The Pocahontas-John Smith Story Part 4

Smith and Newport were told by their credulous patrons to hunt up the lost colonists of Roanoke, for lost brothers, like lost sheep, should be reclaimed. Powhatan had told Smith of white men who were attired like himself and who were now abiding in Ocanahawan, so Smith had already recorded that on his map. Captain Newport now made an expedition to Panawick, a village beyond Roanoke Island, but his Indian guide led him astray. In December of 1608 Smith led another expedition and sent Master Sicklemore and two guides to seek the lost colonists, but Indians merely showed them some crosses and letters on the bark of trees.

While Newport and Ratcliffe returned to England at the end of December, Smith enjoyed a Christmas holiday with the Indians near Kecoughtan without envy of English Yule Logs, plum puddings and traditional celebrations. He entered into the native merriment heartily. Here was s.h.i.+ning snow, frost and cedar, as well as delicious oysters, fish, flesh and wild fowl. He declared that he "never had better fires in England than in the dry, smoky houses of Kecoughtan." Smith knew however that Powhatan was becoming envious of the English way of life if he was not, so he was on his way with fourteen men to build a house for the Emperor.

Powhatan had wanted to gird himself with more and more English trappings, and he requested a c.o.c.k, a hen and a grindstone. How about a coach-and-four, such as he heard their king had? Most of all he had wanted an English house, for nothing less than sheltering walls could keep off the threat of guns, of which he was so afraid.

Smith already had some German house builders on hand. Instead of having them build a house for himself, he, the great white father, turned them over to the great red father. It was not such a sacrifice, for Smith knew himself to be a born wanderer on the face of the earth. He could do without his own roof, as without his own woman, more easily than could most men. Tragabigzanda, his Turkish angel who had left him in her brother's keeping for a while, had been wasting her pains. Likewise, if young Pocahontas here had designs upon him, she must give them up before hero-wors.h.i.+p developed into something too mature and possessive. He was his own man and that of no woman alive.

Smith was embarra.s.sed not so much by indebtedness to the Indian maid as by apprehension of her adoration. His best grat.i.tude to her who had saved his life would be to leave her hers without involving it. What irony that she, like most women, appreciated him too much, while men, who would do better than women to follow him, appreciated him too little! The time was coming when he should move on to new worlds to conquer, for he and his men here could never see eye to eye.

Much less could he and Powhatan. Powhatan, he admitted, had talked to him with simple eloquence: "Think you I am simple not to know it is better to eat good meat, lie well and sleep quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with you, have copper, hatchets, or what I want, be your friend; than be forced to fly from all, to lie cold in the woods, feed upon acorns, roots and such trash, and be so hunted by you that I can neither rest, eat, nor sleep, but my tired man must watch and if a twig but break every one cry: 'There comes Captain Smith.' Then must I fly I know not whither, and thus with miserable fear end my miserable life?"... "What no guns, no swords? The copper hatchets you made are of no use to me and my people. We can eat our corn, but not your copper."

Smith reminded him that he had sent the Germans to build a house.

Powhatan said, "If you are such friends of ours, why do you not lay down your arms in our presence? That is our custom."

Smith stuck to his guns. Then he changed the subject. How would Powhatan like a kettle which spewed steam out of its snout? Powhatan did bite at such bait after all.

Not having secured as much corn from Powhatan as he had hoped, Smith now decided to tackle Opechancanough. He challenged the Indian to individual combat, being well aware that the old chief had been impressed with the three Turk's heads on his s.h.i.+eld. Cringingly he offered to heap up all the corn demanded. Smith now s.n.a.t.c.hed him by his long lock, and then appropriated bow and arrow. "You promised to freight my s.h.i.+p ere I departed, and so you shall; or I mean to load her with your dead carca.s.ses." Before he left there, he held his pistol at the chief's breast, and led him meekly among his own forces, making him fill his bark with twenty tons of corn.

Still, it was not by parrying words with Powhatan, nor weapons with his brother, that he secured essential food, but by the loving mercy of Pocahontas. That frail and loyal bond between them saved the colonists.

She had seemed like the G.o.ddess of the maize, bearing corn to them.

With braver mercy still, she stole through the woods at night to tell Smith of the plot which her father was contriving with the aid of the treacherous foreigners whom he had sent to build a house for Powhatan.

Powhatan was about to have a gala feast spread for Smith and his men, but in the morning when they slept stupidly after too much food and drink, Powhatan's men would descend upon them and kill.

Smith, now prepared, made the bearers of Powhatan's treacherous bounty taste every dish before he did, and again he escaped, guarding his appet.i.te and his life.

Between February and May of 1609 a well was dug, forty acres were cleared and planted in corn, the church was covered, and twenty new cabins were erected. A blockhouse was built at the isthmus, and a new fort was reared opposite Jamestown. Food was still scarce, however, and rats consumed most of the corn crop. Believing that it was best to keep in with the Indians, Smith induced some Englishmen to live with the natives. Desperately he sent others to the oyster banks to prevent starvation, but the queer diet was unhealthy, and made the skin peel from their bodies.

News of these dire conditions got to London and alienated the Company to Smith, whose enemies had talked effectively against him. The stockholders were already displeased with the lack of profit from Virginia, so they decided to appoint their treasurer, Sir Thomas Smith, as absentee President. Little did London care if the bitter colonists saucily wished him astride the mare which they had boiling in a stew, and if they saluted their fancy with impudent glee: "Sir Thomas!" The Company decided to dispatch Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, followed by Lord Delaware who would get everything under control in Jamestown.

When Captain Samuel Argall, the privateer, turned up in July with letters from the Company criticizing Smith and telling of the third supply to be brought by Lord Delaware, Smith was embittered. A month later four s.h.i.+ps of the supply came in early bearing--of all people--Smith's former enemies: Ratcliffe, Archer and Martin, all captains now. The _Sea Venture_ and other s.h.i.+ps had not been heard from, but Smith had had enough and he was hurt by lack of confidence in his command. He was thinking of returning to England anyhow before his enemies sped him on his way. An accident made up his mind for him.

While he was napping in the afternoon a keg of gunpowder exploded and set him on fire. Distracted with agony he jumped into the water to cool the burns. Much of his flesh was torn from his body and thighs. A hundred miles stretched between him and Jamestown, and thousands more to London, but there only he could get proper doctoring. Fortunately a s.h.i.+p was just leaving Jamestown which could and would take him on. Percy was the only one who could be persuaded to take his place, for even his enemies did not want it at this dubious stage.

Smith claimed that the colony now had three s.h.i.+ps and seven boats, and many desirable commodities. There were provisions for ten weeks for the four hundred and ninety people, besides twenty-four pieces of ordnances, three hundred muskets, firelocks, shot, powder and match and swords. One hundred soldiers could speak the Indian language. There were six mares, horses, five hundred swine, hams, chickens, goats and sheep. He had done his best, and it was no poor best. His friends agreed eloquently: "He made justice his first guide and experience his second, ever hating baseness, sloth, pride and indignity more than any dangers, that never allowed more for himself than for his soldiers with him, that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself, that never see us want what he had or either could by any means get us, that would rather want than borrow, or starve than not pay, that loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and covetousness worse than death, whose adventures were our lives, and whose loss our deaths."

So Smith was out of sight, and for most out of mind. Such word of him as got to the Indians was that he was dead. Powhatan, who had feared and hated him when he was around, now defended him. "My daughter, you see how treacherous the white men are. The foolish palefaces have killed the best man whom they had."

Without Smith, the remaining whites fared worse with the Indians.

Ratcliffe and others were slaughtered, and Archer died. The "Starving Time" which had set in during Smith's office was worse than at any period. An oatmeal thief had a bodkin thrust through his tongue. The most cruel man of all had chopped up his wife and salted the parts, consuming some, before he was caught and executed. Only sixty of five hundred people survived.

There was no way for them to know that the chief relief s.h.i.+p the _Sea Venture_ had been tossed about at sea, and wrecked on the Bermuda sh.o.r.es, by a terrible storm. Shakespeare, on hearing of it, wrote his play the _Tempest_, moved by the drama of the storm, and the strange lull afterward on the balmy isles.

IV

The _Sea Venture_ which had left England with one hundred and fifty pa.s.sengers on June 2, 1609, had not only Sir Thomas Gates aboard, but an ordinary Englishman named John Rolfe and his wife. The lull after the storm which wrecked the s.h.i.+p off the Bermuda Isles was such a relief that they named their baby born there "Bermuda" after the island. She was baptized by the Reverend Richard Buck, who was to stand by John Rolfe on many occasions in the future. The burial of the baby was the next of these. Their sojourn on the healthy islands was a blessing to most of the refugees, although they were supposed dead by the Jamestown colonists, few of whom were surviving themselves during their "Starving Time" that winter and early spring.

Praying only for a safe arrival in Jamestown before long, they looked only that far ahead. John Rolfe did not antic.i.p.ate that his wife would die soon. Sir George Somers did not foresee that he would come to an inglorious end on this very island many months hence from eating a surfeit of pig; and Sir Thomas Gates, the first absolute Governor of Virginia, did not know that his desperate decision on arrival at Jamestown would nearly end the colony, making it disappear in the mysterious trail of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth Island and St. George's Fort.

Resolutely these sanguine refugees saw that boats were built out of salvaged timbers from the wrecked s.h.i.+p, along with fresh and strong cedar from the Islands, and they put faith if not wind into the sails of the aptly named _Patience_ and _Deliverance_.

The forlorn colonists at Jamestown could scarcely believe their eyes as the stalwart s.h.i.+ps came up the river with their castaways a May morning in 1610. The sixty survivors on the sh.o.r.e were too weak to fall in with any brave plans at this point, for plague, starvation and Indian enmity had had their will of them.

Gates landed with high hopes and high orders. He intended to establish a colony at a higher and healthier spot. He was going to keep looking for the Roanoke colonists, and yes, for gold, too, until the tottering ruin of Jamestown appalled him. People had gnawed on molded bread, eaten rats and snakes, and perhaps corpses. Listening to their tales of woe, he promised to take them away, for his food would only sustain them all for sixteen days here. Palisades were torn down, ports opened, gates ripped from their hinges, the church ruined--and it would have been bitterly deserted if it had been habitable. Gates declared martial law. The survivors with their pitiful possessions and small arms were gotten on board to the militant beating of drums. He saw that the heavier cannon were buried, and he was himself the last to board the s.h.i.+p, being afraid that the sullen colonists would set fire to what remained. He considered himself a good housekeeper, leaving his premises tidy for any who should come after, never dreaming that that would be of all people--himself.

He had sent the pinnace _Virginia_ to pick up the guard at Point Comfort. After making six miles, they stopped for the night at Hog Island. In the morning they had travelled but eight more miles when they were baffled at sight of the white sails of the _Virginia_, which was heading toward them with an important message which reversed the course of western history. Lord Delaware was on his way with one hundred and fifty men to their rescue, and they must go meekly back to await his orders. They met this news with bad grace, but followed the directions.

Gates had his company duly standing in arms, and William Strachey, then Secretary of State, let his colors fall at his lords.h.i.+p's feet, as Delaware entered from the river that Sunday afternoon, falling on his knees to pray silently, on the threshold of the fort at the south gate.

He pa.s.sed on to the church where the Reverend Richard Buck preached.

Delaware was a man who got things done on week days as well as on Sundays, although he fastidiously kept to his quarters on the s.h.i.+p after a look about at rotting Jamestown. He got houses mended, having rails put on leaking roofs, and Indian mats hung over drafty huts. He dealt with the Indians with short shrift, and he sent to seek gold once again. Not since John Smith's day had such an efficient leader hustled lazier men.

The chapel was made the most exalted place of wors.h.i.+p yet seen over here. Pews, pulpit, and chancel were built of pungent cedar, and the deeper fragrance of fresh flowers cheered the colonists. The Communion table was built of walnut. Fifty men in bright red livery sat on either side of Delaware, or behind him, as he attended services. Two preachers took turns for two services on Sundays and for another on Thursday. Two bells in the west end of the chapel called all to prayer daily at ten and at four. Everybody and everything seemed on the mend but his lords.h.i.+p himself.

He did not have the stamina to endure this unhealthy climate. The flux, cramp, gout, scurvy and general debility sickened him so that he fled to the Island of Nevis for the cure, wanting to prescribe for himself in as modern and salubrious a manner as he had for the ailing colony. His cure was due to be suns.h.i.+ne, hot baths, balmy climate, oranges and lemons, a far cry from any at poor Jamestown, but winds and waves swept him to London sooner than he had planned.

He was briefly succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale, a grim disciplinarian. Dale was disgusted with the carefree bowling in the streets. He would have been more so a few years back had he seen the naked Pocahontas turning cart-wheels in these streets while the serving boys whirled in her trail, never quite keeping up with her--nor would he have liked the tall tobacco growing rampant in these streets, a few years hence at a time when food crops were needed. Dale believed in all work and no play--never mind dull boys. Houses, the storehouse, and the church needed repairs. Besides he ordered new buildings: a stable, a munition house, a powder house, fishhouse, a barn, a smith's forge, a clean well, and a wharf for landing goods.

He also built up two new towns. Bermuda City he named for the haven which the _Sea Venture_ survivors had appreciated after the tempest.

After Gates became governor in 1611, Dale preferred to live in Henricopolis, which was situated on a higher and drier site than Jamestown enjoyed. It had three streets of well-framed houses, several having brick first stories. They had gardens and orchards, and more s.p.a.ce than those in Jamestown.

By Christmas there was a pretty street in Jamestown itself which had a London look. There were "two fair rows of framed timber houses with upper garrets corn-loft high." Some had plaster on the lower framing and some weather boarding, while still others had s.h.i.+ngle tiles which were hung from the battens across the posts. There was a blockhouse outside of town, the town itself being enclosed with a palisade.

Sir Thomas Gates who had arrived again in August of 1611 with six vessels and three hundred men, replacing Dale, had the "Country House"

for governors built. It had a commanding view of the river, outside of the town limits.

Fine as these buildings were, they were constantly needing repair. A jealous Spanish spy declared in 1613 that the whole settlement could be kicked over. Spanish spies had been captured outside of Jamestown in 1611 and were kept there for several years.

Until 1612 Sir Thomas Smith, who was no kin of John, but who gave prestige to the name, being the most powerful merchant in London, had managed the colony by remote control, along with his docile council in England. Then a joint stock company began, being composed of the "court party" which urged martial law and the "patriot party." Sir Thomas Smith gradually veered from the patriot to the court party, leaving the former to brilliant Sir Edwin Sandys.

Samuel Argall, a cousin of Thomas Smith, had landed with Delaware earlier. In 1613 he was sent to capture fifteen Frenchmen who had left Nova Scotia to try a settlement in Mount Desert, Maine, and he brought them as prisoners to Jamestown.

That same year Argall became a frequent figure in the Pocahontas story.

V

Pocahontas, whose frantic questions had to be hushed with the lie that Smith was no more, now shunned the colony, and her pent-up adoration became a resentment against his people. It was as if he had been adopted into her tribe as well as her heart. A red woman, when she has given her heart, does not take it back. Her moods were more dark than bright, although with the braves and girls her own age she smiled and danced once in a while, like sunlight that would out in darkest woods at noon.

A lovely maiden cannot remain woebegone too long, and Powhatan's people, especially those eager for his favor, did their merriest to scatter her dark moods.

She was visiting in the house of Chief j.a.pazaws when he made a deal with the English of which she was not aware. Captain Argall, whose s.h.i.+p was anch.o.r.ed nearby, had dangled a copper kettle so temptingly in front of j.a.pazaws and his greedy squaw that they could not wait until it spewed steam on their hearth. Captain Argall wanted Pocahontas as a hostage to exchange for English prisoners whom Powhatan had detained too long. That would be easy, agreed j.a.pazaws, for she used to like the English and was grieving even now for their John Smith. After some pouting, she would be happy as a lark sailing down the river with the English in their great canoe.