USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 9
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The proof of this is seen in the details of her last in- terview with Smith, who was in England at the time of her arrival. The wandering soldier, whom she had known in Virginia, was now a celebrity. He had just returned from France, after his capture off the Azores, had received from the King the appointment of " Ad- miral of New England," and was a favorite with Prince Charles, afterwards the unfortunate Charles I. He was making preparations to sail for New England when Pocahontas arrived at Gravesend, and her presence in England revived all his old affection for lier. He wrote a letter to Queen Anne, warmly recommending her to the royal favor, and declared that he would be guilty of
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" the deadly poison of ingratitude " if he omitted any occasion to record her merit. More than once she had preserved his life, first by " hazarding the beating out of her brains to save his," and again by stealing through " the dark night and irksome woods " to warn him of an intended attack. Her services to Virginia had been as great as those to himself ; she had been the instru- ment, under God, to preserve the colony from destruc- tion, and he invoked the royal favor as due to her "great spirit, her desert, birth, want, and simplicity." The letter had the desired result, and attracted attention to Pocahontas ; and Smith went to call on her near Lon- don.
The interview was brief, but of a very curious nature. Smith approached her with deep respect, addressing her as " Lady Rebecca; " but this seemed to offend her, and, covering her face with her hands, she remained for some time silent. When she spoke, it was to reproach him for his formality.
" You did promise Powhatan," she said, " that what was yours should be his. You called him Father, being in his land a stranger - and fear you here I should call you Father ? I tell you, then, I will; and you shall call me child." And she added, " They did tell me al- ways you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plymouth."
These latter words have suggested the curious ques- tion whether Pocahontas had been designedly deceived, either by Rolfe or his friends, on the subject of Smith's death. Had she conceived for the young soldier a warmer sentiment than simple regard, and had that fact explained her absence from Jamestown after his departure ? Her age might seem to contradict the
LAST DAYS OF POCAHONTAS AND POWHATAN. 103 supposition ; but the Indian girls married young, and when Smith left Virginia Pocahontas was fifteen. Of her real feelings we know nothing ; but some one had cer- tainly produced the conviction in her mind that Smith was dead. She fully believed it up to the time of her arrival in England ; and she had married Rolfe under that belief. The romantic view will commend itself to youthful readers, and may be the truth. As to the sentiment of Smith, there is no reason to suppose that he ever indulged in any romance in relation to the In- dian maid. His life at Jamestown was hard and pas- sionate ; his days were spent in fighting the factions and defending himself from mutineers, and such a life is not propitious to love dreams.
Pocahontas died suddenly at Gravesend, in March, 1617, just as she was on the point of sailing for Vir- ginia. She made " a religious and godly end," and was buried in the parish church, where her name was registered, after the careless fashion of the time, as " Re- becca Wrothe." The church was afterwards burned, and the exact spot of her grave is unmarked. Ouly a few additional details are known of this beautiful and romantic character. She bore three names - Pocahon- tas, Amonate, and Matoax, the last being her "real name." It was rarely uttered, as the Indians believed that a knowledge of the real names of persons gave their enemies power to cast spells upon them. Pocahontas, signifying, it is said, "Bright Stream between two Hills," was her household name, and she was Pow- hatan's " dearest daughter." Her brother, Nantaquaus, and her sisters, Matachanna and Cleopatre, are men- tioned. As she was probably born in 1595, she was only twenty-two when she died - a brief and pathetic
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career, which has appealed to the human heart in every generation.
John Rolfe returned to Virginia, where he became a prominent official of the colony ; and his son, Thomas Rolfe, was taken to London, where he was brought up by an uncle. When he was a young man he came to Virginia, and as " Lieutenant Rolfe " commanded Fort James, on the Chickahominy. Only one other trace is found of him. When he was about twenty-six (1641), we hear of his petition to the Governor for permis- sion to visit his grand-uncle Opechancanough, and his aunt Cleopatre - denizens still, it would seem, of the woods on York River. He married, before this time or afterwards, a young lady in England, became a gentleman of "note and fortune " in Virginia, and some of the most respectable families in the State are de- scended from him. One of his descendants was John Randolph, of Roanoke, who was proud of his Indian blood. His manner of walking and the peculiar bright- ness of his eyes are said to have betrayed his origin, and he once said that he came of a race who never for- got or forgave an injury. He was sixth in descent from Pocahontas through Jane Rolfe, her granddaugh- ter ; and it is curious that the blood of Powhatan should thus have mingled with that of his old enemies. Dead for many a day, and asleep in his sepulchre at Orapax, the savage old Emperor still spoke in the voice of his great descendant, the orator of Roanoke.
Powhatan does not again appear upon the stage in Virginia. He liad abdicated, some time before, in favor of his brother, Opitchapan, and lived the life of a re- tired sovereign, going from place to place at his pleas- ure, still venerated by his people, but taking no part in
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LAST DAYS OF POCAHONTAS AND POWHATAN. 105 public affairs. It was Charles V. in private life, - an ex-emperor awaiting the end. The end soon came. Powhatan was now past seventy, and the death of Poca- hontas had been a severe blow to him. He went about from Werowocomoco, to Machot, to Orapax, to Pow- hatan, lamenting her. It was some comfort that her child was living, and he expressed a deep interest in the boy, but was never to see him. He finally ceased his journeys, and retired to Orapax " in the desert." Here he spent his last days, and died in 1618, - a year fur- ther remarkable for the death of Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Delaware, - just one year after the death of Pocahontas. He was no doubt buried in the immedi- ate vicinity, for about a mile from Orapax was an ar- bor in the woods, where he kept his treasures "against the time of his death and burial ; " and here, near the present Cold Harbor, his dust probably reposes.
Powhatan was a man of ability, and rises to the height of an important historical personage. He was a war- rior and statesman both, and may be described in gen- eral terms as a subtle diplomat and a relentless enemy. He butchered one of his tribes, the Pianketanks, who rebelled against him, reducing the women and children to slavery, and hanging the scalps of the warriors on a cord, between two trees, near his royal residence. On other occasions he burned his enemies alive, or beat them to death, and was thus not a model of the Chris- tian virtues. He was simply a type of the Indian race in its strongest and harshest development; cunning and treacherous, but a man of large brain and a certain re- gal dignity ; full of pride, persistent resolve, and a born ruler. He loved his children, and was profoundly re- spected by his people, who recognized his jus divinum.
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Throughout his land of Powhatan, with his eight thou- sand subjects and thirty under-kings, he was absolute master, and controlled all things by unwritten custom and the force of his will. He opposed the English as long as possible; made every effort to overcome them and put them to death, or drive them from the country ; and finding it impossible to do so, silently gave up the struggle. At last, old and weary of authority, and mourning his dead daughter, he surrendered the sceptre and the rule, and retired to Orapax to die.
It is a picturesque figure of the old years of Virginia, and takes its place beside the figure of Smith, his per- sistent adversary. The one was the representative In- dian of the American forest; the other, the representa- tive Caucasian of the great age of Elizabeth. Between the two hardy forms thus standing on the threshold of Virginia history, we have a third and more gracious figure, - the Indian girl, whose kind heart and brave spirit belong to no clime or race.
XVIII.
VIRGINIA UNDER A WATCH-DOG AND A HAWK.
THESE personal details relating to Pocahontas and Powhatan have carried us forward in the narrative. Let us now go back to the days of the valiant and re- ligious Sir Thomas Dale, High Marshal of Virginia, who, when Gates returned to England, became Gov- ernor of the colony.
It is a very singular figure, that of the hardy knight, with his martial instincts and love of divinity harmo- niously combined. He was a rude antagonist, but a
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devout Christian. He "labored long to ground the faith of Jesus Christ " in Pocahontas, and wrote to a friend in London that all his work in the plantation of Virginia was undertaken "for God's cause and his immortal honor." Such is the curious picture. The character of the Marshal exhibited the sharpest con- trasts. He was a stalwart soldier and ruler, a student of divinity, and a man of good conscience ; but he was a wily diplomatist also, and not above intrigue. He no doubt meant to practice a trick when he applied to Powhatan to give him his daughter in marriage ; and the cruelties inflicted on the conspirators paint the harsher phase of the man. But all these singular con- trasts mingled in the High Marshal's character, which was brave and politic, harsh and devout, mildly courte- eous and pitilessly stern. He carried fire and sword into the land of Powhatan ; labored to convert Poca- hontas, of whom he wrote, "Were it but for the gain- ing of this one soul, I will think my time, toils, and present stay well spent ; " established the new colony of Varina; ruled all, high and low ; and was now going to give an additional proof of his energy, if not of his good conscience.
The rumor came that the French had intruded on the soil of Virginia. The intrusion was a long way off, it is true, as far away as Nova Scotia; but for the French or any others to settle south of the forty-fifth parallel was an encroachment on the sacred soil. At least, Sir Thomas Dale took that view of the matter, and sent an expedition to expel the intruders. It was commanded by Captain Argall, the energetic adventurer who had captured Pocahontas. He sailed for Acadia in 1613, found the French had made a settlement at
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Mount Desert Island, fell suddenly on them when they least suspected the presence of danger, and, pursuing them through the woods, shot down or captured the whole body. At one blow the Mount Desert colony was exterminated. Argall carried away with him about fifteen prisoners; the rest he generously permitted to re- turn to France in a fishing vessel.
It would be a waste of time to comment upon this proceeding. It was simple buccaneering. The French had settled in Acadia as early as the year 1604, and by the charter of 1606 the English claimed in the New World only such territory as was not "actually pos- sessed by any Christian prince or people." Now, as the King of France was a Christian prince, and did actually possess Acadia in the year 1606, Argall's expedition was no more defensible than the expeditions of Morgan or any other marauder of the West Indies. But nice scruples no more controlled men in that age than they control them to-day. The Spaniards and French were enemies, and were to be driven from Virginia soil, which for convenience meant the whole of North America.
Argall raised the English flag, and sailed away in triumph. On his way he found other intruders on Vir- ginia territory : some Dutch, who had presumed to erect a trading settlement at the present site of Albany, in New York. He sailed up the Hudson, summoned the commandant to surrender, and the demand was at once complied with. But the worthy Hollanders had no in- tention to go away. As soon as Argall's sails disap- peared on their way to Virginia, the Dutch flag was raised again, and all went on as before. The intruders even extended their sway southward. Soon afterwards (1614), they founded a second trading settlement on
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Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson, which in due time was to become the great city of New York.
Dale was an excellent Governor. Under his firm administration the colony prospered. He was the au- thor, especially, of a new system, which changed the whole aspect of affairs in Virginia. Up to this time, the old bad practice of bringing all things to " the common store " had continued. Through all the first years the colony had groaned under it. It was a premium for idle- ness, and just suited the drones, who, " presuming that, however the harvest prospered, the general store must maintain them," promptly decided that it was unneces- sary to work themselves, since others would work for them. Thirty or forty industrious people had thus been compelled to support four times their number, and a worse evil still had resulted. Virginia was evil spoken of: " from the slothful and idle drones had sprung the man- ifold imputations Virginia had innocently undergone." This was now done away withi; the working bees were no longer to provide for the drones. The old homeless system was abolished at one blow. Every man was to have his own hearth-stone and his own private tract, - three acres of cleared ground, which he was to cultivate himself, bringing two barrels and a half of corn from it to the public granary. All above this was to be his own, and the result was soon seen. Having an indi- vidual interest, the settlers labored honestly, and instead of a deficiency there was a surplus. In the past they had been forced to apply to the Indians in time of need; now the Indians applied in turn, and were supplied.
In 1615 this system was extended further. Dale in. duced the London Company to grant fifty acres in fee simple to each colonist who would clear and settle them,
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and pay a nominal rent to the King yearly "at the feast of St. Michael the Archangel," as the old deeds ran. Any one paying into the treasury the sum of twelve pounds ten shillings should be entitled to one hundred acres, to be located where he pleased. And whoever performed a public service to the Company or the col- ony was to be rewarded with a grant not to exceed two thousand acres.
Thus began in Virginia the absolute tenure of real estate. It rested on a respectable basis : the men who labored and did the state service were to be the land- holders.
When, in 1616, Sir Thomas Dale returned to Eng- land, in the same ship with Pocahontas, his strong hand had left its impress on the whole fabric of Virginia society. Order everywhere reigned, and the land was at peace. It contained three hundred and fifty inhab- itants, -or, probably, heads of families, - and a chain of settlements extended from Varina to the ocean : Henrico, Bermuda, West and Shirley Hundreds, James- town, Kiquotan, and Dale's Gift on the sea-coast, near Cape Charles. There was a college for Indian children at the City of Henricus, where the Rev. William Wick- ham officiated as minister ; and Governor George Yeard- ley, left in charge of the colony, had a house, and for the most part of the time resided there. At the capi- tal, Jamestown, were fifty settlers, under Captain Fran- cis West, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke, of the Sea-Venture, was the minister.
Thus Virginia was growing and developing. The new Governor, Yeardley, was a man of mild character und respectable ability ; and in the year 1616 introduced the cultivation of tobacco, whichi John Rolfe had experi-
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mented with some years before. The Indians smoked it, but were obliged to cultivate it, as it did not grow wild ; and finding that it was prized in Europe, the settlers began to plant it. The demand steadily in- creased with the habit of using it, and a few years afterwards it became the great staple of Virginia.
Suddenly Yeardley's rule, which had been "temperate and just, too mild indeed for many of this colony," ended. He was replaced by a personage whose rule was not going to be temperate or mild - Captain Sam- uel Argall, of Acadian memory. Argall is one of the most dramatic figures of that dramatic age - wily, energetic, rapacious, a human hawk, peering about in search of some prey to pounce on. He was trader, fisherman, intriguer, and a little of the buccaneer ; ever going to and fro in search of something to profit by ; ready to capture Indian girls, or burn settlements, or "run" a cargo of slaves. He performed this latter exploit, and was nearly the author of the introduction of slavery into America; for he had sailed to the West Indies, captured a number of negroes from the Span- iards, and they were landed in the Bermudas instead of Virginia, only by accident. Argall's restless spirit had carried him back to England, after the Acadian business. There he had intrigued with the Earl of Warwick, the head of the court party, and the result was that in 1617 he was sent to supersede Yeardley, with the title of Deputy Governor and Admiral of Virginia.
When he took the reins it was seen that the days of " temperate and mild " rule had passed away. He re- vived martial law, and ruled the colony with a rod of iron. He fixed the percentage of profit on goods and
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regulated the price of tobacco, attaching the penalty of three years' "slavery to the colony," or public labor, to violations of his edicts. For teaching the Indians the use of fire-arms, the punishment was death to teacher and pupil. Absence from church was visited with a night's imprisonment and a week's "slavery ; " for the second offense, a month of slavery ; and for the third, a year and a day. These regulations were severe, but the "unruly " element probably required severity, and Argall was not the man to shrink from it. Unfortu- nately for his good name, he was grasping and unscru- pulous in whatever concerned his own private interests. The case of Brewster, manager of Lord Delaware's Virginia estates, is an example. Argall ordered the laborers on the estate to labor on his own, and when Brewster demurred Argall arrested him for mutiny, tried him by court-martial, and condemned him to death. He barely escaped from the hawk's clutches, and got back to England ; but once there, he made such an outcry that the Company lost all patience with Argall. He was superseded, but acted with his usual decision. Before the arrival of the new Governor, he loaded a vessel with the proceeds of his "plunder," and sailed away from the colony. To the last, fortune befriended him. He was knighted by James I., as a reward for his public services - otherwise his close adherence to the court party in the Company. The portrait drawn of him here is that which appears on the face of the record. There is no doubt at all that he was rapacious and despotic, but both Dale and Hamor had a high opinion of him. His ability and energy were unquestionable ; and he was perhaps only another example of the singular contrasts presented in the characters of the strong men of that strong age.
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THE FIRST AMERICAN ASSEMBLY.
George Yeardley came back (April 19, 1619) as Sir George Yeardley, Governor-General of Virginia. His friends must have welcomed his mild and honest face, after the hawk visage of Argall ; but he brought with him certain documents which made him thrice welcome in Virginia. When their contents were pro- claimed, a thrill ran through the colony, and shouts and cheers must have risen from the Varina settlement all along James River to Dale's Gift on the ocean.
Virginia, thenceforward, was to have representative government.
XIX.
THE FIRST AMERICAN ASSEMBLY AND CONSTITUTION.
THIS wonder was the unconscious work of that bit- ter enemy of free discussion and popular right, King James I.
When the ship bearing the body of the good Ad- miral Somers from Bermuda reached England, the crew brought with them a large lump of ambergris, which they had found on the islands, and gave glowing de- scriptions of their fertility and value. This account excited the Company, and they petitioned the King to include the Bermudas in the territory of Virginia. He did so by a new charter in March, 1612, and this was tlie remote cause of free government in Virginia. The charter, which was the old one of 1609 remodeled, had far more important provisions than tlie concession of the right to the Bermudas. Virginia had hitherto been governed by the London Council. The Company met only at long intervals, and thus the Council were the real administrators. Now all was changed. Authority 8
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was given the Company to sit once a week, or as often as they chose, and to hold four "General Courts" in the year for the consideration of affairs. It was a dangerous force which the King had unloosed. A lit- tle reflection might have shown him that the times were dangerous ; that the royal prerogative and popu- lar right were at issue ; and that the creation of a great democratic assembly for free discussion was a perilous step. By the charter the Company had " full powers and authority to make such laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said plantation as to them, from time to time, should be thought requisite and meet," always provided that the laws and ordinances were not contrary to " the laws and statutes of this our realm of England."
The occasion was tempting. A great question was then agitating the realm of England : whether the will of the King or the rights of the people were to be the "law." The new world was coming, and its shadow ran before. The great quarterly courts met, and the aspiring spirits of the Company, restive under the old order of things and sworn foes to the absolutist prin- ciple, proceeded to open and turbulent discussion of the great issue. The King had raised a storm which he could not control. London rang with the proceedings of this great parliament of Virginia adventurers. The meetings were thronged, and the debates were tumult- uous. It was a power within a power, and foretold the Long Parliament. "The Virginia Courts are but a semi- nary to a seditious parliament," the Spanish ambassa- dor told James ; and twenty years afterwards the words were seen to be true.
The result of the struggle was a triumph of the Vir-
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ginia party over the court party - of popular right over the prerogative of the King. Virginia thencefor- ward was to have what was substantially free govern- ment. The new Governor, Sir George Yeardley, was to summon a " General Assembly," elected by the inhab- itants, every free man voting, which was to make laws for the government of the country. Yeardley arrived in April, 1619, and issued his summons in June ; and on July 30, 1619, the first legislative body that ever sat in America assembled at Jamestown.
The event was a portentous one. The old world had passed away, and the new was born. Popular right in America had entered on life and the long struggle to hold its own. It might be strangled in the cradle, or done to death before it reached full manhood, but the blessed fact remained that at least it had been born.
We have the list of the old plantations, towns, and hundreds which sent the Burgesses, or boroughi repre- sentatives. They were James City, Charles City, the City of Henricus, Kiccowtan (sic) or Hampton, Martin- Brandon, Smythe's Hundred, Martin's Hundred, Ar- gall's Gift, Lawne's and Ward's Plantations, and Flow- erdieu Hundred. As two Burgesses were sent by each, the Assembly consisted of twenty-two members ; and the body held their session in the old church at James- town until they could provide more suitable quarters. We have a few details relating to the appearance of this first Virginia Assembly. They sat with their hats on, as in the English Commons, the members occupy- ing "the choir," with the Governor and Council in the front seats. The speaker, Master John Pory, with clerk and sergeant, faced them, and the session was opened with prayer by Mr. Bucke, after which the Burgesses took the oath of supremacy.
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The proceedings were business-like, the era of talk . having not yet arrived. The charter brought by Yeard- ley was read and referred to a committee, who were to report whether it contained anything " not perfectly squaring with the state of the colony, or any law press- ing or binding too hard.". This was the matter of prime importance, "because this great charter is to bind us and our heirs forever," the Burgesses said. Certain members, irregularly chosen, were excluded from their seats ; then the Assembly passed to regular business. Laws were enacted regulating intercourse with the Indians, on matters of agriculture and on re- ligious affairs. Divine services were to be according to the ritual of the English Church, and all persons were to attend church on Sunday, bringing their arms with them. Every male above sixteen was to pay one pound of the best tobacco to discharge the salaries of the Burgesses ; and a number of private bills were promptly passed. One of these was that Captain Pow- ell's "lewd and lecherous servant" should be whipped and nailed to the pillory ; and this, with the rest, was to be submitted to the home authorities, who were prayed not to take it in bad part if, meanwhile, the laws "do pass current."
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