We must soon take our leave of the troublesome old gentleman with the
sour look. Governor Dale sends Raphe Hamor on a delicate errand--to ask
for his young daughter in marriage--a proceeding which gives us pause,
remembering that the Governor had a Lady Dale in England. However, we
leave him, wherever he is, to settle that little matter with her, and
avail ourselves once more of a solitary eyewitness to our narrative
in which he figures so mysteriously, as we perforce must do in the
much-challenged Pocahontas incident. Of her marriage with Kocoun, however,
we had two witnesses,--Machumps and Kemps. Hamor took with him two Indian
guides, and Thomas Savage as interpreter; also two pieces of copper,
five strings of white and blue beads, five wooden combs, ten fish-hooks,
and two knives; and, thus equipped, presented himself at Mathcot, one of
Powhatan's residences on the Pamunkey.
Powhatan received him coldly, and, turning to Thomas Savage, whom he at
once recognized, said, "My child, I gave you leave, being my boy, to go
see your friends, and these four years I have not seen you, nor heard
from my own man Namontack I sent to England, though many ships since have
returned thence." Machumps, it appears, had never had the courage to tell
him of the Bermuda incident.
Thomas Savage, we remember, was given to Powhatan by Captain Newport in
exchange for Namontack. Pory, writing in 1624, says that he had "with much
honestie and success served the publique without any public recompense,
yet had an arrow shot through his body in their service." The friendly
Accomac chief known as the "Laughing King" became so much attached to him
that he gave him land upon which his descendants have continued to the
present day. This family enjoys the distinction of being the only one in
Virginia (as far as we know) that can trace in a male line to one of the
first settlers of 1607.
Powhatan had received Hamor out of doors, but after a little more talk
he conducted him to his house, where his guard of two hundred bowmen was
drawn up for whatever might happen.
"The first thing he did," says Hamor, "hee offered me a pipe of tobacco,
then asked mee how his brother Sir Thomas Dale did, and his daughter and
unknowne sonne, and how they lived and loved and liked. I told him his
brother was well and his daughter so contented she would not live againe
with him, whereat he laughed and demanded the cause of my cumminge." Hamor
was ill at ease in the presence of the two hundred bowmen, and informed
the king that he bore a private message from the Governor, upon which
the king granted him audience, with only two wives and the interpreter
present. Hamor presented the Governor's plea. "I told him his brother
Dale, hearing of the fame of his youngest daughter" (this may have been
Cleopatre) "desired him to send her by me unto him, in testimony of his
love, as well for that he intended to marry her, as the desire of her
sister to see her,"[78] and ended with the usual assurances of friendship.
Powhatan, after collecting himself a moment, answered gravely: "I gladly
accept the salute of love and peace which, while I live, I shall exactly
keep. His pledges thereof I receive with no less thanks although they are
not so ample as formerly I have received; but for my daughter, I have
sold her within this few days to a great Werowance for two bushels of
Rawrenoke, and she is gone three days' journey from me."
Hamor seems to have thought this a small obstacle to his Governor's
wishes. He represented that Powhatan could easily recall his daughter,
and repay the rawrenoke to gratify his brother; especially as the bride
was only twelve years old; and that three times the value of the rawrenoke
would be sent him in beads, copper, hatchets, etc.
"His answer was that he loved his daughter as his life, and though hee had
many children hee delighted in none so much as shee, whom if he could not
behold he could not possibly live, which living with us hee could not do,
having resolved on no termes to put himselfe in our hands or come amongst
us, continuing: 'returne my brother this answer: that I desire no more
assurance of his friendship than the promise he hath made. From me he
hath one of my daughters which so long as she lives shall be sufficient.
When she dies he shall have another: I hold it not brotherly to desire to
bereave me of my two children at once. Farther tell him though he hath no
pledge at all he need not distrust any injurie from me or my people. There
have been too many of his men and mine slain, and by my occasion there
shall never be more (I, which have power to perform it, have said it),
although I should have just cause, for I am now old, and would gladly end
my days in peace; if you offer me injury my country is large enough to go
from you. This much I hope will satisfy my brother. Now because you are
weary and I sleepy we will thus end.'" And so the alliance, which would
have been a brilliant one for the Princess Cleopatre, was declined with
thanks.
It is the privilege of royalty to begin and end a conversation, so Hamor
retired, and "the next morning he came to visit us, and kindly conducted
us to the best cheer he had."
After this we hear occasionally of the emperor, now, according to
Strachey, eighty years old. He was once found in possession of a handsome
blank-book, in which he requested an English visitor to write a list of
the articles to be sent to him as presents. His guest coveted the useful
book, but Powhatan refused to part with it, "It gives me pleasure," he
said, "to show it to strangers!"
His crown (sent him by King James) was kept in his treasure-house. Every
autumn his people assembled to husk, shell, and store his corn, bringing
him eight parts out of ten of all grain, game, skins, or pearls they had
acquired; and when the grain was stored it was his custom to put on his
crown, and present beads to those who best pleased him.
[Illustration: Powhatan Rock, under which the Indian Chief is said to be
buried.
Copyright, 1906, by Jamestown Official Photo. Corp'n. ]
The old emperor lived to hear of the birth of Pocahontas's son. When he
died, a great meeting of all his people took place in the dense woods
around Orapakes, and then and there, it is said, Opechancanough, his
successor, revealed his plan to massacre the English; and bound each man
to secrecy and fidelity. Accordingly, on a day appointed (Pocahontas
being now dead), the savages rose in the morning at eight and wreaked
their vengeance and fury on the English. In some instances the Indians
were breakfasting with the colonists when the hour arrived! Nearly four
hundred men, women, and children perished,--among them John Rolfe and
the good minister Thorpe, who had built a house for Opechancanough,
and established schools for the Indian children, and many other good
friends of the savages. Jamestown alone escaped of all the settlements,
having been warned, as we have seen, by the Christian boy, Chanco. The
horrible brutality of this massacre it is impossible to describe. Nothing
approaching it had ever been known even among the vindictive, cruel
savages. But their punishment was sharp. The entire policy regarding them
was changed, and the colonists ceased not for years to repulse and destroy
them.
Twice again Opechancanough led in attempts to kill all the English.
Finally he was captured and taken to Jamestown, and there shot in the back
by some unknown hand. As the body of a captive was never restored to the
enemy, he was probably buried there.