Pocahontas seems to have led a quiet life on her husband's tobacco
plantation near the city of Henricus, until she visited England in 1616.
Captain Smith, learning of her presence there, wrote a noble letter to
Queen Anne, beseeching her kindness and relating in detail the story we
have given of her goodness to him and to the starving colony.
She was well received at court. The high dignitaries of the church
entertained her, and she conducted herself with the grave dignity and
propriety demanded by the long, stiff stays which imprisoned her lithe
body. The court was not conspicuous for the gravity or dignity of its own
manners: but it found no fault with those of the American princess.
[Illustration: Pocahontas at Court.]
The shy little Indian woman could hardly have understood the interest she
awakened in the bosoms of those grave and reverend seniors. Archbishops,
bishops, and lesser clergy were all alike to her, differing only in the
cut and richness of their robes. But to them she represented an answer
to fervent prayer, the reward for lavish expenditure of health, hope,
life, and fortune. As she stood before them, dignified in her enforced
reticence, she seemed to them a miracle, the manifest incarnation of the
Holy Spirit--nothing less.
Writers love to dwell upon the wonderful serenity of her manner, "softened
by the influence of the court." The court manners were anything but soft,
gentle, and serene. No coarser age, socially, finds record in English
history. Pocahontas owed much to her limited knowledge of the language
of the court. The coarse jest, the offensive _double entendre_, fell
upon unhearing ears. Her Indian training forbade the least betrayal of
emotion or surprise, and her incomprehensible Indian tongue spared her
the merriment of the volatile court ladies, which might have been provoked
by her _ingénue_ remarks. Mighty is silence,--placing those who adopt it
upon a plane the chatterer never attains.
And so it came to pass that poor little Pocahontas, stiff and
uncomfortable in her long stays and quilted robes, behaved in a manner
which demanded no indulgence and challenged no criticism. Lord and Lady
Delaware were her sponsors and instructors in court etiquette. When
her lips touched the hand of the Queen, no one could find fault with
her demeanour. The clergy declared that less dignity was not to have
been expected, since the hand of Divine Providence was manifest in her
conversion. The _blasé_ courtiers, with small appreciation of spiritual
charms, protested they had "seen many English ladies worse favoured, worse
proportioned, worse behavioured,"--which indeed we can easily believe.
Tradition preserves the astonishing fact that King James was greatly
offended with John Rolfe for marrying a princess without his consent; not
that he proposed to claim an alliance for "Baby Charles" or "Steenie,"
the new favourite and candidate for the peerage, or for any noble of his
realm; but just from pure gossipy meddling, pure fussiness, pure folly;
than which nothing was too foolish for "the wisest fool in Christendom."
Our Indian lady was introduced to Samuel Purchas, and he was present at
the entertainment given in her honour by Dr. King, the Bishop of London;
exceeding in splendour anything the author had ever witnessed. Probably
Sir Walter Raleigh attended this fête. He had just been released, after
thirteen years' confinement in the Tower, having walked out of the iron
doors just as the degraded Earl of Somerset, Robert Carr, and his guilty
wife walked in. It is certain he could not fail to meet Pocahontas. He
was nothing to her, but her presence meant much to him. He had sowed, and
others had reaped. Moreover, he must have scanned the peculiarly feminine
lineaments of her face with wonder and keen interest. Through her he was
brought face to face with the destroyer of his two colonies, so loved and
so betrayed, upon which he had exhausted his treasury.
Her son was born while she was in England, or shortly before her coming
thither, and the London Company made provision for him and for her. The
smoke of London so distressed her that she removed to Brentford. The tiny
smoky hut of her childhood she could bear--but not the London fog. At
Brentford John Smith visited her. In mortal fear of offending the king by
familiarity with a princess, he addressed her ceremoniously as the "Lady
Rebekah," and this[79] wounded her so deeply that she covered her face
with her hands and turned away, refusing to speak for two or three hours!
It appears that he awaited her pleasure, and presently she reproached him
for his distant manner, thinking perhaps that he was ashamed to own her
before his own people. She reminded him that he had always called Powhatan
"father," and so she now meant to call him, and be his child, and forever
and ever his countrywoman; adding, "they did tell me you were dead, and
I knew no other till I came to Plymouth; yet[80] Powhatan did command
Uttamatomakkin to seeke you and know the truth because your Countriemen
will lie much."[81]
The Indian with the long name was Matachanna's husband, also known on
these pages as "Tocomoco." Powhatan had sent him to number the English,
which he proceeded to do by notches on a stick, but soon grew weary of
such a hopeless task. He took great offence because King James paid him
no attention, and never ceased abusing the English after his return, thus
helping along the massacre of five years later.
Pocahontas was on her way home, "sorely against her will," when she was
smitten with illness on board ship and taken ashore at Gravesend. There
she died, March 1, 1617, sustained by the faith and hope of the true
Christian. She was interred in the chancel of St. George's Church; the
exact spot of burial is, however, not known.
Before she left England her portrait was painted by an unknown artist, and
presented to Mr. Peter Elwin, a relative of the Rolfe family, by Madame
Zucchelli. As Zucchero was a painter of the time, the name Zucchelli might
have been mistaken for his. Zucchero painted a beautiful portrait of Queen
Elizabeth with a marvellous jewelled stomacher, but without the monstrous
fanlike wings of gauze at the throat with which we are familiar.
[Illustration: Royal Palace, Whitehall.]
John Rolfe left his son in England to be educated, and he found his
"match" once more, and married the daughter of a rich man at Jamestown.
Pocahontas's son married also, and was the progenitor of some of
Virginia's most distinguished citizens and statesmen. He visited his uncle
Opechancanough and his aunt "Cleopatre" after he returned to Virginia.
He was not ashamed of his Indian relatives! Nor are his descendants. The
names of Pocahontas, Powhatan, and Matoaca are still borne by them.
It has been said that Pocahontas died of smallpox. We know nothing from
printed record or parish register except that she was buried in the
chancel of the church at Gravesend in the County of Kent; that the church
was destroyed by fire in 1727, and a new church, St. George's, erected
upon the site of the old one; and that the Rev. John H. Haslam, later
rector, placed a commemorative tablet in the chancel recording all that
careful investigation has yielded of the spot where her ashes lie. One
could wish that she might have found her last resting-place under the
skies of her native country; that from her "unpolluted flesh violets"--the
lovely wild violets of Virginia--might "spring" with every return of
summer.
The infant son of Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe, was placed under the care
of Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice Admiral of Devon; and here again the story
of the Indian girl touches that of Sir Walter Raleigh.[82] It was this
Stukely who afterwards basely betrayed his friend, Sir Walter, and by this
treachery covered himself with infamy. The son of Pocahontas did not long
breathe the atmosphere polluted by this traitor. He was removed to London
and educated by his uncle, Henry Rolfe.
Thomas Rolfe's immediate descendants married into the families of Bolling,
Randolph, Gay, Eldridge, and Murray. No trace of the Indian in feature
or character survives in those highly esteemed Virginia families. The
haughty, vindictive spirit of the cruel Powhatan may have burnt itself
out in the veins of John Randolph of Roanoke, who left no descendants.
Pocahontas will always be interesting to the student of colonial history.
The story of her life was a strange one, and stranger the story to its
end. Her father and her kindred were consigned to the tomb with the rites
and lamentations of the savage, and with wild heathenish invocations to
the Devil of their imaginations. She, alone of all her tribe, simply as
a consequence of one noble act, received Christian burial, in hallowed
Christian soil, and is embalmed forever in grateful Christian hearts.