Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh--English Expedition to North
Carolina--Failure of Attempts to Settle There--Virginia Dare--The Lost
Colony--The Foundation of Jamestown--Captain John Smith--His Life Saved
by Pocahontas--Rolfe Marries the Indian Princess--A Key to Early Colonial
History--Women Imported to Virginia.
The lives of the hapless Huguenots who perished at the hands of Menendez
were, perhaps, not altogether wasted, for it is believed that a refugee
from the Port Royal colony, wrecked on the coast of England, gave Queen
Elizabeth interesting information about the temperate and fruitful
regions north of the Spanish territories and prepared her mind to favor
the projects of Sir Walter Raleigh. That bold and talented adventurer,
whose name will live forever in American annals, and whose monument is
North Carolina's beautiful State capital, is said in the familiar story
to have attracted the notice of Queen Elizabeth by spreading his scarlet
cloak over a miry place for the queen to walk upon. He made rapid
progress in the good graces of his sovereign, who was quick to discern
the men who could be useful to her and to her kingdom. Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, half brother to Sir Walter, had perished on an expedition to
found an English colony in America. A storm engulfed his vessel, the
Squirrel, and he went down with all his crew. Queen Elizabeth graciously
granted to Sir Walter a patent as lord proprietor of the country from
Delaware Bay to the mouth of the Santee River, and substantially
including the present States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and a
large portion of South Carolina, with an indefinite extension to the
west.
Raleigh sent out an expedition of two ships under the command of Philip
Amidas and Arthur Barlow. They landed upon the coast of North Carolina at
mid-summer, in the year 1584. The scenery and climate were charming, the
natives hospitable and everything seemed to promise well for future
settlement. The adventurers reported to Raleigh, who decided to plant a
colony in the region visited by his vessels. Queen Elizabeth herself is
said to have given the name of Virginia to her dominion, to commemorate
her unmarried condition. Untaught by the experience of American colonists
from the days of Columbus, the English settlers in North Carolina had the
usual quarrel with the natives, and were saved from the usual fate only
by the timely arrival of Sir Francis Drake on his return to England from
a cruise against the Spaniards. The colonists sought refuge on Drake's
vessels and were carried back to their native country.
Subsequent attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to establish colonies in North
Carolina also failed, but these efforts were productive of at least one
important benefit in introducing to the attention of the English and also
of the Irish, the potato, which, although previously brought to Ireland
by a slave-trader named Hawkins, and to England by Sir Francis Drake,
attracted but little notice before it was imported by John White,
Raleigh's Governor of Roanoke. At Roanoke was born, August 18, 1587, the
first white child of English parentage on the North American continent,
Virginia Dare, the daughter of William and Eleanor Dare, and
granddaughter of Governor White.
In the little wooden chapel, two or three weeks after the event, the
colonists assembled one bright day to attend the baptism and christening
of the little stranger. The font was the family's silver wash ewer, and
the sponsor was Governor White himself, the baby's grandfather.
Thereafter she was known as Virginia Dare, a sweet and appropriate name
for this pretty little wild flower that bloomed all alone on that
desolate coast. About the time that Virginia was cutting her first teeth
there came very distressing times to the colony. There was great need of
supplies, and it was determined to send to England for them. Governor
White went himself, and never saw his little granddaughter again.
It was three years before the Governor returned to Roanoke Island. He was
kept in England by the Spanish invasion, and after the winds and the
waves had shattered the dreaded Armada, it was some time before Raleigh
could get together the men and supplies that were needed by the far-off
colony. At last the ship was ready and White took his departure, but he
had not sailed far when his vessel was overtaken by a Spanish cruiser and
captured. White himself escaped in a boat, and after many days reached
England again. Then he had to wait for another ship, and the weary old
man saw day after day go by before he left the chalk cliffs of England
behind him. After long, anxious months he approached the new land. It was
near sunset and he expected to see the smoke rising from the chimneys and
the settlers hurrying in from the fields to eat their evening meal, or
crowding down to greet the long-looked for arrivals. But no such cheering
sight met his gaze. There stood the cabins, but they were deserted; not a
single human soul was visible. They landed and walked up the grass-grown
paths. Vines and climbers festooned the doorways. A dreary stillness
reigned everywhere. The colony had disappeared, and tradition has it to
this day that the settlers were absorbed in the Indian tribes and that
little Virginia Dare may have become a white Pocahontas.
Raleigh lost his best friend when Queen Elizabeth died, and her
successor, James, gave into other hands the task of establishing English
power in America. The London Company, with a patent from the king, sent a
fleet of three vessels to Virginia, which ascended the James River, and
fifty miles from its mouth laid the foundation of Jamestown, May 13,
1607.
* * *
It was a lovely day in summer, presenting a bright southern contrast to
the bitter winter weather which welcomed the Pilgrims thirteen years
later to Plymouth Rock, when the Englishmen began the erection of a fort
on the peninsula or island in the river, where they proposed to establish
the capital of their colony. They chose for their president Edward Maria
Wingfield, ignoring Captain John Smith, a gallant and resourceful soldier
of fortune who would have been invaluable as a leader against any foe.
The fort had not been completed when the Indians gathered in large
numbers and made a desperate attack on the colony. Twelve of the
colonists were killed and wounded before the savages were driven off by
the use of artillery. In the following winter Captain John Smith explored
the waters in the vicinity of Jamestown in search of a passage to the
Pacific. This may seem ridiculous in the light of present knowledge, but
it is to be remembered that two years later, in 1609, the great
navigator, Henry Hudson, ascended the river which bears his name, in the
expectation of discovering a northwest passage to the Orient. Even the
most enlightened nations of Europe were slow to give up the idea that a
connection by water existed through the American continent, between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
To return to Captain John Smith. It appears that in the course of his
explorations he was captured by Indians, and taken before Chief Powhatan
at his forest home. As Smith tells the story, the chief wore a mantle of
raccoon skins and a head-dress of eagle's feathers. The warriors, about
two hundred in number, were ranged on each side of Powhatan, and the
Indian women were assembled behind the warriors to witness the unwonted
scene. Two daughters of the chief, or, as the English called him, the
"emperor," had seats near his "throne." Smith was well received, one
woman bringing him water to wash his hands, and another a bunch of
feathers to dry them with. Then he was fed, and the council deliberated
as to his fate. They resolved that he should die. Two large stones were
placed in front of Powhatan and Smith was pinioned, dragged to the
stones, and his head placed upon them, while the warriors who were to
carry out the sentence brandished their clubs for the fatal blow. One of
the daughters of Powhatan, named Matoa, or Pocahontas, sixteen or
eighteen years old, sprang from her father's side, clasped Smith in her
arms, and laid her head upon his. Powhatan, savage as he was, and full of
anger against the English, melted at the sight. He ordered that the
prisoner should be released, and sent him with a message of friendship to
Jamestown.
Pocahontas continued to be a friend to the white man. Learning, two years
later, of an Indian plot to exterminate the intruders, she sped
stealthily from her father's home to the English settlement, warned
Captain Smith of the impending peril, and was back in Powhatan's cabin
before morning. The English were not ungrateful for her goodness, even
although it appears she was unable to prevent her father from giving
expression at times to his hatred of the colonists. On one occasion, when
the settlers were suffering from scarcity of food, and Powhatan would not
permit his people to carry corn to Jamestown, an Englishman named Samuel
Argall went on a foraging expedition near the home of Powhatan, and
enticed Pocahontas on board his vessel. He held the young woman as a
prisoner, and offered to release her for a large ransom in corn. Powhatan
refused to have anything to do with Argall, but sent word to Jamestown
saying that if his daughter should be returned to him he would treat the
English as friends. Pocahontas was detained at Jamestown for several
months, being treated with respect, and having the free run of the
colony. She appears to have been a romping, good-natured young woman,
comely for an Indian, passing her time as happily as possible, without
moping for her kinspeople, and not at all the typical heroine of song and
story. It was wicked to detain her, but she seemed to enjoy her captivity
and frolicked about the place in a way that must have shocked those who
regarded her as of royal birth. Evidently Pocahontas liked the English
from the first, and preferred their company at Jamestown to her childhood
home in the Virginia forests. A young Englishman, named John Rolfe, fell
in love with her. Wives from England were scarce, and this fact may have
made Pocahontas more attractive in his eyes. When some one objected that
she was a pagan--"Is it not my duty," he replied, "to lead the blind to
the light?" Pocahontas learned to love Rolfe in return, and love made
easy her path to conversion to Christianity. She was baptized by the name
of Rebecca, and was the first Christian convert in Virginia. Powhatan
consented to his daughter's marriage--he had probably concluded by this
that she was bound to be English anyhow--and the ceremony was performed
in the chapel at Jamestown, on a delightful spring day in April, 1613.
Pocahontas, we are told, was dressed in a simple tunic of white muslin
from the looms of Dacca. Her arms were bare even to her shoulders, and
hanging loosely to her feet was a robe of rich stuff presented by the
Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, and fancifully embroidered by Pocahontas and
her maidens. A gaudy fillet encircled her head, and held the plumage of
birds and a veil of gauze, while her wrists and ankles were adorned with
the simple jewelry of the native workshops. When the ceremony was ended,
the eucharist was administered, with bread from the wheat fields around
Jamestown, and wine from the grapes of the adjacent woodland. Her
brothers and sisters and forest maidens were present; also the Governor
and Council, and five English women--all that there were in the
colony--who afterward returned to England. Rolfe and his spouse "lived
civilly and lovingly together" until Governor Dale went back to England
in 1616, when they and the Englishwomen in Virginia accompanied the
Governor. The "Lady Rebecca" received great attentions at court and from
all below it. She was entertained by the Lord Bishop of London, and at
court she was treated with the respect due to the daughter of a monarch.
The silly King James was angry because one of his subjects dared marry a
lady of royal blood! And Captain Smith, for fear of displeasing the royal
bigot, would not allow her to call him "father," as she desired to do,
and her loving heart was grieved. The king, in his absurd dreams of the
divinity of the royal prerogative, imagined Rolfe or his descendants
might claim the crown of Virginia on behalf of his royal wife, and he
asked the Privy Council if the husband had not committed treason![1]
Pocahontas remained in England about a year; and when, with her husband
and son she was about to return to Virginia, with her father's chief
councillor, she was seized with small-pox at Gravesend, and died in June,
1617. Her remains lie within the parish church-yard at Gravesend. Her
son, Thomas Rolfe, afterward became a distinguished man in Virginia, and
his descendants are found among the most honorable citizens of that
commonwealth.
[1] Lossing.
Between the lines of the story of Pocahontas can be found the key to much
of the early history of Virginia and other colonies. Even before regular
settlements were attempted on these shores the Indians had learned by
bitter experience to dread and hate the strangers in the big canoes.
Slave-traders and adventurers made prey of the natives, and many a
depredating visit was doubtless paid to America that is not recorded in
the annals of those times. Argall's abduction of Pocahontas ended
fortunately, but it might have brought on a terrible Indian war and the
destruction of the Virginia colony. Had such been the result the
civilized world would never have known the red man's side of the story,
and Powhatan's just vengeance would have been set down to the barbarous
and savage nature of the Indian.
The scarcity of women in the Virginia colony has already been alluded to
in connection with the marriage of Rolfe and Pocahontas. Of the early
immigrants very few were women, and there could be no permanent colony
without the home and family. The London Company, at the instance of their
treasurer, Edwin Sandys, proposed, about twelve years after the first
settlement, to send one hundred "pure and uncorrupt" young women to
Virginia at the expense of the corporation, to be wives to the planters.
Ninety were sent over in 1620. The shores were lined with young men
waiting to see them land, and in a few days everyone of the fair
immigrants had found a husband. Wives had to be paid for in tobacco--the
currency of the colony--in order to recompense the company for the
expense of importing them. The price of a wife was at first fixed at one
hundred and twenty-five pounds of tobacco--equal to about $90--but
afterward rose to $150. The women were disposed of on credit, when the
suitor had not the cash, and the debt incurred for a wife was considered
a debt of honor. Virginia became a colony of homes. The settlement was
saved from becoming a refuge of the criminal and the outcast, and in the
unions formed at that time many of the families in the country had their
origin. That some of the refuse of English society floated into the
colony is true, and many of the unruly children of London and other
English towns, were sent there as apprentices. But the unruly street boy
often has the diamond of energy and genius concealed within the rude
exterior, and in the genial clime of Virginia, with an opportunity to be
a man among men, the young apprentice from the slums of London or
Plymouth proved himself to possess qualities of value to the community.