In historians' accounts of the first months at Jamestown, too much,
perhaps, has been made of faction and quarrel. All this was there. Men
set down in a wilderness, amid Virginian heat, men, mostly young, of the
active rather than the reflective type, men uncompanioned by women and
children, men beset with dangers and sufferings that were soon to tag
heavily their courage and patience--such men naturally quarreled and
made up, quarreled again and again made up, darkly suspected each the
other, as they darkly suspected the forest and the Indian; then, need of
friendship dominating, embraced each the other, felt the fascination
of the forest, and trusted the Indian. However much they suspected
rebellion, treacheries, and desertions, they practiced fidelities,
though to varying degrees, and there was in each man's breast more or
less of courage and good intent. They were prone to call one another
villain, but actual villainy--save as jealousy, suspicion, and hatred
are villainy--seems rarely to have been present. Even one who was judged
a villain and shot for his villainy seems hardly to have deserved such
fate. Jamestown peninsula turned out to be feverous; fantastic
hopes were matched by strange fears; there were homesickness,
incompatibilities, unfamiliar food and water and air, class differences
in small space, some petty tyrannies, and very certain dangers. The
worst summer heat was not yet, and the fort was building. Trees must be
felled, cabins raised, a field cleared for planting, fishing and hunting
carried on. And some lading, some first fruits, must go back in the
ships. No gold or rubies being as yet found, they would send instead
cedar and sassafras--hard work enough, there at Jamestown, in the
Virginian low-country, with May warm as northern midsummer, and all the
air charged with vapor from the heated river, with exhalations from the
rank forest, from the many marshes.
"The first night of our landing, about midnight," says George Percy in
his "Discourse", "there came some Savages sayling close to our quarter;
presently there was an alarm given; upon that the savages ran away....
Not long after there came two Savages that seemed to be Commanders,
bravely dressed, with Crownes of coloured haire upon their heads, which
came as Messengers from the Werowance of Paspihe, telling us that their
Werowance was comming and would be merry with us with a fat Deere. The
eighteenth day the Werowance of Paspihe came himselfe to our quarter,
with one hundred Savages armed which guarded him in very warlike manner
with Bowes and Arrowes." Some misunderstanding arose. "The Werowance,
[seeing] us take to our armes, went suddenly away with all his company
in great anger." The nineteenth day Percy with several others going into
the woods back of the peninsula met with a narrow path traced through
the forest. Pursuing it, they came to an Indian village. "We Stayed
there a while and had of them strawberries and other thinges.... One
of the Savages brought us on the way to the Woodside where there was a
Garden of Tobacco and other fruits and herbes; he gathered Tobacco and
distributed to every one of us, so wee departed."
It is evident that neither race yet knew if it was to be war or peace.
What the white man thought and came to think of the red man has been set
down often enough; there is scantier testimony as to what was the red
man's opinion of the white man. Here imagination must be called upon.
Newport's instructions from the London Council included exploration
before he should leave the colonists and bring the three ships back to
England. Now, with the pinnace and a score of men, among whom was John
Smith, he went sixty miles up the river to where the flow is broken by
a world of boulders and islets, to the hills crowned today by Richmond,
capital of Virginia. The first adventurers called these rapid and
whirling waters the Falls of the Farre West. To their notion they must
lie at least half-way across the breadth of America. Misled by Indian
stories, they believed and wrote that five or six days' march from the
Falls of the Farre West, even through the thick forest, would bring them
to the South Sea. The Falls of the Farre West, where at Richmond the
James goes with a roaring sound around tree-crowned islet--it is strange
to think that they once marked our frontier! How that frontier has been
pushed westward is a romance indeed. And still, today, it is but a five
or six days' journey to that South Sea sought by those early Virginians.
The only condition for us is that we shall board a train. Tomorrow, with
the airship, the South Sea may come nearer yet!
The Indians of this part of the earth were of the great Algonquin
family, and the tribes with which the colonists had now to do
were drawn, probably by a polity based on blood ties, into a loose
confederation within the larger mass. Newport was "told that the name of
the river was Powhatan, the name of the chief Powhatan, and the name of
the people Powhatans." But it seemed that the chief Powhatan was not at
this village but at another and a larger place named Werowocomoco, on
a second great river in the back country to the north and east of
Jamestown. Newport and his men were "well entreated" by the Indians.
"But yet," says Percy, "the Savages murmured at our planting in the
Countrie."
The party did not tarry up the river. Back came their boat through the
bright weather, between the verdurous banks, all green and flower-tinted
save where might be seen the brown of Indian clearings with bark-covered
huts and thin, up-curling blue smoke. Before them once more rose
Jamestown, palisaded now, and riding before it the three ships. And
here there barked an English dog, and here were Englishmen to welcome
Englishmen. Both parties had news to tell, but the town had most. On the
26th of May, Indians had made an attack four hundred of them with the
Werowance of Paspihe. One Englishman had been killed, a number wounded.
Four of the Council had each man his wound.
Newport must now lift anchor and sail away to England. He left at
Jamestown a fort "having three Bulwarkes at every corner like a halfe
Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them," a street
or two of reed-thatched cabins, a church to match, a storehouse, a
market-place and drill ground, and about all a stout palisade with a
gate upon the river side. He left corn sown and springing high, and some
food in the storehouse. And he left a hundred Englishmen who had now
tasted of the country fare and might reasonably fear no worse chance
than had yet befallen. Newport promised to return in twenty weeks with
full supplies.
John Smith says that his enemies, chief amongst whom was Wingfield,
would have sent him with Newport to England, there to stand trial for
attempted mutiny, whereupon he demanded a trial in Virginia, and got it
and was fully cleared. He now takes his place in the Council, beforetime
denied him. He has good words only for Robert Hunt, the chaplain, who,
he says, went from one to the other with the best of counsel. Were they
not all here in the wilderness together, with the savages hovering about
them like the Philistines about the Jews of old? How should the English
live, unless among themselves they lived in amity? So for the moment
factions were reconciled, and all went to church to partake of the Holy
Communion.
Newport sailed, having in the holds of his ships sassafras and valuable
woods but no gold to meet the London Council's hopes, nor any certain
news of the South Sea. In due time he reached England, and in due time
he turned and came again to Virginia. But long was the sailing to and
fro between the daughter country and the mother country and the lading
and unlading at either shore. It was seven months before Newport came
again.
While he sails, and while England-in-America watches for him longingly,
look for a moment at the attitude of Spain, falling old in the
procession of world-powers, but yet with grip and cunning left. Spain
misliked that English New World venture. She wished to keep these seas
for her own; only, with waning energies, she could not always enforce
what she conceived to be her right. By now there was seen to be much
clay indeed in the image. Philip the Second was dead; and Philip the
Third, an indolent king, lived in the Escurial.
Pedro de Zuniga is the Spanish Ambassador to the English Court. He has
orders from Philip to keep him informed, and this he does, and from time
to time suggests remedies. He writes of Newport and the First Supply.
"Sire.... Captain Newport makes haste to return with some people--and
there have combined merchants and other persons who desire to establish
themselves there; because it appears to them the most suitable place
that they have discovered for privateering and making attacks upon
the merchant fleets of Your Majesty. Your Majesty will command to see
whether they will be allowed to remain there.... They are in a great
state of excitement about that place, and very much afraid lest Your
Majesty should drive them out of it.... And there are so many... who
speak already of sending people to that country, that it is advisable
not to be too slow; because they will soon be found there with large
numbers of people."* In Spain the Council of State takes action upon
Zuniga's communications and closes a report to the King with these
words: "The actual taking possession will be to drive out of Virginia
all who are there now, before they are reenforced, and.... it will be
well to issue orders that the small fleet stationed to the windward,
which for so many years has been in state of preparation, should be
instantly made ready and forthwith proceed to drive out all who are now
in Virginia, since their small numbers will make this an easy task, and
this will suffice to prevent them from again coming to that place." Upon
this is made a Royal note: "Let such measures be taken in this business
as may now and hereafter appear proper."
* Brown's "Genesis of the United States", vol. 1, pp. 116-118.
It would seem that there was cause indeed for watching down the river
by that small, small town that was all of the United States! But there
follows a Spanish memorandum. "The driving out... by the fleet stationed
to the windward will be postponed for a long time because delay will
be caused by getting it ready."* Delay followed delay, and old
Spain--conquistador Spain--grew older, and the speech on Jamestown
Island is still English.
* Op. cit., vol. 1, p. 127.
Christopher Newport was gone; no ships--the last refuges, the last
possibilities for home-turning, should the earth grow too hard and the
sky too black--rode upon the river before the fort. Here was the summer
heat. A heavy breath rose from immemorial marshes, from the ancient
floor of the forest. When clouds gathered and storms burst, they amazed
the heart with their fearful thunderings and lightnings. The colonists
had no well, but drank from the river, and at neither high nor low tide
found the water wholesome. While the ships were here they had help of
ship stores, but now they must subsist upon the grain that they had in
the storehouse, now scant and poor enough. They might fish and hunt, but
against such resources stood fever and inexperience and weakness, and in
the woods the lurking savages. The heat grew greater, the water
worse, the food less. Sickness began. Work became toil. Men pined from
homesickness, then, coming together, quarreled with a weak violence,
then dropped away again into corners and sat listlessly with hanging
heads.
"The sixth of August there died John Asbie of the bloodie Flixe. The
ninth day died George Flowre of the swelling. The tenth day died William
Bruster gentleman, of a wound given by the Savages.... The fourteenth
day Jerome Alikock, Ancient, died of a wound, the same day Francis
Mid-winter, Edward Moris, Corporall, died suddenly. The fifteenth day
their died Edward Browne and Stephen Galthrope. The sixteenth day their
died Thomas Gower gentleman. The seventeenth day their died Thomas
Mounslie. The eighteenth day theer died Robert Pennington and John
Martine gentlemen. The nineteenth day died Drue Piggase gentleman.
"The two and twentieth day of August there died Captain Bartholomew
Gosnold one of our Councell, he was honourably buried having all the
Ordnance in the Fort shot off, with many vollies of small shot....
"The foure and twentieth day died Edward Harrington and George Walker
and were buried the same day. The six and twentieth day died Kenelme
Throgmortine. The seven and twentieth day died William Roods. The eight
and twentieth day died Thomas Stoodie, Cape Merchant. The fourth day of
September died Thomas Jacob, Sergeant. The fifth day there died Benjamin
Beast...."*
* Percy's "Discourse."
Extreme misery makes men blind, unjust, and weak of judgment. Here was
gross wretchedness, and the colonists proceeded to blame A and B and
C, lost all together in the wilderness. It was this councilor or that
councilor, this ambitious one or that one, this or that almost certainly
ascertained traitor! Wanting to steal the pinnace, the one craft left by
Newport, wanting to steal away in the pinnace and leave the mass--small
enough mass now!--without boat or raft or straw to cling to, made the
favorite accusation. Upon this count, early in September, Wingfield
was deposed from the presidency. Ratcliffe succeeded him, but presently
Ratcliffe fared no better. One councilor fared worse, for George
Kendall, accused of plotting mutiny and pinnace stealing, was given
trial, found guilty, and shot.
"The eighteenth day [of September] died one Ellis Kinistone.... The same
day at night died one Richard Simmons. The nineteenth day there died one
Thomas Mouton...."
What went on, in Virginia, in the Indian mind, can only be conjectured.
As little as the white mind could it foresee the trend of events or
the ultimate outcome of present policy. There was exhibited a see-saw
policy, or perhaps no policy at all, only the emotional fit as it came
hot or cold. The friendly act trod upon the hostile, the hostile upon
the friendly. Through the miserable summer the hostile was uppermost;
then with the autumn appeared the friendly mood, fortunate enough for
"the most feeble wretches" at Jamestown. Indians came laden with maize
and venison. The heat was a thing of the past; cool and bracing weather
appeared; and with it great flocks of wild fowl, "swans, geese, ducks
and cranes." Famine vanished, sickness decreased. The dead were dead.
Of the hundred and four persons left by Newport less than fifty had
survived. But these may be thought of as indeed seasoned.