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 [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 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 An intelligent English-speaking Indian, Kemps, lived a year at Jamestown; and a frequent Of course inquiry was made of Pocahontas, who had not been seen at Jamestown after Captain 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 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," [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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS AT JAMESTOWN.
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] |