USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 4
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THE ANCIENT VIRGINIANS.
the first time face to face with the Indians in their wood- land haunts. He made their acquaintance at their homes on the banks of the rivers; observed their strange rites and usages; and gathered the details for his picturesque account of them, which enables us to see them as they looked and acted in that old Virginia of nearly three centuries ago.
It is not possible and is unnecessary to reproduce here the full picture of this singular race ; but some of the details, especially those relating to their religious belief, are extremely curious. The experiences of the Eng- lish, first and last, were with the " Powhatans," who inhabited what is now called Tidewater Virginia, from the Chesapeake to the Piedmont. Other tribes lay beyond, and all were doubtless the successors of the Mound-builders ; but of these the English settlers knew little or nothing.
Smith draws for us a full-length portrait of the Vir- ginia savage, - a barbarian guided by impulse, cunning, treacherous, and nursing his grudge. He lived in a wigwam or an arbor built of trees, and dressed in deer- skin ; the women wearing mantles of feathers " ex- ceedingly warm and handsome." Both sexes wore bead necklaces, and tattooed their bodies with puccoon, which is the bloodroot; and the women were subject in all things to their husbands. On the hunting expeditions they carried burdens and built the arbors, while the warriors smoked pipes and looked on. The picture drawn in the old record is somewhat comic. The young Indian women are seen erecting the huts at the end of the long day's march ; and in the slant sunset light the youthful braves practice shooting at a target, for by such manly accomplishments they "get their wives "
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
from among the dusk beauties working at the sylvan arbors !
The most curious feature of this curious race was their religion. There is no evidence that they had any conception of a beneficent Creator. Their god was Okee, or "The One Alone called Kiwassa," the spirit of Evil. They feared and worshiped him as they wor- shiped Force in all its manifestations, - fire that burned them, water that drowned them, the thunder and light- ning, and the English cannon when they came. As to a good god, there was no such being; if there was, it was unnecessary to worship him. They need not take the trouble to conciliate such a deity, since from the nature of things he would not injure them. As to Okee, or the One Alone called Kiwassa, it was different. This Evil one was to be propitiated, and they made images of him, decorated with copper, which they set up in temples hidden in the woods ; and endeav- ored "to fashion themselves as near to his shape as they could imagine."
The great national temple was at Uttamussac, on York River. Here, on "certain red sandy hills in the woods, were three great houses filled with images of their kings and devils, and tombs of their predecessors." In these "sepulchres of their kings" were deposited the royal corpses, embalmed and wrapped in skins; and each district of the kingdom had its temple. At the shrines priests kept watch - hideous figures, with dried snakes' skins falling from their heads on their shoulders, as they shook rattles and chanted hoarsely the greatness of the deity. These priests were chosen and set aside by a strange ceremony. Once a year, twenty of the handsomest youths, from ten to fifteen,
29
THE ANCIENT VIRGINIANS.
were "painted white " and placed at the foot of a tree in the presence of a great multitude. Then the sav- ages, armed with clubs, ranged themselves in two ranks, leaving a lane to the tree, through which five young men were to pass, in turn, and carry off the children. As the young men passed through this lane with the children in their arms they were "fiercely beaten," but thought of nothing but shielding the children, while the women wept and cried out " very passionately." The tree was then torn down and the boughs woven into wreaths, and the children were " cast on a heap in a valley as dead." Here Okee, or Kiwassa, sucked the blood from the left breast of such as were " his by lot," until they were dead; and the rest were kept in the wilderness by the five young men for nine months, after which they were set aside for the priesthood.
Thus Okee was the god who sucked the blood of children - a sufficient description of him. The bravest warriors inclined before his temple with abject fear. In going up or down the York, by the mysterious Utta- mussac shrine, they solemnly cast copper, or beads, or puccoon into the stream to propitiate him, and made long strokes of the paddle to get away from the danger- ous neighborhood.
As to their views of a future life, the reports differed. According to one account, they believed in "the im- mortality of the soul, when, life departing from the body, according to the good or bad works it hath done, it is carried up to the tabernacles of the gods to per- petual happiness, or to Popogusso, a great pit which they think to be at the farthest parts of the world where the sun sets, and there burn continually." Another account attributes to them the belief that the human
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
soul was extinguished, like the body, at deatlı. To this the priests were an exception. The One Alone called Kiwassa was their friend. When they died they went " beyond the mountains toward the setting of the sun," and there, with plenty of tobacco to smoke, and plumes on their heads, and bodies painted with puccoon, they enjoyed a happy immortality.
It was a grim faith - the human soul groping in thick darkness ; shrinking from the lightning cutting it, and the harsh reverberation of the god's voice in the thunder. But beyond the sunset on the Blue Mountains was peace at last, where they would "do nothing but dance and sing with all their predecessors." Whether they wished or expected to see the One Alone called Kiwassa there, we are not informed. He was never seen by mortal, it seems, in this world or the next. And yet it was known that he had come to earth once. On a rock below Richmond, about a mile from James River, may still be seen gigantic foot-prints about five feet apart. These were the foot-prints of Kiwassa, as he walked through the land of Powhatan.1
Thus all was primitive and picturesque about this singular race. They were without a written language, but had names for each other, for the seasons, and every natural object. The years were counted by win- ters or cohonks -a word coined from the cry of the wild geese passing southward at the beginning of win- ter. They reckoned five seasons - the Budding or Blossoming, which was spring; the Corn-earing time, early summer; the Highest Sun, full summer ; the Fall of the Leaf, autumu; and Cohonks, wiuter. The months
1 These singular impressions are on the present estate of " Pow- hatan " - the site of the old Imperial residence. Their origin is un- known.
1
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TIIE ANCIENT VIRGINIANS.
were counted by moons, and named after their products : as the Moon of Strawberries, the Moon of Stags, the Moon of Corn, and the Moon of Cohonks. The day was divided into three parts : Sunrise, the Full Sunpower, and the Sunset. They had many festivals, as at the com- ing of the wild-fowl, the return of the hunting season, and the great Corn-gathering celebration. At a stated time every year the whole tribe feasted, put out all the old fires, kindled new by rubbing pieces of wood to- gether, and all crimes but murder were then pardoned; it was considered in bad taste even to allude to them. One other ceremony, the Huskanawing, took place every fourteen years, when the young men were taken to spots in the woods, intoxicated on a decoction from cer- tain roots, and when brought back were declared to be thenceforth warriors.
This outline of the aboriginal Virginians will define their character. They were, in the fullest sense of the term, a peculiar people, and had, in addition to the above traits, one other which ought not to be passed over - they were content to be ruled by women. Of this singular fact there is no doubt, and it quite over- turns the general theory that the Indian women were despised subordinates. When Smith was captured, he was waited upon by the " Queen of Appomattock ; " there was a " Queen of the Paspaheglis," and the old histo- rian Beverley, speaking of the tribes about the year 1700, tells us Pungoteague was governed by "a Queen," that Nanduye was the seat of " the Empress," and that this empress had the shore tribes " under tribute." To this, add the singular statement made by Powhatan, that his kingdom would descend to his brothers, and afterwards to his sisters, though he had sons living.
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
Such were the Virginia Indians, a race not at all re- sembling the savages of other lands; tall in person, vigorous, stoical, enduring pain without a murmur; slow in maturing revenge, but swift to strike; worshiping the lightning and thunder as the flash of the eyes and the hoarse voice of their unseen god; without pity ; passionately fond of hunting and war ; children of the woods, with all the primitive impulses ; loving little, hating inveterately ; a strange people, which, on the plains of the West to-day, are not unlike what they were in Virginia nearly three centuries ago. The old chroni- cles, with the rude pictures, give us their portraits. We may fancy them going to war in their puccoon paint, paddling swiftly in their log canoes on the Tidewater rivers ; dancing and yelling at their festivals ; creeping stealthily through the woods to attack the English ; darting quickly by the shadowy temple of Uttamussac in the woods of the York, and shrinking with terror as the voice of Okee roars in the thunder.
The Emperor Powhatan (his public and official name, his family name being Wahunsonacock) ruled over thirty tribes, 8000 square miles, and 8000 subjects, of whom about 2400 were fighting men. Part of his territories came by conquest, but he inherited the country from where Richmond now stands to Gloucester, though the Chickahominy tribe, about three hundred warriors, dis- owned his authority. He was a man of ability, both in war and peace ; greatly feared by his subjects, and holding the state of a king. At his chief places of resi- dence, -- Powhatan, below Richmond, Orapax, on the Chickahominy, and Werowocomoco, on the York, - he was waited on by his braves and wives, of whom he had a large number ; and it is plain from the chronicles
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POCAHONTAS.
that his will was treated with implicit respect. He was indeed the head and front of the state - a monarch whose jus divinum was much more fully recognized than the jus divinum of his Majesty James I. in Eng- land. He ruled by brains as well as by royal descent, by might as well as of right. On important occasions, as when going to war, a great council or parliament of the tribes assembled ; but the old Emperor seems to have been the soul of these assemblies, and quite at one with his nobles. In theory he was only the first gentleman in his kingdom, but his will was the constitution, and his authority sacred ; " when he listed his word was law."
When Smith came to stand before this king of the woods in his court, it was Europe and America brought face to face ; civilization and the Old World in physical contact with barbarism and the New.
VIL
POCAHONTAS.
SMITH began his famous voyage toward the South Sea on a bitter December day of 1607. It is not prob- able that the unknown ocean was in his thoughts at all ; life at Jamestown was monotonous, and he and his good companions in the barge would probably meet with adventures. If these were perilous they would still be welcome, for the ardent natures of the time relished peril ; and, turning his barge head into the Chickahominy, Smith ascended the stream until the shallows stopped him. He then procured a canoe and some Indian guides, and continued his voyage with only
3
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
two companions, leaving the rest of the men behind to await his return.
The result of the canoe voyage was unfortunate in the extreme. Having reached a point in what is now the White Oak Swamp, east of Richmond, - he calls the place Rassaweak, - he landed with an Indian guide, was attacked by a band of Indians, and having sunk in a marsh was captured and taken before their chief, Ope- chancanough, brother of the Emperor Powhatan. The Indians had attacked and killed two of the English left behind, and Smith was now bound to a tree and ordered to be shot to death. A trifle saved his life. He ex- hibited a small ivory compass which he always carried, and explained by signs as far as possible the properties of the magnetic needle. It is improbable that the In- dian chief comprehended this scientific lecture, but he saw the needle through the glass cover and yet could not touch it, which was enough. Smith was released and fed plentifully, and they finally set out with him on a triumphal march through the land of Powhatan. They traversed the New Kent "desert," crossed the Pamunkey, Mattapony, and Rappahannock to the Po- tomac region, and then, returning on their steps, con- ducted the prisoner to Werowocomoco, the " Chief Place of Council " of the Emperor Powhatan.
This old Indian capital was in Gloucester, on York River, about twenty-five miles below the present West Point. The exact site is supposed to have been " Shelly," an estate of the Page family, where great banks of oyster shells and the curious ruin, "Pow- liatan's chimney," seem to show that the Emperor held his court. Smith was brought before him as a distin- guished captive, and his fate seemed sealed. He had
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POCAHONTAS.
killed two of his Indian assailants in the fight on the Chickahominy, and it was tolerably certain that his ene- mies would now beat out his brains. His description of the scene, and especially of the Indian Emperor, is picturesque. Powhatan was a tall and gaunt old man with a "sour look," and sat enthroned on a couch, cov- ered with mats, in front of a fire. He was wrapped in a robe of raccoon skins, which he aftewards offered as an imperial present to the King of England, and beside him sat or reclined, his girl-wives. The rest of the In- dian women, nearly nude, stained red with puccoon and decorated with shell necklaces, were ranged against the walls of the wigwam, and the dusky warriors were drawn up in two lines to the right and left of the Emperor.
The prisoner was brought in before this imposing as- semblage, and at first there seemed a possibility that he might escape with his life. The " Queen of Appomat- tock " brought him water in a wooden bowl to wash his hands ; another a bunch of feathers to use as a towel ; and then " a feast was spread for him after their best barbarous fashion." But his fate had been decided upon. Two stones were brought in and laid on the ground in front of the Emperor, and what followed is succinctly related in the old narrative. Smith was seized, dragged to the stones, his head forced down on one of them, and clubs were raised to beat out his brains, when Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, interposed and saved him. The description of the scene is concise. The Indian girl, a child of twelve or thir- teen, ran to him, " got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death ; " whereupon the Emperor relented and ordered his life to be spared.1
1 The questions connected with this incident will be examined else- where-
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
A kind Providence had thus preserved the soldier, but he was to remain with Powhatan to make " bells, beads, and copper," for Pocahontas. It was a very curious fate for the hardy campaigner of the Turkish wars, to be buried in the Virginia woods, the fashioner of toys for an Indian girl.
Pocahontas was the favorite daughter of the Em- peror, and Smith describes her as the most attractive of the Indian maids ; " for features, countenance, and ex- pression, she much exceeded any of the rest." Her figure was probably slight. " Of so great a spirit, how- ever her stature," was the description of her afterwards, when she had grown up and visited London. Her dress was a robe of doeskin lined with down from the breast of the wood pigeon, and she wore coral bracelets on wrists and ankles, and a white plume in her hair, the badge of royal blood. It must have been a very in- teresting woodland picture - the soldier, with tanned face and sweeping mustache, shaping trinkets for the small slip of Virginia royalty in her plumes and brace- lets. A few words of the chronicle give us a glimpse of it, and the curtain falls.
The soldier remained with Powhatan until early in the next January (1608). They had sworn eternal friendship, and the Emperor offered to adopt him and give him the "country of Capahowsick " for a duke- dom. It is probable that Smithi received this proposal with enthusiasm, but he expressed a strong desire to pay a visit to Jamestown, and the Emperor finally per- mitted him to depart. He traveled with an escort and reached Jamestown in safety. His Indian guard were supplied with presents for Powhatan and his family, a cannon shot was fired into the ice-laden trees for their
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POCAHONTAS.
gratification, and overwhelmed with fright, they fled into the woods.
The soldier had not spent a very merry Christmas on the banks of the York, and was not going to enjoy a happy New Year at Jamestown. The place was "in combustion," and the little colony seemed going to de- struction. The new President, Ratcliffe, had revived the project of seizing the Pinnace. This was the only ves- sel, and he meant to escape in it to England - in other words to desert his comrades and leave them to their fate. As long as they had the Pinnace they might save themselves by abandoning the country. Now Ratcliffe and his fellow conspirators intended to take away this last hope.
Smith reached Jamestown on the very day (January 8, 1608) when the conspirators were about to sail. They had gone on board the Pinnace and were raising anchor when Smith's heavy hand fell on them. " With the hazard of his life, with sakre falcon and musket- shot " he compelled them "now the third time to stay or sink." With that harsh thunder dogging them, Rat- cliffe and his companions surrendered, in the midst of wild commotion. But their party was powerful and a curious blow was struck at Smith. He was formally charged "under the Levitical law" with the death of the men slain by the Indians on the Chickahominy. The punishment was death; but the "lawyers," as he calls them, were dealing with a resolute foe. Smith suddenly arrested his intended judges, and sent them under guard on board the Pinnace, where Ratcliffe and his accomplice Wingfield awaited his further pleasure in momentary fear of death.
All this turmoil and " combustion " had arisen from
-
-
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
sheer starvation. The English were without food, and the fearful summer of 1607 seemed about to be re- peated. Suddenly Providence came to their rescue. A band of Indians bending down under baskets of corn and venison made their appearance from the direction of York River and entered the fort. At the head of the "wild train " was Pocahontas : the Indian girl of her own good heart had brought succor to the perish- ing colony ; and she afterwards traversed the woods be- tween the York and Jamestown "ever once in four or five days" bringing food, which "saved many of their lives that elsc, for all this, had starved for hunger." We are informed that the colonists were profoundly touched by this " love of Pocahontas," and their name for her thereafter was " the dear and blessed Pocahon- tas." Long afterwards Smith recalled these days to memory, and wrote in his letter to the Queen, "During the time of two or three years she, next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine and utter confusion, which, if in those days had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day."
These incidents paint the picture of the colony in the winter of 1607. Nearly a year after the settlement it had not taken root, and as far as any one could see it was not going to do so. The elements of disintegra- tion seemed too strong for it. The men were gloomy and discouraged ; " but for some few that were gen- tlemen by birth, industry and discretion," wrote Smith, "we could not possibly have subsisted." The loss of life by the summer epidemic had been terrible indeed, but what was worse was the loss of hope. The little society was nearly disorganized. Rival factions bat
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POCAHONTAS.
tled for the mastery. Conspiracies were formed to de- sert the country ; and a general discontent and loss of energy seemed to foretell the sure fate of the whole enterprise.
What was the explanation of this impatience, in- subordination, and discouragement ? These " gentlemen, laborers, carpenters" and others, were fair representa- tives of their classes in England ; and in England they had been industrious, and respectable members of the community. Many persons of low character were after- wards sent to Virginia by James I., but the first " sup- plies " were composed of excellent material. Smith, Percy, and many more were men of very high character, and the wars with the savages clearly showed that the settlers generally could be counted on for courage and endurance. Why, then, was the Virginia colony going to destruction ?
The reply is easy. Their rulers were worthless, and above all, the unhappy adventurers had no home ties. They were adrift in the wilderness without wives or children, and had little or no incentive to perform honest work. The result duly followed : they became idle and difficult to rule. It was bad enough to have over them such men as Wingfield and Ratcliffe, but the absence of the civilizing element, wives and children, was fatal. Later settlers in other parts of the country, brought their families, and each had his home and hearthstone. These first Americans had neither. When they came home at night - or to the hut which they called home-no smiles welcomed them. When they worked it was under compulsion; why should they labor ? The " common kettle " from which they took their dreary meals would be supplied by others. So the idlers grew
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
ever idler ; the days passed in crimination and angry discussion one with another. The Virginia adventurers were steadily losing all hope of bringing the enterprise to a successful issue, and were looking with longing eyes back toward England as the place of refuge from all their woes.
Such was the state of things behind the palisades of Jamestown at the beginning of 1608. The original hundred men had dwindled to thirty or forty. This remnant was torn by faction. There was no food for the morrow. Without Pocahontas and her corn-bearers it seemed certain that the Virginia plantation would miserably end. At this last moment succor came. A white sail was seen in James River, and whether Span- iard or English, friend or foe, they would be supplied with bread. The new-comers were friends. The Lon- don Company had sent out two slips under Captain Newport, with men and provisions, and this was one of them. For the time the plantation was saved.
VIII. A YEAR OF INCIDENTS.
WITH the opening spring (1608) cheerfulness re- turned. The sun was shining after the dreary winter ; the English ship had brought supplies; and the new colonists, fresh from home, gave them home news and revived their spirits. For a time, therefore, the growlers and croakers were silenced ; bustle followed the sombre quiet ; and a new spirit of life seemed to be infused into the colony.
The year which followed was full of movement, and
41
A YEAR OF INCIDENTS.
presents an admirable picture of the times and men, which is after all the true end of history. The best history is no doubt the chronicle which shows us the actual human beings - what manner of lives they lived, and how they acted in the midst of their environment ; and this is found in the original relations written by the Virginia adventurers. The full details must be sought for in the writings themselves - here a summary only is possible.
The two prominent figures of the year 1608 are Smith and Newport. We have seen the soldier now in too many emergencies to misunderstand his character ; the character of Newport was nearly the precise contrast. He was "an empty, idle man," according to the old settlers, who charged him with tale-bearing ; and was, probably, a man of the world and a courtier of the Lon- dou authorities, looking to his own profit. His stay in Virginia was brief, but was marked by interesting in- cidents. He went to trade with Powhatan, and that astute savage outwitted him. Announcing to his visitor that " it was not agreeable to his greatness to trade in a peddling manner," Powhatan proposed that Newport should produce his commodities, for which he should receive their fair value. Newport did so, and the Em- peror, selecting the best of everything, returned him four bushels of corn. But Smith, who accompanied the expedition, received two or three hundred bushels for some glass beads - the first chapter in the dealings be- tween the white and red people.
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