head upon his to shield him, whereupon her father spared his life.
For two centuries and a half the later and fuller version of this story was universally ac- cepted while the earlier and briefer was ignored. Every schoolboy was taught the story of Pocahon- tas and John Smith, and for most people I dare say that incident is the only one in the captain's eventful career that is remembered. But in recent times the discrepancy between the earlier and later accounts has attracted attention, and the conclu- sion has been hastily reached that in the more romantic version Smith is simply a liar. It is first assumed that if the Pocahontas Recent at- tempt to discredit incident had really occurred, we should the story. be sure to find it in Smith's own narrative written
104 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
within a year after its occurrence ; and then it is assumed that in later years, when Pocahontas vis- ited London and was lionized as a princess, Smith invented the story in order to magnify his own importance by thus linking his name with hers. By such specious logie is the braggadocio theory of Smith's career supported, and underneath the whole of it lies the tacit assumption that the Poca- hontas incident is an extraordinary one, something that in an Indian community or anywhere would not have been likely to happen.
As this view of the case has been set forth by writers of high repute for scholarship, it has been generally accepted upon their authority ; in many quarters it has become the fashionable view. Yet its utter flimsiness can be exhibited, I think, in very few words.
The first occasion on which Smith mentions his rescue by Pocahontas was the occasion of her arri- val in London, in 1616, as the wife of John Rolfe. In an eloquent letter to King James's queen, Anne of Denmark, he bespeaks the royal favour for the strange visitor from Virginia and extols her good qualities and the kindness she had shown to the colony. In the course of the letter he says " she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine." There were then several persons in London. besides Pocahontas herself, who could have challenged this statement if it had been false, but we do not find that anybody did so.1 In 1624,
1 It is true, this letter of 1616 was first made public in the "General History " in 1624 (see Smith's Works. p. 530) ; so that Smith's detractors may urge that the letter is trumped up and
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
when Smith published his "General History," with its minutely circumstantial account of the affair, why do we not find, even on the part of his enemies, any intimation of Percy's pamphlet, 1625.
the falsity of the story ? Within a year George Percy wrote a pamphlet 1 for the express purpose of picking the " General History " to pieces and discrediting it in the eyes of the pub- lic ; he was one of the original company at James- town. If Smith had not told his comrades of the Pocahontas incident as soon as he had escaped from The Powhatan's clutches, if he had kept si- lent on the subject for years, Perey could not have failed to know the fact and would certainly have used it as a weapon. There were others who could have done the same, and their silence furnishes a very strong presumption of the truth of the story.
Why then did Smith refrain from mentioning it in the letter to a friend in England, written in 1608, while the incidents of his captivity were fresh in his mind? Well, we do The printed text of the " True Rela- tion " is in- complete. not know that he did refrain from men- tioning it, for we do know that the letter, as published in August, 1608, had been tampered with. Smith was in Virginia, and the editor in London expressly states in his Preface that he has omitted a portion of the manuscript : " some- what more was by him written, which being (as I thought) fit to be private, I would not adventure to
was never sent to Queen Anne. If so, the question recurs, Why did not some enemy or hostile critic of Smith in 1624 call atten- tion to so flagrant a fraud ?
1 Brown's Genesis, ii. 964; Neill's Virginia Vetusta, pp. v-x.
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OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
make it public." Nothing could be more explicit. Observe that thus the case of Smith's detractors falls at once to the ground. Their rejection of the Pocahontas story is based upon its absence from the printed text of the "True Relation," but inasmuch as that printed text is avowedly incom- plete no such inference is for a moment admis- sible. For the omitted portion is as likely as not to have been the passage describing Smith's immi- nent peril and rescue.
On this supposition, what could have been the editor's motive in suppressing the passage? We need not go far afield for an answer if we bear in mind the instructions with which the first colonists started, -- "to suffer no man . . . to write [in] any letter of anything that may discourage others." 1 This very necessary and important injunetion may have restrained Smith himself Reason for omitting the Pocahontas incident. from mentioning his deadly peril ; if he did mention it, we can well understand why the person who published the letter should have thought it best to keep the matter private. After a few years had elapsed and the success of the colony was assured, there was no longer any reason for such reticence. My own opinion is that Smith, not intending the letter for publication, told the whole story, and that the sup- pression was the editor's work. It will be remem- bered that in the fight in which he was captured, Smith slew two Indians. In the circumstantial account given in the "General History " we are told that while Opekankano was taking him up and
I See above, p. 76.
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
down the country, a near relative of one of these victims attempted to murder Smith but was pre- vented by the Indians who were guarding him. The "True Relation " preserves this incident, while it omits all reference to the two occasions when Smith's life was officially and deliberately imperilled, the tying to the tree and the scene in The Powhatan's wigwam. One can easily see why the editor's nerves should not have been dis- turbed by the first incident, so like what might happen in England. while the more strange and outlandish exhibitions of the Indian's treatment of captives seemed best to be dropped from the narrative.
But, we are told, the difficulty is not merely one of omission. In the " True Relation " Smith not only omits all reference to Pocahontas, but he says that he was kindly and cour- There is no incongruity between the two narra- tives, except the omis- sion. teously treated by his captors, and this statement is thought to be incompatible with their having decided to beat his brains out. Such an objection shows ignorance of Indian manners. In our own time it has been a common thing for Apaches and Comanches to offer their choicest morsels of food, with their politest bows and smiles, to the doomed captive whose living flesh will in a few moments be hiss- ing under their firebrands. The irony of such a situation is inexpressibly dear to the ferocious hearts of these men of the Stone Age, and Ameri- can history abounds in examples of it. In his fuller account, indeed, Smith describes himself as kindly treated on his way to the scene of exeeu-
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tion 1 and after his rescue. Drop out what hap- pened in the interval and you get the account given in the "True Relation."
Now that omission creates a gap in the "True Relation " such as to fatally damage its credi- The account bility. We are told that Smith, after in the
" General killing a couple of Indians, is taken cap-
History " is
the more tive and carried to the head war-chief's.
probable. wigwam, and is then forsooth allowed to go scot free with no notice taken of the blood debt that he owes to the tribe! To any one who has studied Indians such a story is well-nigh incred- ible. As a prisoner of war Smith's life was already forfeited.2 It is safe to say that no In- dian would think of releasing him without some equivalent ; such an act might incur the wrath of invisible powers. There were various ways of putting captives to death ; torture by slow fire was the favourite mode, but crushing in the skull with tomahawks was quite common, so that when Smith mentions it as decided upon in his case lie is evidently telling the plain truth, and we begin to see that the detailed account in the "General History " is more consistent and probable than the abridged account in the " True Relation."
1 Even in The Powhatan's wigwam, it was only after "having feasted him [Smith] after their best barbarous manner they could," that the Indians brought the stones and prepared to kill him. Smith's Works, p. 400.
2 It is true that in 1608 the Powhatans were still unfamiliar with white men and inclined to dread them as more or less super- natural ; but they had thoroughly learned that fair skins and long beards were no safeguard against disease and death. If they did not know that the JJamestown colony had dwindld to eight-and-thirty men. they knew that their own warriors had slain all Smith's party and taken him captive.
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THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.
The consistency and probability of the story are made complete by the rescue at the hands of Pocahontas. That incident is precisely in accord- anee with Indian usage, but it is not likely that Smith knew enough about such usage to have in- vented it, and his artless way of telling the story is that of a man who is describing what he does not understand. From the Indian point of view there was nothing romantic or extraordinary in such a rescue ; it was simply a not un- common matter of business. The ro- The rescue was in strict accordance with Indian usage. mance with which white readers have always invested it is the outcome of a misconception no less complete than that which led the fair dames of London to make obeisance to the tawny Pocahontas as to a princess of im- perial lineage. Time and again it used to happen that when a prisoner was about to be slaughtered, some one of the dusky assemblage, moved by pity or admiration or some unexplained freak, would interpose in behalf of the victim; and as a rule such interposition was heeded. Many a poor wretch, already tied to the fatal tree and be- numbed with unspeakable terror, while the fire- brands were heating for his torment, has been rescued from the jaws of death, and adopted as brother or lover by some laughing young squaw, or as a son by some grave wrinkled warrior. In such cases the new-comer was allowed entire freedom and treated like one of the tribe. As the blood debt was cancelled by the prisoner's violent death, it was also cancelled by securing his services to the tribe; and any member, old or young, liad
110 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
a right to demand the latter method as a substi- tute for the former. Pocahontas, therefore, did not "hazard the beating out of her own brains," though the rescued stranger, looking with civilized eyes, would naturally see it in that light. Her brains were perfectly safe. This thirteen-year-old squaw liked the handsome prisoner, claimed him, and got him, according to custom. Mark now what happened next. Two days afterward The Powhatan, "having disguised himselfe in the most fearfullest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods, and there vpon a mat by the fire be left alone. Not long after frome behind a mat that divided the house [i. e. a curtain] was made the most dolefullest noyse he ever heard." 1 Then the old chieftain, looking more like the devil than a man, came to Smith and told him that now they were friends and he might go back to Jamestown ; then if he would send to The Powhatan a couple Adoption of of cannon and a grindstone, he should
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