Part 9

“She died at Gravesend, (England,) where she was preparing to embark with her husband and son on her return to Virginia. Her death was a happy mixture of Indian fortitude and Christian submission, affecting all those who saw her, by the lively and edifying picture of piety and virtue which marked her latter moments.”--_Burk’s Virginia._

[NOTE 25--CANTO SIXTH, SECT. IX.]

And now this land is ours again; The rest of the pale-face crew We’ll brush away from our forest home, As we brush the drops of dew.

“The savages no sooner understood Smith was gone, but they all revolted, and did spoil and murther all they encountered.”--_Smith’s Virginia._

[NOTE 26--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. III.]

We ran to rescue, but in vain; They bore her from the shore, Away, away, and much I fear Thou’lt never see her more.

Whatever account Japazaws may have given of the capture of Metoka, or Pocahontas, history attributes the incident altogether to his own treachery. She was carried away by Captain Argall, who was up the Potomac with his vessel for the purpose of trading with the natives. The following account is copied from Burk.

“By the means of Japazaws, king of Potomac, he discovered that Pocahontas was concealed in the neighborhood, and he immediately conceived the design of getting her into his power; concluding that the possession of so valuable an hostage would operate as a check on the hostile dispositions of the emperor, and might perhaps be made an instrument of peace and reconciliation. The integrity of Japazaws was not proof against the seducing appearance of a copper kettle, which was fixed as the price of his treachery; and this amiable maiden, whose soul nature formed on one of her kindest and noblest models, was betrayed by her perfidious host into the hands of a people, whom her tender and compassionate spirit had often snatched from famine and the sword.

“For the causes of this princess’s absence from her father, we are left to bare conjecture. Her avowed partiality for the English had probably drawn down on her the displeasure of this high-spirited monarch; and she had retired to avoid the effects of his immediate resentment.”

[NOTE 27--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. VIII.]

Sir John had led him by the hair With pistol at his breast; The rankling thought was a raging fire, That never let him rest.

“The president, (Smith,) some time after this, being on a visit to Pamunky, an attempt was made by Opechancanough to seize him; for which purpose he beset the place, where they had met to trade, with seven hundred Indians, well-armed, of his own tribe. But Smith, seizing him by the hair, led him trembling in the midst of his people, who immediately laid down their arms.”--_Burk’s Virginia._

[NOTE 28--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. X.]

When morning came, the sun look’d down Where many a cottage stood, But he only saw black smouldering heaps, And fields that smoked with blood.

The great massacre of the Virginia colony by the Indians in 1622, is thus described by Burk.

“Whilst the colony was thus rapidly advancing to eminence and wealth, she carried in her bosom and about her an enemy which was to blight her budding honors, and which brought near to ruin and desolation her growing establishment. Since the marriage of Pocahontas, the natives had lived on terms of uninterrupted and apparently cordial amity with the English, which daily gained strength by mutual wants and necessities. Each had something beyond their wants, which the other stood in need of. And commerce, regulated by good faith, and a spirit of justice, gave facility to the exchange or barter of their superfluous productions. The consequence of this state of things was, a complete security on the part of the English; a total disregard and disuse of military precautions and martial exercises. The time and the hands of labor were considered too valuable to be employed in an idle and holiday array of arms; and in this situation, wholly intent on amassing wealth, and totally unprovided for defence, they were attacked by an enemy, whose resentment no time nor good offices could disarm; whose preparations were silent as night; to whom the arts of native cunning had given a deep dissimulation, an exterior so specious, as might impose on suspicion itself.

“Opechancanough (who succeeded Powhatan in the government) possessed a powerful recommendation in the eyes of his countrymen. His hatred of the English was rooted and deadly. Never for a moment did he forget the unjust invasion and insolent aggressions of those strangers. Never did he forget his own personal wrongs and humiliation.

“Compelled by the inferiority of his countrymen in the weapons and instruments of war, as by their customs, to employ stratagem instead of force, he buried deep in his bosom all traces of the rage with which he was agitated.

“To the English, if any faith was due to appearances, his deportment was uniformly frank and unreserved. He was the equitable mediator in the several differences which arose between them and his countrymen.

“The intellectual superiority of the white men was the constant theme of his admiration. He appeared to consider them as the peculiar favorites of heaven, against whom resistance were at once impious and impracticable. But far different was his language and deportment in the presence of his countrymen.

“In the gloom and silence of the dark and impenetrable forest, or the inaccessible swamp, he gave utterance to the sorrows and indignation of his swelling bosom. He painted with the strength and brilliancy of savage coloring the tyranny, rapacity, and cruelty of the English; while he mournfully contrasted the unalloyed content and felicity of their former lives, with their present abject and degraded condition; subject as they were to the capricious control and intolerable requisitions of those hard and unpitying task-masters.

“Independence is the first blessing of the savage state. Without it, all other advantages are light and valueless. Bereft of this, in their estimation even life itself is a barren and comfortless possession. It is not surprising then, that Opechancanough, independent of his influence as a great Werowance or war captain, should, on such a subject, discover kindred feelings in the breasts of his countrymen. The war-song and war-whoop, breaking like thunder from the fierce and barbarous multitudes, mingling with the clatter of their shields, and enforced by the terrific gestures of the war-dance, proclaimed to their leader their determination to die with him or conquer.

“With equal address the experienced and wily savage proceeded to allay the storm which invective had conjured up in the breasts of the Indians. The English, although experience had proved them neither immortal nor invincible, he represented as formidable by their fire-arms, and their superior knowledge in the art of war; and he inculcated, as the sole means of deliverance and revenge, secrecy and caution until an occasion should offer, when, by surprise or ambush, the scattered establishments of their enemies might at the same moment be assaulted and swept away.

“Four years had nearly elapsed in maturing this formidable conspiracy; during which time, not a single Indian belonging to the thirty nations, which composed the empire of Powhatan, was found to violate his engagements, or betray his leader. Not a word or hint was heedlessly or deliberately dropt to awaken jealousy or excite suspicion.

“Every thing being at length ripe for execution, the several nations of Indians were secretly drawn together, and stationed at the several points of attack, with a celerity and precision unparalleled in history. Although some of the detachments had to march from great distances, and through a continued forest, guided only by the stars and the dubious light of the moon, no instance of mistake or disorder took place. The Indian mode of march is by single files. They follow one after another in profound silence, treading nearly as possible in the steps of each other, and adjusting the long grass and branches which they have displaced. This is done to conceal all traces of their route from their enemies, who are equally sagacious and quick-sighted. They halted at a short distance from the English, waiting without impatience for the signal which was to be given by their fellows, who, under pretence of traffic, had this day in considerable numbers repaired to the plantations of the colonists.

“So perfect was the cunning and dissimulation of Opechancanough, that on the morning of this fatal day, the straggling English by his direction were conducted in safety through the woods to their settlements, and presents of venison and fowl were sent in his name to the governor and counsellors, accompanied with expressions of regard and assurances of friendship. ‘Sooner,’ said the wily chieftain, ‘shall the sky fall, than the peace shall be violated on my part.’

“And so entirely were the English duped by these professions and appearances, that they freely lent the Indians their boats, with which they announced the concert, the signal and the hour of attack to their countrymen on the other side of the river.

“The fatal hour having at length arrived, and the necessary dispositions having every where taken place; on a signal given, at mid day, innumerable detachments setting up the war-whoop, burst from their concealments on the defenceless settlements of the English, massacreing all they met, without distinction of age or sex; and according to custom mutilating and mangling in a shocking manner the dead bodies of their enemies.

“So unexpected and terrible was the onset, that scarcely any resistance was made. The English fell scarcely knowing their enemies, and in many instances by their own weapons. In one hour three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children, including six of the council and several others of distinction, fell without a struggle, by the hands of the Indians. Chance alone saved the colony from utter extirpation.

“A converted Indian, named Chanco, lived with Richard Pace, loved by his master on account of his good qualities, with an affection at once Christian and parental. The night preceding the massacre, the brother of Chanco slept with him; and after a strict injunction of secrecy, having revealed to him the intended plot, he commanded him, in the name of Opechancanough, to murder his master. The grateful Indian, shocked at the atrocity of the proposal, after his brother’s departure, flew to Pace and disclosed to him the information he had received. There was no time to be lost. Before day a despatch was forwarded to the governor at Jamestown, which with the adjacent settlements was thus preserved from the ruin that hung over them.

* * * * *

“From this time the number of the plantations and settlements, which before amounted to eighty, was reduced to six, and their strength concentrated by order of the governor about Jamestown and the neighborhood. All works of public utility, as well as the exertions of private industry, were entirely suspended; and the whole attention of the colonists was bent on the means of defence, and on projects of vengeance. A bloody and exterminating war ensued, in which treachery and cruelty took place of manly courage and generous warfare. The laws of war, and that humanity, which in the moments of victory give quarter to the vanquished, were forgotten amid the suggestions of craving and insatiable revenge. But the opportunities of retaliation, owing to the swiftness of the natives, were not frequent enough to appease the boiling spirit of vengeance. The Indian, pressed by hunger, or stimulated by the hope of plunder or revenge, would on a sudden burst from his concealment on his enemy, and if outnumbered and pursued, he vanished amid the eternal midnight of his forests. Whole days he lies on his belly in breathless silence, his color not distinguishable from the earth on which he lies, and every faculty wound up to attention. He watches the moment when he can strike with certainty, and his aim is as fatal and unerring as destiny.

“At last the Indians were invited from their fastnesses by the hopes of peace and the solemn assurances of safety and forgiveness. That inhuman maxim of the Roman Church, ‘that no faith is to be kept with heretics,’ appears to have been adopted by the colonists in its fullest force.

“The habitations of the unfortunate people were beset at the same moment; and an indiscriminate slaughter took place, without regard to age, sex, or infancy. The horrid scene terminated by setting fire to the huts and corn of the savages.”

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Powhatan. This name, in the northern and middle states, has usually been accented on the second syllable. But in Virginia the accent is thrown on the first and last syllables, which is undoubtedly according to the Indian mode of pronunciation, and therefore the true one.

[B] Metoka, or Metoaka, which was the original name of Pocahontas, is adopted in preference to the latter throughout this poem, on account of its greater euphony.

[C] This name is sometimes pronounced by throwing a strong accent on the fourth syllable. The pronunciation adopted in this work throws a slight accent on the first, third, and fifth syllables, which is believed to be more agreeable to the usage of the Indian tribes. In pronouncing long words they seldom give much accent to any one syllable, but utter each syllable with nearly the same intonation.

[D] Okee was the name of one of their principal gods, a rude image of which was kept in most of the tribes.

[E] Kecoughtan was on the west side of Chesapeake Bay, where Hampton now stands. James River was called, by the natives, Powhatan.

[F] Paspahey was the place on James River where the English first effected a settlement, and gave it the name of Jamestown.

[G] King, chief, or head man of a tribe.

NOTES:

[NOTE 1--CANTO FIRST, SECT. I.

Far in their mountain lurking-place The Manakins had heard his fame, And Manahocks dared not come down His valleys to pursue their game.

The Manakins and Manahocs, or Manahoacs, dwelt in the hilly country above the falls of the great rivers which empty into Chesapeake Bay; while the dominion of Powhatan extended over the whole of the flat country below the falls. The Manakins dwelt on the head waters of the James River, and the Manahocs on the head waters of the Potomac and Rappahannock. They were subdivided into several nations or tribes, and formed a sort of league or confederacy of the upland and mountain Indians against the power and tyranny of Powhatan. The Manakins consisted of four or five tribes, and the Manahocs of eight, and the whole, being combined in firm league against the empire of Powhatan, must have constituted rather a formidable foe.]