Sir Thomas Dale was on the whole the most efficient and discreet
Governor the colony had had. One element of his success was no doubt
the change in the charter of 1609. By the first charter everything
had been held in common by the company, and there had been no
division of property or allotment of land among the colonists. Under
the new regime land was held in severalty, and the spur of individual
interest began at once to improve the condition of the settlement.
The character of the colonists was also gradually improving. They
had not been of a sort to fulfill the earnest desire of the London
promoter's to spread vital piety in the New World. A zealous defense
of Virginia and Maryland, against "scandalous imputation," entitled "
Leah and Rachel; or, The Two Fruitful Sisters," by Mr. John Hammond,
London, 1656, considers the charges that Virginia "is an unhealthy
place, a nest of rogues, abandoned women, dissolut and rookery
persons; a place of intolerable labour, bad usage and hard diet"; and
admits that "at the first settling, and for many years after, it
deserved most of these aspersions, nor were they then aspersions but
truths.... There were jails supplied, youth seduced, infamous women
drilled in, the provision all brought out of England, and that
embezzled by the Trustees."
Governor Dale was a soldier; entering the army in the Netherlands as
a private he had risen to high position, and received knighthood in
1606. Shortly after he was with Sir Thomas Gates in South Holland.
The States General in 1611 granted him three years' term of absence
in Virginia. Upon his arrival he began to put in force that system
of industry and frugality he had observed in Holland. He had all the
imperiousness of a soldier, and in an altercation with Captain
Newport, occasioned by some injurious remarks the latter made about
Sir Thomas Smith, the treasurer, he pulled his beard and threatened
to hang him. Active operations for settling new plantations were at
once begun, and Dale wrote to Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury, for 2,000
good colonists to be sent out, for the three hundred that came were
"so profane, so riotous, so full of mutiny, that not many are
Christians but in name, their bodies so diseased and crazed that not
sixty of them may be employed." He served afterwards with credit in
Holland, was made commander of the East Indian fleet in 1618, had a
naval engagement with the Dutch near Bantam in 1619, and died in 1620
from the effects of the climate. He was twice married, and his
second wife, Lady Fanny, the cousin of his first wife, survived him
and received a patent for a Virginia plantation.
Governor Dale kept steadily in view the conversion of the Indians to
Christianity, and the success of John Rolfe with Matoaka inspired him
with a desire to convert another daughter of Powhatan, of whose
exquisite perfections he had heard. He therefore despatched Ralph
Hamor, with the English boy, Thomas Savage, as interpreter, on a
mission to the court of Powhatan, "upon a message unto him, which was
to deale with him, if by any means I might procure a daughter of his,
who (Pocahuntas being already in our possession) is generally
reported to be his delight and darling, and surely he esteemed her as
his owne Soule, for surer pledge of peace." This visit Hamor relates
with great naivete.
At his town of Matchcot, near the head of York River, Powhatan
himself received his visitors when they landed, with great
cordiality, expressing much pleasure at seeing again the boy who had
been presented to him by Captain Newport, and whom he had not seen
since he gave him leave to go and see his friends at Jamestown four
years before; he also inquired anxiously after Namontack, whom he had
sent to King James's land to see him and his country and report
thereon, and then led the way to his house, where he sat down on his
bedstead side. "On each hand of him was placed a comely and
personable young woman, which they called his Queenes, the howse
within round about beset with them, the outside guarded with a
hundred bowmen."
The first thing offered was a pipe of tobacco, which Powhatan "first
drank," and then passed to Hamor, who "drank" what he pleased and
then returned it. The Emperor then inquired how his brother Sir
Thomas Dale fared, "and after that of his daughter's welfare, her
marriage, his unknown son, and how they liked, lived and loved
together." Hamor replied "that his brother was very well, and his
daughter so well content that she would not change her life to return
and live with him, whereat he laughed heartily, and said he was very
glad of it."
Powhatan then desired to know the cause of his unexpected coming, and
Mr. Hamor said his message was private, to be delivered to him
without the presence of any except one of his councilors, and one of
the guides, who already knew it.
Therefore the house was cleared of all except the two Queens, who may
never sequester themselves, and Mr. Hamor began his palaver. First
there was a message of love and inviolable peace, the production of
presents of coffee, beads, combs, fish-hooks, and knives, and the
promise of a grindstone when it pleased the Emperor to send for it.
Hamor then proceeded:
"The bruite of the exquesite perfection of your youngest daughter,
being famous through all your territories, hath come to the hearing
of your brother, Sir Thomas Dale, who for this purpose hath addressed
me hither, to intreate you by that brotherly friendship you make
profession of, to permit her (with me) to returne unto him, partly
for the desire which himselfe hath, and partly for the desire her
sister hath to see her of whom, if fame hath not been prodigall, as
like enough it hath not, your brother (by your favour) would gladly
make his nearest companion, wife and bed fellow [many times he would
have interrupted my speech, which I entreated him to heare out, and
then if he pleased to returne me answer], and the reason hereof is,
because being now friendly and firmly united together, and made one
people [as he supposeth and believes] in the bond of love, he would
make a natural union between us, principally because himself hath
taken resolution to dwel in your country so long as he liveth, and
would not only therefore have the firmest assurance hee may, of
perpetuall friendship from you, but also hereby binde himselfe
thereunto."
Powhatan replied with dignity that he gladly accepted the salute of
love and peace, which he and his subjects would exactly maintain.
But as to the other matter he said: "My daughter, whom my brother
desireth, I sold within these three days to be wife to a great
Weroance for two bushels of Roanoke [a small kind of beads made of
oyster shells], and it is true she is already gone with him, three
days' journey from me."
Hamor persisted that this marriage need not stand in the way; "that
if he pleased herein to gratify his Brother he might, restoring the
Roanoke without the imputation of injustice, take home his daughter
again, the rather because she was not full twelve years old, and
therefore not marriageable; assuring him besides the bond of peace,
so much the firmer, he should have treble the price of his daughter
in beads, copper, hatchets, and many other things more useful for
him."
The reply of the noble old savage to this infamous demand ought to
have brought a blush to the cheeks of those who made it. He said he
loved his daughter as dearly as his life; he had many children, but
he delighted in none so much as in her; he could not live if he did
not see her often, as he would not if she were living with the
whites, and he was determined not to put himself in their hands. He
desired no other assurance of friendship than his brother had given
him, who had already one of his daughters as a pledge, which was
sufficient while she lived; "when she dieth he shall have another
child of mine." And then he broke forth in pathetic eloquence: "I
hold it not a brotherly part of your King, to desire to bereave me of
two of my children at once; further give him to understand, that if
he had no pledge at all, he should not need to distrust any injury
from me, or any under my subjection; there have been too many of his
and my men killed, and by my occasion there shall never be more; I
which have power to perform it have said it; no not though I should
have just occasion offered, for I am now old and would gladly end my
days in peace; so as if the English offer me any injury, my country
is large enough, I will remove myself farther from you."
The old man hospitably entertained his guests for a day or two,
loaded them with presents, among which were two dressed buckskins,
white as snow, for his son and daughter, and, requesting some
articles sent him in return, bade them farewell with this message to
Governor Dale: "I hope this will give him good satisfaction, if it do
not I will go three days' journey farther from him, and never see
Englishmen more." It speaks well for the temperate habits of this
savage that after he had feasted his guests, "he caused to be fetched
a great glass of sack, some three quarts or better, which Captain
Newport had given him six or seven years since, carefully preserved
by him, not much above a pint in all this time spent, and gave each
of us in a great oyster shell some three spoonfuls."
We trust that Sir Thomas Dale gave a faithful account of all this to
his wife in England.
Sir Thomas Gates left Virginia in the spring of 1614 and never
returned. After his departure scarcity and severity developed a
mutiny, and six of the settlers were executed. Rolfe was planting
tobacco (he has the credit of being the first white planter of it),
and his wife was getting an inside view of Christian civilization.
In 1616 Sir Thomas Dale returned to England with his company and John
Rolfe and Pocahontas, and several other Indians. They reached
Plymouth early in June, and on the 20th Lord Carew made this note:
"Sir Thomas Dale returned from Virginia; he hath brought divers men
and women of thatt countrye to be educated here, and one Rolfe who
married a daughter of Pohetan (the barbarous prince) called
Pocahuntas, hath brought his wife with him into England." On the 22d
Sir John Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carlton that there were ten
or twelve, old and young, of that country."
The Indian girls who came with Pocahontas appear to have been a great
care to the London company. In May, 1620, is a record that the
company had to pay for physic and cordials for one of them who had
been living as a servant in Cheapside, and was very weak of a
consumption. The same year two other of the maids were shipped off
to the Bermudas, after being long a charge to the company, in the
hope that they might there get husbands, "that after they were
converted and had children, they might be sent to their country and
kindred to civilize them." One of them was there married. The
attempt to educate them in England was not very successful, and a
proposal to bring over Indian boys obtained this comment from Sir
Edwin Sandys:
"Now to send for them into England, and to have them educated here,
he found upon experience of those brought by Sir Thomas Dale, might
be far from the Christian work intended." One Nanamack, a lad
brought over by Lord Delaware, lived some years in houses where "he
heard not much of religion but sins, had many times examples of
drinking, swearing and like evils, ran as he was a mere Pagan," till
he fell in with a devout family and changed his life, but died before
he was baptized. Accompanying Pocahontas was a councilor of
Powhatan, one Tomocomo, the husband of one of her sisters, of whom
Purchas says in his "Pilgrimes": "With this savage I have often
conversed with my good friend Master Doctor Goldstone where he was a
frequent geust, and where I have seen him sing and dance his
diabolical measures, and heard him discourse of his country and
religion.... Master Rolfe lent me a discourse which I have in my
Pilgrimage delivered. And his wife did not only accustom herself to
civility, but still carried herself as the daughter of a king, and
was accordingly respected, not only by the Company which allowed
provision for herself and her son, but of divers particular persons
of honor, in their hopeful zeal by her to advance Christianity. I
was present when my honorable and reverend patron, the Lord Bishop of
London, Doctor King, entertained her with festival state and pomp
beyond what I had seen in his great hospitality offered to other
ladies. At her return towards Virginia she came at Gravesend to her
end and grave, having given great demonstration of her Christian
sincerity, as the first fruits of Virginia conversion, leaving here a
goodly memory, and the hopes of her resurrection, her soul aspiring
to see and enjoy permanently in heaven what here she had joyed to
hear and believe of her blessed Saviour. Not such was Tomocomo, but
a blasphemer of what he knew not and preferring his God to ours
because he taught them (by his own so appearing) to wear their Devil-
lock at the left ear; he acquainted me with the manner of that his
appearance, and believed that their Okee or Devil had taught them
their husbandry."
Upon news of her arrival, Captain Smith, either to increase his own
importance or because Pocahontas was neglected, addressed a letter or
"little booke" to Queen Anne, the consort of King James. This letter
is found in Smith's "General Historie" ( 1624), where it is
introduced as having been sent to Queen Anne in 1616. Probably he
sent her such a letter. We find no mention of its receipt or of any
acknowledgment of it. Whether the "abstract" in the "General
Historie" is exactly like the original we have no means of knowing.
We have no more confidence in Smith's memory than we have in his
dates. The letter is as follows:
"To the most high and vertuous Princesse Queene Anne of Great
Brittaine.
Most ADMIRED QUEENE.
"The love I beare my God, my King and Countrie hath so oft emboldened
me in the worst of extreme dangers, that now honestie doth constraine
mee presume thus farre beyond my selfe, to present your Majestie this
short discourse: if ingratitude be a deadly poyson to all honest
vertues, I must be guiltie of that crime if I should omit any meanes
to bee thankful. So it is.
"That some ten yeeres agoe being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by
the power of Powhaten, their chiefe King, I received from this great
Salvage exceeding great courtesie, especially from his sonne
Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit, I ever saw
in a Salvage and his sister Pocahontas, the Kings most deare and wel-
beloved daughter, being but a childe of twelve or thirteen yeeres of
age, whose compassionate pitifull heart, of desperate estate, gave me
much cause to respect her: I being the first Christian this proud
King and his grim attendants ever saw, and thus enthralled in their
barbarous power, I cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that
was in the power of those my mortall foes to prevent notwithstanding
al their threats. After some six weeks fatting amongst those Salvage
Courtiers, at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating
out of her owne braines to save mine, and not onely that, but so
prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestowne,
where I found about eight and thirty miserable poore and sicke
creatures, to keepe possession of all those large territories of
Virginia, such was the weaknesse of this poore Commonwealth, as had
the Salvages not fed us, we directly had starved.
"And this reliefe, most gracious Queene, was commonly brought us by
this Lady Pocahontas, notwithstanding all these passages when
inconstant Fortune turned our Peace to warre, this tender Virgin
would still not spare to dare to visit us, and by her our jarres have
been oft appeased, and our wants still supplyed; were it the policie
of her father thus to imploy her, or the ordinance of God thus to
make her his instrument, or her extraordinarie affection to our
Nation, I know not: but of this I am sure: when her father with the
utmost of his policie and power, sought to surprize mee, having but
eighteene with mee, the dark night could not affright her from
comming through the irksome woods, and with watered eies gave me
intilligence, with her best advice to escape his furie: which had hee
known hee had surely slaine her. Jamestowne with her wild traine she
as freely frequented, as her father's habitation: and during the time
of two or three yeares, she next under God, was still the instrument
to preserve this Colonie from death, famine and utter confusion,
which if in those times had once beene dissolved, Virginia might have
laine as it was at our first arrivall to this day. Since then, this
buisinesse having been turned and varied by many accidents from that
I left it at: it is most certaine, after a long and troublesome warre
after my departure, betwixt her father and our Colonie, all which
time shee was not heard of, about two yeeres longer, the Colonie by
that meanes was releived, peace concluded, and at last rejecting her
barbarous condition, was maried to an English Gentleman, with whom at
this present she is in England; the first Christian ever of that
Nation, the first Virginian ever spake English, or had a childe in
mariage by an Englishman, a matter surely, if my meaning bee truly
considered and well understood, worthy a Princes understanding.
"Thus most gracious Lady, I have related to your Majestic, what at
your best leasure our approved Histories will account you at large,
and done in the time of your Majesties life, and however this might
bee presented you from a more worthy pen, it cannot from a more
honest heart, as yet I never begged anything of the State, or any,
and it is my want of abilitie and her exceeding desert, your birth,
meanes, and authoritie, her birth, vertue, want and simplicitie, doth
make mee thus bold, humbly to beseech your Majestic: to take this
knowledge of her though it be from one so unworthy to be the
reporter, as myselfe, her husband's estate not being able to make her
fit to attend your Majestic: the most and least I can doe, is to tell
you this, because none so oft hath tried it as myselfe: and the
rather being of so great a spirit, however her station: if she should
not be well received, seeing this Kingdome may rightly have a
Kingdome by her meanes: her present love to us and Christianitie,
might turne to such scorne and furie, as to divert all this good to
the worst of evill, when finding so great a Queene should doe her
some honour more than she can imagine, for being so kinde to your
servants and subjects, would so ravish her with content, as endeare
her dearest bloud to effect that, your Majestic and all the Kings
honest subjects most earnestly desire: and so I humbly kisse your
gracious hands."
The passage in this letter, "She hazarded the beating out of her owne
braines to save mine," is inconsistent with the preceding portion of
the paragraph which speaks of "the exceeding great courtesie" of
Powhatan; and Smith was quite capable of inserting it afterwards when
he made up his
"General Historie."
Smith represents himself at this time--the last half of 1616 and the
first three months of 1617--as preparing to attempt a third voyage to
New England (which he did not make), and too busy to do Pocahontas
the service she desired. She was staying at Branford, either from
neglect of the company or because the London smoke disagreed with
her, and there Smith went to see her. His account of his intercourse
with her, the only one we have, must be given for what it is worth.
According to this she had supposed Smith dead, and took umbrage at
his neglect of her. He writes:
"After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about,
obscured her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humour,
her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three hours
repenting myself to have writ she could speak English. But not long
after she began to talke, remembering me well what courtesies she had
done: saying, 'You did promise Powhatan what was yours should be his,
and he the like to you; you called him father, being in his land a
stranger, and by the same reason so must I do you:' which though I
would have excused, I durst not allow of that title, because she was
a king's daughter. With a well set countenance she said: 'Were you
not afraid to come into my father's country and cause fear in him and
all his people (but me), and fear you have I should call you father;
I tell you then I will, and you shall call me childe, and so I will
be forever and ever, your contrieman. They did tell me alwaies you
were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plymouth, yet Powhatan
did command Uttamatomakkin to seek you, and know the truth, because
your countriemen will lie much."'
This savage was the Tomocomo spoken of above, who had been sent by
Powhatan to take a census of the people of England, and report what
they and their state were. At Plymouth he got a long stick and began
to make notches in it for the people he saw. But he was quickly
weary of that task. He told Smith that Powhatan bade him seek him
out, and get him to show him his God, and the King, Queen, and
Prince, of whom Smith had told so much. Smith put him off about
showing his God, but said he had heard that he had seen the King.
This the Indian denied, James probably not coming up to his idea of a
king, till by circumstances he was convinced he had seen him. Then
he replied very sadly: "You gave Powhatan a white dog, which Powhatan
fed as himself, but your king gave me nothing, and I am better than
your white dog."
Smith adds that he took several courtiers to see Pocahontas, and
"they did think God had a great hand in her conversion, and they have
seen many English ladies worse favoured, proportioned, and
behavioured;" and he heard that it had pleased the King and Queen
greatly to esteem her, as also Lord and Lady Delaware, and other
persons of good quality, both at the masques and otherwise.
Much has been said about the reception of Pocahontas in London, but
the contemporary notices of her are scant. The Indians were objects
of curiosity for a time in London, as odd Americans have often been
since, and the rank of Pocahontas procured her special attention.
She was presented at court. She was entertained by Dr. King, Bishop
of London. At the playing of Ben Jonson's "Christmas his Mask" at
court, January 6, 1616-17, Pocahontas and Tomocomo were both present,
and Chamberlain writes to Carleton: "The Virginian woman Pocahuntas
with her father counsellor have been with the King and graciously
used, and both she and her assistant were pleased at the Masque. She
is upon her return though sore against her will, if the wind would
about to send her away."
Mr. Neill says that "after the first weeks of her residence in
England she does not appear to be spoken of as the wife of Rolfe by
the letter writers," and the Rev. Peter Fontaine says that "when they
heard that Rolfe had married Pocahontas, it was deliberated in
council whether he had not committed high treason by so doing, that
is marrying an Indian princesse."
It was like James to think so. His interest in the colony was never
the most intelligent, and apt to be in things trivial. Lord
Southampton (Dec. 15, 1609) writes to Lord Salisbury that he had told
the King of the Virginia squirrels brought into England, which are
said to fly. The King very earnestly asked if none were provided for
him, and said he was sure Salisbury would get him one. Would not
have troubled him, "but that you know so well how he is affected to
these toys."
There has been recently found in the British Museum a print of a
portrait of Pocahontas, with a legend round it in Latin, which is
translated: " Matoaka, alias Rebecka, Daughter of Prince Powhatan,
Emperor of Virginia; converted to Christianity, married Mr. Rolff;
died on shipboard at Gravesend 1617. This is doubtless the portrait
engraved by Simon De Passe in 1616, and now inserted in the extant
copies of the London edition of the "General Historie," 1624. It is
not probable that the portrait was originally published with the
"General Historie." The portrait inserted in the edition of 1624 has
this inscription:
Round the portrait: