“The character of this interesting woman, as it stands in the concurrent
accounts of all our historians, is not, it is with confidence affirmed,
surpassed by any in the whole range of history; and for those qualities
more especially, which do honor to our nature--a humane and feeling
heart, an ardor and unshaken constancy in her attachments--she stands
almost without a rival.
“At the first appearance of the Europeans, her young heart was impressed
with admiration of the persons and manners of the strangers. But it is
not during their prosperity that she displays her attachment. She is not
influenced by awe of their greatness, or fear of their resentment, in
the assistance she affords them. It was during their severest
distresses, when their most celebrated chief was a captive in their
hands, and was dragged through the country, as a spectacle for the sport
and derision of her people, that she places herself between them and
destruction.
“The spectacle of Pocahontas in an attitude of entreaty, with her hair
loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, supplicating her enraged
father for the life of Captain Smith, when he is about to crush the
head of his prostrate victim with a club, is a situation equal to the
genius of Raphael. And when the royal savage directs his ferocious
glance for a moment from his victim, to reprove his weeping daughter;
when, softened by her distress, his eye loses its fierceness, and he
gives his captive to her tears, the painter will discover a new occasion
for exercising his talents.
“In Pocahontas we have to admire, not the softer virtues only; she is
found, when the interest of her friends demands it, full of foresight
and intrepidity.
“When a conspiracy is planned for the extermination of the English, she
eludes the jealous vigilance of her father, and ventures at midnight,
through a thousand perils, to apprise them of their danger.
“But in no situation does she appear to more advantage, than when,
disgusted with the cold formalities of a court (in England) and the
impertinent and troublesome curiosity of the people, she addressed the
feeling and pathetic remonstrance to Captain Smith on the distant
coldness of his manner. Briefly she stated the rise and progress of
their friendship; modestly she pointed out the services she had rendered
him; concluding with an affecting picture of her situation, at a
distance from her country and family, and surrounded by strangers in a
strange land.
“Indeed there is ground for apprehension that posterity, in reading this
part of American history, will be inclined to consider the story of
Pocahontas as an interesting romance; perhaps recalling the palpable
fictions of early travellers and navigators, they may suppose that in
those times a portion of fiction was deemed essential to the
embellishment of history. It is not even improbable, that considering
every thing relating to Captain Smith and Pocahontas as a mere fiction,
they may vent their spleen against the historian for impairing the
interest of his plot by marrying the princess of Powhatan to a Mr. Rolf,
of whom nothing had previously been said, in defiance of all the
expectations raised by the foregoing parts of the fable.
“It is the last sad office of history to record the fate of this
incomparable woman. The severe muse, which presides over this
department, cannot plant the cypress over her grave, and consign her to
the tomb, with the stately pomp and graceful tears of poetry. She cannot
with pious sorrow inurn the ashes and immortalize the virtues of the
dead by the soul-piercing elegy, which fancy, mysterious deity, pours
out, wild and plaintive, her hair loose, and her white bosom throbbing
with anguish. Those things are placed equally beyond her reach and her
inclination. But history affects not to conceal her sorrow on this
occasion.
“She died at Gravesend, (England,) where she was preparing to embark
with her husband and son on her return to Virginia. Her death was a
happy mixture of Indian fortitude and Christian submission, affecting
all those who saw her, by the lively and edifying picture of piety and
virtue which marked her latter moments.”--_Burk’s Virginia._
[NOTE 25--CANTO SIXTH, SECT. IX.]
And now this land is ours again;
The rest of the pale-face crew
We’ll brush away from our forest home,
As we brush the drops of dew.
“The savages no sooner understood Smith was gone, but they all revolted,
and did spoil and murther all they encountered.”--_Smith’s Virginia._
[NOTE 26--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. III.]
We ran to rescue, but in vain;
They bore her from the shore,
Away, away, and much I fear
Thou’lt never see her more.
Whatever account Japazaws may have given of the capture of Metoka, or
Pocahontas, history attributes the incident altogether to his own
treachery. She was carried away by Captain Argall, who was up the
Potomac with his vessel for the purpose of trading with the natives. The
following account is copied from Burk.
“By the means of Japazaws, king of Potomac, he discovered that
Pocahontas was concealed in the neighborhood, and he immediately
conceived the design of getting her into his power; concluding that the
possession of so valuable an hostage would operate as a check on the
hostile dispositions of the emperor, and might perhaps be made an
instrument of peace and reconciliation. The integrity of Japazaws was
not proof against the seducing appearance of a copper kettle, which was
fixed as the price of his treachery; and this amiable maiden, whose soul
nature formed on one of her kindest and noblest models, was betrayed by
her perfidious host into the hands of a people, whom her tender and
compassionate spirit had often snatched from famine and the sword.
“For the causes of this princess’s absence from her father, we are left
to bare conjecture. Her avowed partiality for the English had probably
drawn down on her the displeasure of this high-spirited monarch; and she
had retired to avoid the effects of his immediate resentment.”
[NOTE 27--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. VIII.]
Sir John had led him by the hair
With pistol at his breast;
The rankling thought was a raging fire,
That never let him rest.
“The president, (Smith,) some time after this, being on a visit to
Pamunky, an attempt was made by Opechancanough to seize him; for which
purpose he beset the place, where they had met to trade, with seven
hundred Indians, well-armed, of his own tribe. But Smith, seizing him by
the hair, led him trembling in the midst of his people, who immediately
laid down their arms.”--_Burk’s Virginia._
[NOTE 28--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. X.]
When morning came, the sun look’d down
Where many a cottage stood,
But he only saw black smouldering heaps,
And fields that smoked with blood.
The great massacre of the Virginia colony by the Indians in 1622, is
thus described by Burk.
“Whilst the colony was thus rapidly advancing to eminence and wealth,
she carried in her bosom and about her an enemy which was to blight her
budding honors, and which brought near to ruin and desolation her
growing establishment. Since the marriage of Pocahontas, the natives had
lived on terms of uninterrupted and apparently cordial amity with the
English, which daily gained strength by mutual wants and necessities.
Each had something beyond their wants, which the other stood in need of.
And commerce, regulated by good faith, and a spirit of justice, gave
facility to the exchange or barter of their superfluous productions. The
consequence of this state of things was, a complete security on the part
of the English; a total disregard and disuse of military precautions and
martial exercises. The time and the hands of labor were considered too
valuable to be employed in an idle and holiday array of arms; and in
this situation, wholly intent on amassing wealth, and totally unprovided
for defence, they were attacked by an enemy, whose resentment no time
nor good offices could disarm; whose preparations were silent as night;
to whom the arts of native cunning had given a deep dissimulation, an
exterior so specious, as might impose on suspicion itself.
“Opechancanough (who succeeded Powhatan in the government) possessed a
powerful recommendation in the eyes of his countrymen. His hatred of the
English was rooted and deadly. Never for a moment did he forget the
unjust invasion and insolent aggressions of those strangers. Never did
he forget his own personal wrongs and humiliation.
“Compelled by the inferiority of his countrymen in the weapons and
instruments of war, as by their customs, to employ stratagem instead of
force, he buried deep in his bosom all traces of the rage with which he
was agitated.
“To the English, if any faith was due to appearances, his deportment was
uniformly frank and unreserved. He was the equitable mediator in the
several differences which arose between them and his countrymen.
“The intellectual superiority of the white men was the constant theme of
his admiration. He appeared to consider them as the peculiar favorites
of heaven, against whom resistance were at once impious and
impracticable. But far different was his language and deportment in the
presence of his countrymen.
“In the gloom and silence of the dark and impenetrable forest, or the
inaccessible swamp, he gave utterance to the sorrows and indignation of
his swelling bosom. He painted with the strength and brilliancy of
savage coloring the tyranny, rapacity, and cruelty of the English; while
he mournfully contrasted the unalloyed content and felicity of their
former lives, with their present abject and degraded condition; subject
as they were to the capricious control and intolerable requisitions of
those hard and unpitying task-masters.
“Independence is the first blessing of the savage state. Without it, all
other advantages are light and valueless. Bereft of this, in their
estimation even life itself is a barren and comfortless possession. It
is not surprising then, that Opechancanough, independent of his
influence as a great Werowance or war captain, should, on such a
subject, discover kindred feelings in the breasts of his countrymen. The
war-song and war-whoop, breaking like thunder from the fierce and
barbarous multitudes, mingling with the clatter of their shields, and
enforced by the terrific gestures of the war-dance, proclaimed to their
leader their determination to die with him or conquer.
“With equal address the experienced and wily savage proceeded to allay
the storm which invective had conjured up in the breasts of the Indians.
The English, although experience had proved them neither immortal nor
invincible, he represented as formidable by their fire-arms, and their
superior knowledge in the art of war; and he inculcated, as the sole
means of deliverance and revenge, secrecy and caution until an occasion
should offer, when, by surprise or ambush, the scattered establishments
of their enemies might at the same moment be assaulted and swept away.
“Four years had nearly elapsed in maturing this formidable conspiracy;
during which time, not a single Indian belonging to the thirty nations,
which composed the empire of Powhatan, was found to violate his
engagements, or betray his leader. Not a word or hint was heedlessly or
deliberately dropt to awaken jealousy or excite suspicion.
“Every thing being at length ripe for execution, the several nations of
Indians were secretly drawn together, and stationed at the several
points of attack, with a celerity and precision unparalleled in history.
Although some of the detachments had to march from great distances, and
through a continued forest, guided only by the stars and the dubious
light of the moon, no instance of mistake or disorder took place. The
Indian mode of march is by single files. They follow one after another
in profound silence, treading nearly as possible in the steps of each
other, and adjusting the long grass and branches which they have
displaced. This is done to conceal all traces of their route from their
enemies, who are equally sagacious and quick-sighted. They halted at a
short distance from the English, waiting without impatience for the
signal which was to be given by their fellows, who, under pretence of
traffic, had this day in considerable numbers repaired to the
plantations of the colonists.
“So perfect was the cunning and dissimulation of Opechancanough, that on
the morning of this fatal day, the straggling English by his direction
were conducted in safety through the woods to their settlements, and
presents of venison and fowl were sent in his name to the governor and
counsellors, accompanied with expressions of regard and assurances of
friendship. ‘Sooner,’ said the wily chieftain, ‘shall the sky fall, than
the peace shall be violated on my part.’
“And so entirely were the English duped by these professions and
appearances, that they freely lent the Indians their boats, with which
they announced the concert, the signal and the hour of attack to their
countrymen on the other side of the river.
“The fatal hour having at length arrived, and the necessary dispositions
having every where taken place; on a signal given, at mid day,
innumerable detachments setting up the war-whoop, burst from their
concealments on the defenceless settlements of the English, massacreing
all they met, without distinction of age or sex; and according to custom
mutilating and mangling in a shocking manner the dead bodies of their
enemies.
“So unexpected and terrible was the onset, that scarcely any resistance
was made. The English fell scarcely knowing their enemies, and in many
instances by their own weapons. In one hour three hundred and
forty-seven men, women, and children, including six of the council and
several others of distinction, fell without a struggle, by the hands of
the Indians. Chance alone saved the colony from utter extirpation.
“A converted Indian, named Chanco, lived with Richard Pace, loved by his
master on account of his good qualities, with an affection at once
Christian and parental. The night preceding the massacre, the brother of
Chanco slept with him; and after a strict injunction of secrecy, having
revealed to him the intended plot, he commanded him, in the name of
Opechancanough, to murder his master. The grateful Indian, shocked at
the atrocity of the proposal, after his brother’s departure, flew to
Pace and disclosed to him the information he had received. There was no
time to be lost. Before day a despatch was forwarded to the governor at
Jamestown, which with the adjacent settlements was thus preserved from
the ruin that hung over them.
* * * * *
“From this time the number of the plantations and settlements, which
before amounted to eighty, was reduced to six, and their strength
concentrated by order of the governor about Jamestown and the
neighborhood. All works of public utility, as well as the exertions of
private industry, were entirely suspended; and the whole attention of
the colonists was bent on the means of defence, and on projects of
vengeance. A bloody and exterminating war ensued, in which treachery and
cruelty took place of manly courage and generous warfare. The laws of
war, and that humanity, which in the moments of victory give quarter to
the vanquished, were forgotten amid the suggestions of craving and
insatiable revenge. But the opportunities of retaliation, owing to the
swiftness of the natives, were not frequent enough to appease the
boiling spirit of vengeance. The Indian, pressed by hunger, or
stimulated by the hope of plunder or revenge, would on a sudden burst
from his concealment on his enemy, and if outnumbered and pursued, he
vanished amid the eternal midnight of his forests. Whole days he lies on
his belly in breathless silence, his color not distinguishable from the
earth on which he lies, and every faculty wound up to attention. He
watches the moment when he can strike with certainty, and his aim is as
fatal and unerring as destiny.
“At last the Indians were invited from their fastnesses by the hopes of
peace and the solemn assurances of safety and forgiveness. That inhuman
maxim of the Roman Church, ‘that no faith is to be kept with heretics,’
appears to have been adopted by the colonists in its fullest force.
“The habitations of the unfortunate people were beset at the same
moment; and an indiscriminate slaughter took place, without regard to
age, sex, or infancy. The horrid scene terminated by setting fire to the
huts and corn of the savages.”