Too pure to mix with others, like some star,
Shining in pensive beauty all alone,
Kindred with those around, yet brighter far.
MRS. WELBY.
In his history of the Conquest of Florida, Mr. Theodore Irving repeats,
very interestingly, the story of Juan Ortiz who, with three other
Spaniards, fell into the hands of the Indians by stratagem. The four
captives were taken to the village of Hirrihigua, the cacique, who
ordered them to be executed on a day of religious festival. Three were
shot with arrows; and then "Juan Ortiz, a youth, scarce eighteen years
of age, of a noble family of Seville, was the fourth victim. As they
were leading him forth, his extreme youth touched with compassion the
hearts of the wife and daughters of the cacique, who interceded in his
favor.
"The cacique listened to their importunities, and granted for the
present the life of Ortiz;--but a wretched life did he lead. From
morning until evening he was employed in bringing wood and water, and
was allowed but little sleep and scanty food. Not a day passed that he
was not beaten. On festivals he was an object of barbarous amusement to
the cacique, who would oblige him to run, from sunrise until sunset, in
the public square of the village, where his companions had met their
untimely end, Indians being stationed with bows and arrows, to shoot
him, should he halt one moment. When the day was spent, the unfortunate
youth lay stretched on the hard floor of the hut, more dead than alive.
At such times the wife and daughters of the cacique would come to him
privately with food and clothing, and by their kind treatment his life
was preserved.
"At length the cacique, determining to put an end to his victim's
existence, ordered that he should be bound down upon a wooden frame, in
the form of a huge gridiron, placed in the public square, over a bed of
live coals, and roasted alive.
"The cries and shrieks of the poor youth reached his female protectors,
and their entreaties were once more successful with the cacique. They
unbound Ortiz, dragged him from the fire, and took him to their
dwelling, where they bathed him with the juice of herbs, and tended him
with assiduous care. After many days he recovered from his wounds,
though marked with many a scar.
"His employment was now to guard the cemetery of the village. This was
in a lonely field in the bosom of a forest. The bodies of the dead were
deposited in wooden boxes, covered with boards, without any fastening
except a stone or a log of wood laid upon the top; so that the bodies
were often carried away by wild beasts.
"In this cemetery was Ortiz stationed, with a bow and arrows, to watch
day and night, and was told that should a single body be carried away,
he would be burnt alive. He returned thanks to God for having freed him
from the dreaded presence of the cacique, hoping to lead a better life
with the dead than he had done with the living.
"While watching thus one long wearisome night, sleep overpowered him
towards morning. He was awakened by the falling lid of one of the
chests, and running to it, found it empty. It had contained the body of
an infant recently deceased, the child of an Indian of great note.
"Ortiz doubted not some animal had dragged it away, and immediately set
out in pursuit. After wandering for some time, he heard, at a short
distance within the woods, a noise like that of a dog gnawing bones.
Warily drawing near to the spot, he dimly perceived an animal among the
bushes, and invoking succor from on high, let fly an arrow at it. The
thick and tangled underwood prevented his seeing the effect of his shot,
but as the animal did not stir, he flattered himself that it had been
fatal: with this hope he waited until the day dawned, when he beheld his
victim, a huge animal of the panther kind, lying dead, the arrow having
passed through his entrails and cleft his heart.
"Gathering together the mangled remains of the infant, and replacing
them in the coffin, Ortiz dragged his victim in triumph to the village,
with the arrow still in his body. The exploit gained him credit with the
old hunters, and for some time softened even the ferocity of the
cacique. The resentment of the latter, however, from the wrongs he had
suffered from white men, was too bitter to be appeased. Some time after,
his eldest daughter came to Ortiz, and warned him that her father had
determined to sacrifice him at the next festival, which was just at
hand, and that the influence of her mother, her sisters, and herself
would no longer avail him. She wished him, therefore, to take refuge
with a neighboring cacique named Mucozo, who loved her and sought her in
marriage, and who, for her sake, would befriend him. 'This very night at
midnight,' said the kind-hearted maiden, 'at the northern extremity of
the village you will find a trusty friend who will guide you to a
bridge, about two leagues hence; on arriving there, you must send him
back, that he may reach home before the morning dawn, to avoid
suspicion--for well he knows that this bold act, in daring to assist
you, may bring down destruction upon us both. Six leagues further on,
you will come to the village of Mucozo--tell him I have sent you, and
expect him to befriend you in your extremity--I know he will do it--go,
and may your God protect you!' Ortiz threw himself at the feet of his
generous protectress, and poured out his acknowledgments for the
kindness she had always shown him. The Indian guide was at the place
appointed, and they left the village without alarming the warlike
savages. When they came to the bridge, Ortiz sent back the guide, in
obedience to the injunction of his mistress, and, continuing his flight,
found himself, by break of day, on the banks of a small stream near the
village of Mucozo.
"Looking cautiously around, he espied two Indians fishing. As he was
unacquainted with their language, and could not explain the cause of his
coming, he was in dread lest they should take him for an enemy and kill
him. He, therefore, ran to the place where they had deposited their
weapons and seized upon them. The savages fled to the village without
heeding his assurances of friendly intention. The inhabitants sallied
out with bows and arrows, as though they would attack him. Ortiz fixed
an arrow in his bow, but cried out at the same moment, that he came not
as an enemy but as an ambassador from a female cacique to their chief.
Fortunately one present understood him, and interpreted his words. On
this the Indians unbent their bows, and returning with him to their
village, presented him to Mucozo. The latter, a youthful chieftain, of a
graceful form and handsome countenance, received Ortiz kindly for the
sake of her who had sent him; but, on further acquaintance, became
attached to him for his own merits, treating him with the affection of a
brother."
HUMANE SPIRIT OF A FOREST MAID.
"Beneath the gloom
Of overshadowing forests, sweetly springs
The unexpected flower."
Some of the noblest attributes of humanity are sometimes exhibited by
the wild children of the forest. These attributes, in such cases, seem,
like trees in the remotest wilderness, to have gained, by their
spontaneous growth, surprising height, symmetry and beauty.
A lovelier character than Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, king of the
country where the first white settlement in Virginia was made, is rarely
found among any people. She was lovely in the broadest as well as
noblest sense of that word--lovely in features, lovely in disposition,
lovely in the highest adornments of Christian grace. She was, in 1607,
"a girl of ten or twelve years of age, who, not only for feature,
countenance and expression, much exceeded any of the rest of her people,
but for wit and spirit was the only nonpareil of the country." Such was
Pocahontas, as described by the first white man, probably, who ever saw
her, and in whose behalf, at the above date, she displayed the
tenderness and true grandeur of her nature.
The colonists, writes Mr. Hildreth, in his new History of the United
States, "were specially instructed to seek for a passage to the South
Sea; and it was thought that possibly the Chickahoming might lead
thither. Having ascended as high as he could in his barge, Captain Smith
followed up the stream in a canoe, with two colonists and two Indians
for companions; and when the canoe would float no longer, he left the
two colonists to guard it, and struck inland with a single Indian as a
guide. Set upon unexpectedly by a large party of natives, who had
already surprised and killed the two men left to guard the canoe, Smith
bound his Indian guide to his arm as a buckler, and made a vigorous
defence, killing three of the assailants; but as he retreated backward,
he presently sank into a miry swamp, and was taken prisoner. His captors
would have killed him, but he amused them with a pocket compass. Carried
in a sort of triumph through several villages, he was taken before
Powhatan, the same chief whom he had visited in company with Newport. An
attempt was made to engage his services--at least so Smith understood
it--in surprising the colonists at Jamestown. Having failed in this,
after much consultation, it was resolved to put him to death. He was
dragged to the ground and his head placed upon a stone; Powhatan raised
a club to dash out his brains"--and now view the highly dramatic scene
which follows, as pictured by Mrs. Sigourney in a few lines of masterly
coloring:
The sentenced captive see--his brow how white!
Stretched on the turf, his manly form lies low,
The war club poises for its fatal blow,
The death-mist swims before his darkened sight;
Forth springs the child, in tearful pity bold,
Her head on his reclines, her arms his neck enfold,
"The child! what madness fires her? Hence! Depart!
Fly, daughter, fly! before the death-stroke rings;
Divide her, warriors! from that English heart."
In vain, for with convulsive grasp she clings:
She claims a pardon from her frowning sire;
Her pleading tones subdue his gathered ire,
And so, uplifting high his feathery dart,
That doting father gave the child her will,
And bade the victim live and be his servant still.
After Smith had been an inmate of Powhatan's wigwam awhile, he was
permitted to leave the Indians. Sometime after this the savages,
becoming alarmed by witnessing Smith's wonderful feats, "laid a plan to
get him into their power under the pretence of wishing an interview with
him in their territory. But Pocahontas, knowing the desire of the
warriors, left the wigwam after her father had gone to sleep, and ran
more than nine miles through the woods to inform her friend Captain
Smith of the danger that awaited him, either by stratagem or attack."
Subsequently the colony at Jamestown was threatened with famine, when,
accompanied by a few companions, she was accustomed to go to the fort
every day or two with baskets of corn, and thus her
----"generous hand vouchsafed its tireless aid
To guard a nation's germ."
At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Pocahontas married a pious young
English officer, named Thomas Rolfe, and went with him to England, where
she was baptized and called Rebecca, and where she soon died. Well may
it be said of her, in the language of the poet, slightly altered,
It is not meet such names should moulder in the grave.
HANNAH DUSTIN.
Experience teaches us
That resolution 's a sole help at need;
And this, my lord, our honor teacheth us,
That we be bold in every enterprise.
SHAKSPEARE.
On the fifteenth of March, 1697, a band of Indian prowlers broke into
the house of Mr. Dustin, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and captured his
wife, her nurse,[16] and a babe about one week old. The last was killed
before leaving the town. The other two were marched through the
wilderness for several days till they came to a halt on an island in the
Merrimac river about six miles above Concord, New Hampshire. There they
were placed in a wigwam occupied by two men, three women, seven children
of theirs, and an English boy who had been captured about a year
previous at Worcester, Massachusetts. The captives remained there till
the thirtieth of that month before they planned escape. On that day the
boy was requested by Mrs. Dustin to ask his master where to strike "to
kill instantly;" and the savage was simple enough to tell, and also
instructed him in the art of scalping. "At night," to use the concise
language of Mr. Bancroft, "while the household slumbers, the captives,
each with a tomahawk, strike vigorously, and fleetly, and with division
of labor,--and of the twelve sleepers, ten lie dead; of one squaw the
wound was not mortal; one child was spared from design. The love of
glory next asserted its power; and the gun and tomahawk of the murderer
of her infant, and a bag heaped full of scalps were choicely kept as
trophies of the heroine.--The streams are the guides which God has set
for the stranger in the wilderness: in a bark canoe, the three descend
the Merrimac to the English settlements, astonishing their friends by
their escape, and filling the land with wonder at their successful
daring."
[16] Mrs. Mary Neff.
Mrs. Dustin had the happiness of meeting her husband and seven children,
who had escaped from the house before the savages entered, and the honor
of a very handsome present from Colonel Nicholson, governor of Maryland,
as a reward for her heroism.[17]
[17] Eleven years after the capture of Mrs. Dustin, a party of French
and Indians from Canada made an attack upon the inhabitants of
Haverhill, and killed and captured about forty persons. Several women
exhibited on the occasion a remarkable degree of sagacity, courage and
presence of mind. We condense from Mirick's History of Haverhill.
Ann Whittaker escaped the tomahawk by hiding in an apple chest under the
stairs.--A negro servant, named Hagar, covered a couple of children with
tubs in the cellar and then concealed herself behind some meat barrels.
The Indians trod on a foot of one of the children and took meat from the
barrel behind which Hagar had hidden, without discovering any of
them.--The wife of Thomas Hartshorn, took all her children except the
babe--which she was afraid would cry--through a trap-door into the
cellar. The enemy entered and plundered the house, but did not find the
way into the cellar. They took the infant from its bed in the garret and
threw it out of the window. Strange to say, though stunned, it lived and
grew to rugged manhood.--The wife of Captain Simon Wainwright, after the
enemy had killed her husband, let them into the house and treated them
kindly. They at length demanded money, when she went out, as she
pretended, to get it. They soon ascertained--though too late to find
her--that she had fled with all her children but one, who was taken
captive.
THE HEROINES OF BRYANT'S STATION.
The brave example cannot perish
Of courage.
HOSMER.
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dared
To pass our outworks.
POPE'S HOMER.
At the siege of Bryant's station near Lexington, Kentucky, in August,
1782, the water in the fort was exhausted; and as the nearest place to
obtain a supply was a spring several rods off, it would require no small
risk and, consequently, no common intrepidity to undertake to bring it.
A body of Indians in plain sight, were trying to entice the soldiers to
attack them without the walls, while another party was concealed near
the spring, waiting, it was supposed, to storm one of the gates, should
the besieged venture out. It was thought probable that the Indians in
ambush would remain so until they saw indications that the other party
had succeeded in enticing the soldiers to open engagement.
The position of things was explained to the women, and they were invited
to each take a bucket and march to the spring in a body. "Some, as was
natural, had no relish for the undertaking, and asked why the men could
not bring water as well as themselves, observing that they were not
bullet-proof, and the Indians made no distinction between male and
female scalps. To this it was answered, that the women were in the habit
of bringing water every morning to the fort; and that if the Indians saw
them engaged as usual, it would induce them to think that their
ambuscade was undiscovered; and that they would not unmask themselves
for the sake of firing at a few women, when they hoped, by remaining
concealed a few moments longer, to obtain complete possession of the
fort: that if men should go down to the spring, the Indians would
immediately suspect something was wrong, would despair of succeeding by
ambuscade, and would instantly rush upon them, follow them into the
fort, or shoot them down at the spring.
"The decision was soon made. A few of the boldest declared their
readiness to brave the danger, and the younger and more timid rallying
in the rear of these veterans, they all marched down in a body to the
spring, within point blank shot of more than five hundred Indian
warriors! Some of the girls could not help betraying symptoms of terror;
but the married women, in general, moved with a steadiness and composure
that completely deceived the Indians. Not a shot was fired. The party
were permitted to fill their buckets, one after another, without
interruption; and although their steps became quicker and quicker, on
their return, and when near the fort, degenerated into a rather
unmilitary celerity, with some little crowding in passing the gate, yet
not more than one-fifth of the water was spilled, and the eyes of the
youngest had not dilated to more than double their ordinary size."[18]
[18] M'Clung's Sketches of Western Adventure.
MRS. DAVIESS.
'Tis late before
The brave despair.
THOMSON.
Samuel Daviess was an early settler at a place called Gilmer's Lick, in
Lincoln county, Kentucky. In the month of August, 1782, while a few rods
from his house, he was attacked early one morning by an Indian; and
attempting to get within doors, he found that his house was already
occupied by other Indians. Pursued by his foe, he ran into a cornfield
and lay concealed till the savage gave up the chase and returned to the
house. He then ran to his brother's station, five miles off, gave the
alarm, and was soon returning with five stout, well armed men.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN HORSE THIEF.]
Meanwhile the Indians--four in number--who had entered the house while
the fifth was in pursuit of Mr. Daviess, routed Mrs. Daviess and the
children from their beds, and they soon understood that they must take
up a line of march--they knew not whither. As soon as she was dressed,
Mrs. Daviess "commenced showing the Indians one article of clothing and
then another, which pleased them very much; and in that way delayed them
at the house nearly two hours. In the mean time, the Indian who had
been in pursuit of her husband returned, with his hands stained with
poke berries, which he held up, and with some violent gestures and
waving of his tomahawk, attempted to induce the belief, that the stain
on his hands was the blood of her husband, and that he had killed him.
She was enabled at once to discover the deception, and instead of
producing any alarm on her part, she was satisfied that her husband had
escaped uninjured.
"After the savages had plundered the house of every thing that they
could conveniently carry off with them, they started, taking Mrs.
Daviess and her children--seven in number--as prisoners, along with
them. Some of the children were too young to travel as fast as the
Indians wished, and discovering, as she believed, their intention to
kill such of them as could not conveniently travel, she made the two
oldest boys carry them on their backs. The Indians, in starting from the
house, were very careful to leave no signs of the direction they had
taken, not even permitting the children to break a twig or weed as they
passed along. They had not gone far before an Indian drew his knife and
cut off a few inches of Mrs. Daviess' dress, so that she would not be
interrupted in traveling.
"Mrs. Daviess was a woman of cool, deliberate courage, and accustomed to
handle the gun, so that she could shoot well, as many of the women were
in the habit of doing in those days. She had contemplated, as a last
resort, that if not rescued in the course of the day, when night came on
and the Indians had fallen asleep, she would deliver herself and
children by killing as many of the Indians as she could--thinking that
in a night attack as many of them as remained would most probably run
off."[19]
[19] Collins's Historical Sketches of Kentucky.
Mr. Daviess and his comrades reaching the house and finding it empty,
hastened on in pursuit of the Indians. They had gone but a few miles
before they overtook the retreating party. Two Indian spies in the rear,
first discovered the pursuers, and running on, overtook the three
others, with the prisoners, and knocked down and scalped, though they
did not kill, the oldest boy. At that moment the pursuers fired at the
Indians, but missed. The latter were now alarmed and confused, and Mrs.
Daviess, taking advantage of this circumstance, jumped into a sink hole
with her infant in her arms; and the Indians fleeing, every child was
saved.
"Kentucky, in its early days, like most new countries, was occasionally
troubled by men of abandoned character, who lived by stealing the
property of others, and, after committing their depredations, retired to
their hiding places, thereby eluding the operation of the law. One of
these marauders, a man of desperate character, who had committed
extensive thefts from Mr. Daviess, as well as from his neighbors, was
pursued by Daviess and a party whose property he had taken, in order to
bring him to justice. While the party were in pursuit, the suspected
individual, not knowing any one was pursuing him, came to the house of
Daviess, armed with his gun and tomahawk--no person being at home but
Mrs. Daviess and her children. After he had stepped into the house, Mrs.
Daviess asked him if he would drink something--and having set a bottle
of whiskey upon the table, requested him to help himself. The fellow,
not suspecting any danger, set his gun up by the door, and while
drinking, Mrs. Daviess picked up his gun, and placing herself in the
door, had the gun cocked and leveled upon him by the time he turned
around, and in a peremptory manner ordered him to take a seat, or she
would shoot him. Struck with terror and alarm, he asked what he had
done. She told him he had stolen her husband's property and that she
intended to take care of him herself. In that condition she held him a
prisoner, until the party of men returned and took him into their
possession."[20]
[20] Collins.
A KENTUCKY AMAZON.
This is true courage.
WHITEHEAD'S ROMAN FATHER.
During the summer of 1787, writes Mr. McClung, in his Sketches of
Western Adventure, "The house of Mr. John Merrill, of Nelson county,
Kentucky, was attacked by the Indians, and defended with singular
address and good fortune. Merrill was alarmed by the barking of a dog
about midnight, and upon opening the door in order to ascertain the
cause of the disturbance, he received the fire of six or seven Indians,
by which one arm and one thigh were broken. He instantly sank upon the
floor, and called upon his wife to close the door. This had scarcely
been done when it was violently assailed by the tomahawks of the enemy,
and a large breach soon effected. Mrs. Merrill, however, being a perfect
amazon, both in strength and courage, guarded it with an axe, and
successively killed or badly wounded four of the enemy as they attempted
to force their way into the cabin.