Lord Delaware followed his prayer at the gate of Jamestown with his own
earnest efforts to bring about its fulfilment. He was a wise ruler and
generous friend to the colony. The terrible old gentleman with the "sour
look" silently observed him, and made no demonstration, friendly or
otherwise, for a few months. He had heard of Captain Smith's death with
mingled feelings of relief and admiration. Machumps had, without doubt,
told him of the pomp and ceremony attending Lord Delaware, who held his
court on board his own ship, disdaining the humble huts of his inferiors.
Robed in crimson and gold, this was altogether a different person from the
rough soldier, John Smith. The Dutchmen, relieved of their fear of Captain
Smith, now proposed to return to Jamestown and ingratiate themselves
with the new administration. They had built a house for Powhatan, with
an immense Dutch chimney, which stood like a giant sentinel until it
was blown down a few years ago. They now came forward and requested
the emperor to send them as ambassadors to Lord Delaware with gifts and
proposals of peace, but Powhatan received their overtures with scorn and
replied sternly, "You that would have betrayed Captaine Smith to mee, will
certainly betray me to this great Lord for your own peace," and so "caused
his men to beat out their braines."
[70]Lord Delaware soon found it impossible to live in the unhealthy
climate of Jamestown, and returned home, leaving Percy once more in charge
of the colony, until a Governor should arrive from England. The number of
colonists was now about two hundred; the stock of provisions sufficient
for ten months, and the Indians, after two or three sallies and as many
sharp rebukes, apparently peaceable and friendly.
We have noted Strachey's account of the wreck of the _Sea Venture_, which
it is said by some inspired Shakespeare's "Tempest." He wrote another
book, "The Historie of Travail into Virginia Britannia," covering the
years 1610-1611 and 1612. Of this book he made two copies in his own
handwriting, one of which, dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, was deposited
in the British Museum; the other, dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley,
lieutenant of the Tower, and father of Lucy Hutchinson, was preserved
among the Ashmolean Manuscripts. There these two priceless manuscripts
slept unnoticed more than two hundred years! They were finally unearthed
in 1849 by R. H. Major of the British Museum, and printed for the Hakluyt
Society.
The book is especially valuable because it treats of the time immediately
following John Smith's residence at Jamestown, of which we have no other
record except Raphe Hamor's later book. Moreover, it is the production
of a highly educated and religious man, who seems to have told his story
with no regard whatever for the prejudices of his readers, but simply as a
matter of duty. He does not appear to have offered it for publication. He
gives a graphic account of Powhatan and his realm, and a reliable picture
of savage manners and customs, having possessed an advantage over the
earlier historians by reason of his intimate association with intelligent
Indians who spoke English, and with the interpreters, Savage and Spelman,
who had lived among the Indians for the express purpose of learning their
language. As compared with John Smith, Strachey is a writer of superior
elegance. Although somewhat pedantic in his classical citations, his style
is clear and interesting. Coming to light after more than two hundred
years, his book has the charm of novelty with the venerable authority of
age. Evidently the author was a man of sober and observing mind, and of
learning after the model of King James, whose taste flavoured much of the
literature of his day.
An intelligent English-speaking Indian, Kemps, lived a year at Jamestown;
and a frequent visitor was Machumps, Winganuskie's brother. "They came to
and fro as they dared, and as Powhatan gave them leave--for it was not
otherwise safe for them, no more than it was for Amarice, who had his
brains knocked out for selling but one basket of corn, and lying in the
English fort two or three days without Powhatan's leave."[71] Why Kemps
and Machumps were thus favoured we know not. The former died in the arms
of his new friends in the winter of 1611. "Machumps was a frequent guest
at Sir Thomas Dale's table, where (upon request) he sometimes repeated the
words with which the Indian always prefaced his meals. Kemps was much made
of by the Lord General, spoke a pretty deal of English and came orderly
to church every day to prayers, and observed with us the keeping of the
Sabbath both by ceasing from labour and repairing to church."
Of course inquiry was made of Pocahontas, who had not been seen at
Jamestown after Captain Smith left. Kemps and Machumps concurred in
explaining her absence. She was "married to a private captaine called
Kocoun, some two years since."[72]
She married, then, the year Captain Smith sailed, and doubtless after
she was told of his death. It is astonishing that so interesting a fact
has not been mentioned by any one of the Virginia historians who have
written since 1849--Charles Campbell, Esten Cooke, or Alexander Brown.
Dr. Doyle, of England, however, relates it. It was not agreeable to the
romantic Virginians that their Indian maiden should have been a widow when
she married John Rolfe. The first news we had in America of Strachey's
book came to us in a _Princeton Magazine_ in 1850. The writer frankly
confesses, "Some of the accounts of Pocahontas are unexpected: _nor dare
we copy them_!" The wheeling in the Jamestown market place was one of the
"accounts." Can it be that Virginians would hold her less "a thing enskyed
and saintly" if they knew her to have been a widow?
This may be natural. Perhaps we would not enshrine the Maid of Orleans
nor the Maid of Saragossa as we do, had one been the "widow Joan" and
the other the "widow Augusta." Very capricious and unreasonable is poor
human nature in matters of love and romance. Pocahontas is to be honoured
all the more inasmuch as she conquered every instinct of her savage
nature, becoming reverent, gentle, pitiful, and patient; and corrected
every blemish in her "manners barbarous," learning to "live civilly," and
behaving, in all situations, with discreet gravity. Like the lovely pond
lily, the root was in slime and darkness; but at the first touch of the
sun the golden heart was revealed of a perfect flower.
Of one thing we may be sure: she was not won unwooed. The customs of her
people forbade any such procedure. Her father may have sold her for a
bushel or two of "rawrenoke," as he sold one of her sisters, but Kocoun
must have followed the prescribed rule of his people.
[73]"Yf a young mayden live under parents," says Strachey, "the parents
must allow of the sutor; for their good-wills the wooer promiseth
the daughter shall not want of such provisions, nor of deare-skynns
fitly drest for to weare; besides he promiseth to doe his endeavor to
procure beades, perle and copper; and for handsell gives her before them
something as a token of betroathing or contract of a further amity. And
he presents the young woman with the fruits of his labours, fowle or fish
or berries--and so after, as the likeing growes; and as soone as he hath
provided her a home (if he have none before) and some platters, morters
and matts he takes her home;" not, however, before the simple marriage[74]
ceremony. Her father calls together his kindred and friends, and in their
presence joins the hands of the contracting parties. The bridegroom's
father or chief friend, having provided a long string of beads, breaks it
over the clasped hands, giving the beads afterward to the bride, and "soe
with much mirth and feasting they goe together."
Thus we are constrained again to observe a strange kinship among all the
children of men. The string of beads endows the bride with all the worldly
goods of her husband. The clasped hands express their mutual interests
and affection. As to the "skynnes, beads and perles," they are quite as
essential to the "further amity" of our brides of the twentieth century as
they were to the savage brides of the seventeenth. Even the copper would
be by no means despised.
After this first marriage, the Indians permitted others--temporary
marriages--marriages on trial! After the trial period expired, the "trial"
wife might be dismissed; if not sent away then, she must be kept always,
"however uncompanionable."
Of the poorer class of Indians we know little. Our society records have
been of the court only. Strachey was immensely exercised in them. There
was an interesting werowance named Pepisco, a religious sort of fellow,
who awakened hope that he might become the third Indian convert in the
little company of two--Pocahontas and Chanco. He must have been a very
proud and spirited savage. He was certainly an imprudent one. This Pepisco
possessed by right of succession a fine principality, where he might
have reigned happily all his days, but he must needs steal the affections
of Opechancanough's chief wife, and in due time stole the lady herself.
[75]"Powhatan conceaved a displeasure against him, and deposed him. Yet
is Pepisco suffered to retaine in this country a little small kassun, or
village, uppon the rivadge of the streame with some few people about him,
keeping the said woman still whome he makes his best beloved. She travels
with him upon any remove in hunting-tyme or in his visitation of us, by
which meanes twice or thrice in a summer she hath come unto our towne;
nor is she so handsome a savadge woman as I have seene amongst them, yet,
with a kind of pride she can take upon her a shewe of greatnes; for we
have seene her forbeare to come out of her quintan or boat through the
water as others, both mayds and married women usually doe, unless she were
carryed forth betweene two of her servants."
The society reporter would not have been at all competent had he omitted
a careful description of the princess' gown. He had peculiar advantages
for observing it.
"I was once early at her howse (yt being sommer tyme), when she was layed
without dores under the shadowe of a broad-leaved tree, upon a pallet
of osiers spred over with four or five fyne grey matts, herself covered
with a faire white drest deer skynne or two. When she rose, she had a
mayd who fetcht her a frontall of white currall, and pendants of great,
but imperfect-couloured and worse drilled pearles, which she put into
her eares; and a chayne with long lyncks of copper which came twice or
thrice about her neck and they acompt a jolly ornament; and sure thus
attired with some variety of feathers and flowers stuck in their heires,
they seem as debonaire, quaynt, and well pleased as (I wis) a daughter
of the house of Austria behune with all her jewells; likewise her mayd
fecht her a mantell which is like a side cloake, made of blew feathers, so
artificyally and thick sewed together that it seemed like a deepe purple
satten and is very smooth and sleeke; and after she brought her water for
her hands, and then a braunch or two of fresh greene asshen leaves as for
a towell to dry them."
A very observant Briton was William Strachey, Gent.! We are grateful for
this glimpse of one of the royal family, whose dress and customs must have
been those of all the others--although, as there was a decided coolness
between the Princess Pepisco and the emperor, probably she did not visit
the Princess Pocahontas.
The mantle of skins or feathers was, however, worn by Indian queens as
late as 1676, when the Queen of Pamunkey, a niece of Powhatan's, appeared
in the House of Burgesses clad in a buckskin robe cut into long fringes.
When Pocahontas, in the painting in the Capitol at Washington, is pictured
in an æsthetic robe of chiffon or some such soft, clinging material,
with a long flowing train (as at her baptism), the artist does her great
injustice. We presume that some good Christian woman at Jamestown may
have provided a garment suitable for the Christian ceremonial, but if
so, it was a short petticoat and ruff! And the Oriental dress swathing
her lithe form in the painting representing her marriage is just as
improbable as the sublime, heroic attitude of her prosaic bridegroom,
as he, with lifted hand and eyes, invokes the Almighty as witness of his
pious self-sacrifice.
The publication, in 1849, of Strachey's "Virginia Britannia" aroused quite
as much interest in London as in this country. I wish I could quote all
of his descriptions of Indian life. The _London Athenæum_ of 1850 calls
attention to the prophetic motto which prefaces the volume: "This shal
be written for the generations to come: and the people which shal be
created shall praise the Lord." It slept in obscurity for nearly twelve
generations--allowing four to a century.
The _Athenæum_ epitomizes the dress, customs, and descriptions of the
Virginia Indians. All these are interesting to us, now that the mysterious
savage is so far away from our observation, but for all these things I
must refer my readers to other historians. The _one_ point which must ever
be accentuated in our estimate of the character of the Virginia Indians
is the secrecy and cruelty of their human sacrifices. Once every year
the tribes were summoned to listen to the dread call of Okeus, for young
children to pacify his anger and ensure success in war, the hunt, and
the harvest. There at Utamussac--the spot that no Indian passed without
trembling--pitiful women surrendered their babes, and when all was over
returned "weeping bitterly," while the men rejoiced and sang. Now all
would be well! The arrow would be directed swiftly and surely to the heart
of the foe, or the deer; no blight would fall upon the corn; the women
would be faithful, the men strong.
Pocahontas was living retired (in her widowhood we are forced to believe)
when Powhatan's old enmity awoke, and more arms were stolen from the
fort, more sneaking depredations made upon the settlements now beginning
to creep along the banks of the river. Captain Argall, who was sent by
Sir Thomas Dale to the Potomac to trade for corn, contrived to ingratiate
himself with Japazaws, a friendly chief, and from him learned that
Pocahontas was living with him. Japazaws had seen a gorgeous copper
kettle on board of Argall's ship, and the latter conceived the design
of exchanging it for Pocahontas, holding her prisoner, and forcing her
father to ransom her. Japazaws had much more interest in the kettle than
in his wife's guest, and Pocahontas was easily persuaded to accompany the
latter on board to "see the ship." The kettle was transferred while she
was alone for a few minutes, and her treacherous friends descended with
it to their quintan and were well on their way to shore when she was told
the truth.[76] She burst into tears, poor little widow, but soon dried
her eyes upon learning that she would be kindly treated and conveyed to
the spot of all others most interesting to her.
Powhatan was enraged! He, however, after thinking the matter over for
three months, sent back some prisoners and a few unserviceable muskets
with many promises of further restitution, of corn, of peace, and amity.
The captors refused to surrender their willing prisoner, Pocahontas, until
full satisfaction should be rendered. Powhatan was deeply offended, and
nothing more was heard from him until another overture from Argall.
Meanwhile Pocahontas found favour in the eyes of Sir Thomas Dale, "a man
of good conscience and knowledge in divinitie," and he ordered that she
should be carefully taught, cared for in every particular, and instructed
in the Christian faith. The pious Rev. Mr. Whitaker was only too happy
to undertake her religious education. As to the rest, her English was
imperfect, and she never learned to write. Everybody at Jamestown knew
of her early devotion to Captain Smith and to the starving colonists,
and honoured her accordingly. Master John Rolfe soon became interested
in her, and it was not long before he wrote the most remarkable letter
to Governor Dale that was ever penned by lover to a lady's guardian. He
tells of the throes of conscience that came near tearing his soul from
his body. He remembers "the heavy displeasure which Almighty God conceived
against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives," and he is
fully aware that "her education hath been rude, her manners barbarous, her
generation accursed"--and as these were times when belief in a personal
devil was universal, and also in the malignant influence of witches (only
the latter were never young and beautiful), he is "full of feare and
trembling." His love has caused "a mighty war in his meditations." Nor
does he forget his own social position. He belongs to a very good family
indeed in England, "nor am I so desperate in estate that I regard not what
becometh of mee, nor am I out of hope but one day to see my countrie, nor
so void of friends, nor mean in birth, _but there to obtain a match to my
great content_." How he proposed, in that event, to dispose of Pocahontas
does not appear. He goes on in this strain for fully thirty or more pages
of the foolscap paper of the present time, and we can see the wild-eyed,
haggard widower lover tearing along by the light of a dim wick in oil,
with his quill pen diving deep into his ink-horn.
"Was ever maiden in such humour wooed?
Was ever maiden in such humour won?"
Of course the man of good conscience and knowledge in divinity had a
right to the reasons which overcame all these objections. They were three.
First and always, the desire to convert this unbelieving creature, namely
Pokahuntas." "Shall the base feare of displeasing the world overpower
or withhold me from revealing unto man the spirituall works of the Lord?
Shall I despise to actuate the pious duties of a Christian? God forbid!"
(But just here the Governor with his knowledge in divinity might hesitate,
inasmuch as marriage with the heathen in order to his conversion is no
part of the plan of salvation.)
Second. "The great appearance of her love to me!"
Third. "Her incitements hereunto stirring me up!"
All these things working together, the end is accomplished. She is a
_fiancée_ when Argall takes her up the York to make another appeal to
Powhatan, burns a few villages to show he is in earnest, and finally
brings about an interview with her brothers (her father refuses to see
her), in which her engagement is announced. Powhatan is delighted! Before
Argall can reach Jamestown with the little bride, her old uncle Opachisco
and her two brothers are there before him to witness the marriage
ceremony, bearing with them her father's wedding present--a nicely dressed
deerskin.
[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS AT JAMESTOWN.
Halberdiers
Gov. Sir Thos. Dale
Alex. Whittaker
Mrs. John Rolfe and Child
Mrs. Ed. Easton and Child
Choristers
Mattachanna and Cleopatre
Pocahontas
John Rolfe
Indian Attendants
Capt. George Percy
Brother to Pocahontas
Henry Spilman
William Spence
Thos. Savage
Master Sparkes
Thomas Powell, Wife and Child
Mrs. Horton and Grandchild
Sir Thos. Gates
Opachisco, Uncle to Pocahontas
A Younger Brother to Pocahontas]
Before this time, in April, 1613, Pocahontas had been baptized in the
church Lord Delaware had repaired and beautified. Her savage father had
given her three names,--Matoaca, Amonate, and Pocahontas. Her spiritual
sponsors gave her "Rebekah" at her baptism--no doubt in allusion to the
Rebecca of Genesis, and she was thereafter known in England as "the Lady
Rebekah."
As Sir Thomas Dale had wisely foreseen, the alliance brought the blessing
of peace. The Chickahominies sent an embassy to conclude a treaty by which
they were to become subjects of the English king. John Rolfe and his dusky
bride lived "civilly and lovingly together" at "Varina," which continued
to be her residence until she left Virginia.[77]