Virginia Watson - The Princess Pocahontas

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[Illustration: THE WHITE FIGURE MOVED RAPIDLY]

THE PRINCESS
POCAHONTAS

BY

VIRGINIA WATSON

Author of "WITH CORTES THE CONQUEROR"

WITH DRAWINGS AND DECORATIONS BY
GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS

THE HAMPTON PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK

[Illustration: Decorative]

INTRODUCTION

To most of us who have read of the early history of Virginia only in our
school histories, Pocahontas is merely a figure in one dramatic
scene--her rescue of John Smith. We see her in one mental picture only,
kneeling beside the prostrate Englishman, her uplifted hands warding off
the descending tomahawk.

By chance I began to read more about the settlement of the English at
Jamestown and Pocahontas' connection with it, and the more I read the
more interesting and real she grew to me. The old chronicles gave me the
facts, and guided by these, my imagination began to follow the Indian
maiden as she went about the forests or through the villages of the
Powhatans.

We are growing up in this new country of ours. And just as when children
get older they begin to feel curious about the childhood of their own
parents, so we have gained a new curiosity about the early history of
our country. The earlier histories and stories dealing with the Indians
and the wars between them and the colonists made the red man a devil
incarnate, with no redeeming virtue but that of courage. Now, however,
there is a new spirit of understanding. We are finding out how often it
was the Indian who was wronged and the white man who wronged him. Many
records there are of treaties faithfully kept by the Indians and
faithlessly broken by the colonists. Virginia was the first permanent
English settlement on this continent, and if not the _most_ important,
at least equally as important to our future development as that of New
England. From how small a seed, sown on that island of Jamestown in
1607, has sprung the mighty State, that herself has scattered seeds of
other states and famous men and women to multiply and enrich America.
And amid what dangers did this seed take root! But for one girl's
aid--as far as man may judge--it would have been uprooted and destroyed.

In truth, when I look over the whole world history, I can find no other
child of thirteen, boy or girl, who wielded such a far-reaching
influence over the future of a nation. But for the protection and aid
which Pocahontas coaxed from Powhatan for her English friends at
Jamestown, the Colony would have perished from starvation or by the
arrows of the hostile Indians. And the importance of this Colony to the
future United States was so great that we owe to Pocahontas somewhat the
same gratitude, though in a lesser degree, that France owes to her Joan
of Arc.

Pocahontas's greatest service to the colonists lay not in the saving of
Captain Smith's life, but in her continued succour to the starving
settlement. Indeed, there are historians who have claimed that the story
of her rescue of Smith is an invention without foundation. But in
opposition to this view let me quote from "The American Nation: A
History." Lyon Gardiner Tyler, author of the volume "England in America"
says:

"The credibility of this story has been attacked.... Smith was
often inaccurate and prejudiced in his statements, but that is far
from saying that he deliberately mistook plain objects of sense or
concocted a story having no foundation."

and from "The New International Encyclopaedia":

"Until Charles Deane attacked it (the story of Pocahontas's rescue
of Smith) in 1859, it was seldom questioned, but, owing largely to
his criticisms, it soon became generally discredited. In recent
years, however, there has been a tendency to retain it."

It is in Smith's own writings, "General Historie of Virginia" and "A
True Relation," that we find the best and fullest accounts of these
first days at Jamestown. He tells us not only what happened, but how the
new country looked; what kinds of game abounded; how the Indians lived,
and what his impressions of their customs were. Smith was ignorant of
certain facts about the Indians with which we are now familiar. The
curious ceremony which took place in the hut in the forest, just before
Powhatan freed Smith and allowed him to return to Jamestown, was one he
could not comprehend. Modern historians believe that it was probably the
ceremony of adoption by which Smith was made one of the tribe.

In many places in this story I have not only followed closely Smith's
own narrative of what occurred, but have made use of the very words in
which he recorded the conversations. For instance the incident related
on page 101 was set down by Smith himself; on pages 144, 154, 262 the
words are those of Smith as given in his history; on pages 173, 195,
260, 300 the words of Powhatan or Pocahontas as Smith relates them.

There may be readers of this story who will want to know what became of
Pocahontas. She fell ill of a fever just as she was about to sail home
for Virginia and died in Gravesend, where she was buried. Her son Thomas
Rolfe was educated in England and went to Virginia when he was grown.
His daughter Jane married John Bolling, and among their descendants
have been many famous men and women, including Edith Bolling (Mrs. Galt)
who married President Woodrow Wilson.

[Illustration: Decorative]

CONTENTS

I THE RETURN Of THE WARRIORS

II POCAHONTAS AND THE MEDICINE MAN

III MIDNIGHT IN THE FOREST

IV RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

V THE GREAT BIRDS

VI JOHN SMITH'S TEMPTATION

VII A FIGHT IN THE SWAMP

VIII POCAHONTAS DEFIES POWHATAN

IX SMITH'S GAOLER

X THE LODGE IN THE WOOD

XI POCAHONTAS VISITS JAMESTOWN

XII POWHATAN'S AMBASSADOR

XIII POWHATAN'S CORONATION

XIV A DANGEROUS SUPPER

XV A FAREWELL

XVI CAPTAIN ARGALL TAKES A PRISONER

XVII POCAHONTAS LOSES A FRIEND

XVIII A BAPTISM IN JAMESTOWN

XIX JOHN ROLFE

XX THE WEDDING

XXI ON THE TRAIL OF A THIEF

XXII POCAHONTAS IN ENGLAND

ILLUSTRATIONS

The white figure moved rapidly

"We choose to-day," he cried

"Let us be friends and allies, oh Powhatan"

"I will lead the princess"

Virginia in 1606--from Captain John Smith's Map

"Nay, nay," cried Pocahontas, "thou must not go"

"Do not shoot, Mark!"

[Illustration: Decorative]

THE PRINCESS POCAHONTAS

CHAPTER I

THE RETURN OF THE WARRIORS

Through the white forest came Opechanchanough and his braves, treading
as silently as the flakes that fell about them. From their girdles hung
fresh scalp locks which their silent Monachan owners did not miss.

But Opechanchanough, on his way to Werowocomoco to tell The Powhatan of
the victory he had won over his enemies, did not feel quite sure that he
had slain all the war party against which he and his Pamunkey braves had
gone forth. The unexpected snow, coming late in the winter, had been
blown into their eyes by the wind so that they could not tell whether
some of the Monachans had not succeeded in escaping their vengeance.
Perhaps, even yet, so near to the wigwams of his brother's town, the
enemy might have laid an ambush. Therefore, it behooved them to be on
their guard, to look behind each tree for crouching figures and to
harken with all their ears that not even a famished squirrel might crack
a nut unless they could point out the bough on which it perched.

Opechanchanough led the long thin line that threaded its way through the
broad cutting between huge oaks, still bronze with last year's leaves.
He held his head high and to himself he framed the words of the song of
triumph he meant to sing to The Powhatan, as the chief of the Powhatans
was called. Then, suddenly before his face shot an arrow.

At a shout from their leader, the long line swung itself to the right,
and fifty arrows flew to the northward, the direction from which danger
might be expected. Still there was silence, no outcry from an ambushed
enemy, no sign of other human creatures.

Opechanchanough consulted with his braves whence had the arrow come; and
even while they talked, another arrow from the right whizzed before his
face.

"A bad archer," he grunted, "who cannot hit me with two shots." Then
pointing to a huge oak that forked half way up, he commanded:

"Bring him to me."

Two braves rushed forward to the tree, on which all eyes were now fixed.
It was difficult to distinguish anything through the falling snow and
the mass of its flakes that had gathered in the crotch. All was white
there, yet there was something white which moved, and the two braves on
reaching the tree trunk yelled in delight and disdain.

The white figure moved rapidly now. Swinging itself out on a branch and
catching hold of a higher one, it seemed determined to retreat from its
pursuers to the very summit of the tree. But the braves did not waste
time in climbing after it; they leapt up in the air like panthers,
caught the branch and swung it vigorously back and forth so that the
creature's feet slipped from under it and it fell into their
outstretched arms.

Not waiting even to investigate the white bundle of fur, the warriors,
surrounded by their curious fellows, bore it to Opechanchanough, and
laid it on the ground before him. He knelt and lifted up the cap of
rabbit skin with flapping ears that hid the face, then cried out in
angry astonishment:

"Pocahontas! What meaneth this trick?"

And the white fur bundle, rising to her feet, laughed and laughed till
the oldest and staidest warrior could not help smiling. But
Opechanchanough did not smile; he was too angry. His dignity suffered at
thus being made the sport of a child. He shook his niece, saying:

"What meaneth this, I ask? What meaneth this?"

Pocahontas then ceased laughing and answered:

"I wanted to see for myself how brave thou wert. Uncle, and to know just
how great warriors such as ye are act when an enemy is upon them. I am
not so bad an archer, Uncle; I would not shoot thee, so I aimed beyond
thee. But it was such fun to sit up there in the tree and watch all of
you halt so suddenly."

Her explanation set most of the party laughing again.

"In truth, is she well named," they cried--"Pocahontas, Little Wanton."

"I have yet another name," she said to an old brave who stood nearest
her. "Knowest thou it not?--Matoaka, Little Snow Feather. Always when
the moons of popanow (winter) bring us snow it calls me out to play.
'Come, Snow Feather,' it cries, 'come out and run with me and toss me up
into the air.'"

Her uncle had now recovered his calm and was about to start forward
again. Turning to the two who had captured Pocahontas, he commanded:

"Since we have taken a prisoner we will bear her to Powhatan for
judgment and safekeeping. Had we shot back into the tree she might have
been killed. See that she doth not escape you."

Then he stalked ahead through the forest, paying no further attention to
Pocahontas.

The young braves looked sheepishly at each other and at their captive,
not at all relishing their duty. Opechanchanough was not to be
disobeyed, yet it was no easy thing to hold a young maid against her
will, and no force or even show of force might be used against a
daughter of the mighty werowance (chieftain).

Seeing their uncertainty, Pocahontas started to run to the left and they
to pursue her. They came up with her before she had gone as far as three
bows' lengths and led her back gently to their place in the line. Then
she walked sedately along as if unconscious of their presence, until
they were off their guard, believing she had resigned herself to the
situation, when she sprang off to the right and was again captured and
led back. She knew that they dared not bind her, and she took advantage
of this to lead them in truth a dance, first to one side and then to the
other. Behind them their comrades jeered and laughed each time the
maiden ran away.

The regular order of the warpath was now no longer preserved. They had
advanced to a point where there was no longer any possibility of danger
from hostile attack. Werowocomoco lay now but a short distance away;
already the smoke from its lodges could be seen across the cleared
fields that surrounded the village of Powhatan. The older warriors were
walking in groups, talking over their deeds of valor performed that day,
and praising those of several of the young braves who had fought for the
first time. Pocahontas and her captors had now fallen further behind.

Though well satisfied with the results of her enterprise and amusement,
Pocahontas had no mind to be brought into her home as a captive, even
though it be half in jest. Her father might not consider it so amusing
and, moreover, she did not like to be outwitted. She was so busy
thinking that she forgot to continue her game and walked quietly ahead,
keeping up with the longer strides of the warriors by occasional little
runs forward. The braves, their own heads full of their first campaign,
kept fingering lovingly the scalps at their girdles, and paid little
attention to her.

She stooped as if to fasten her moccasin, then, as their impetus carried
them a few feet ahead of her before they stopped for her to come up, she
darted like a flash to the left and had slid down into a little hollow
before they thought of starting after her.

It was now almost dark and her white fur was indistinguishable against
the snow below. Before they had reached the bottom, Pocahontas, who knew
every inch of the ground that was less familiar to men from her uncle's
village, had slipped back into the forest which skirted the fields the
pursuers were now speeding across, and was lost at once in the darkness.

Opechanchanough knew nothing of this escape. He meant to explain to his
royal brother how much mischief a child might do who was not kept at
home performing squaw duties in her wigwam. And Powhatan's favorite
daughter or not, Pocahontas should be kept waiting outside her father's
lodge until he had related his important business and had recounted all
the glorious deeds done by his Pamunkeys.

Now they had come to Werowocomoco itself, and the noise of their
shoutings and of their war drums brought the inhabitants running out of
their wigwams. As the Pamunkeys were an allied tribe, their cause
against a common enemy was the same, yet the rejoicings at the victory
against the Monachans was somewhat less than it would have been had the
conquerors been Powhatans themselves. However, Opechanchanough and his
braves could not complain of their reception, and runners sped ahead to
advise Powhatan of their coming, while all the population of their
village crowded about them, the men questioning, the boys fingering the
scalps and each boasting how many he would have at his girdle when he
was grown.

The great Werowance was not in his ceremonial lodge but in the one in
which he ordinarily slept and ate when at Werowocomoco. Opechanchanough
paused at the opening of the lodge and ordered:

"When I call out then bring ye in Pocahontas, and we shall see what
Powhatan thinks of a squaw child that shoots at warriors."

The lodge was almost dark when he entered it. Before the fire in the
centre he could see his brother Powhatan seated, and on each side of him
one of his wives. Then he made out the features of his nephew Nautauquas
and Pocahontas' younger sister, Cleopatra (for so it was the English
later understood the girl's strange Indian name). They had evidently
just been eating supper and the dogs behind them were gnawing the wild
turkey bones that had been thrown to them. At Powhatan's feet crouched a
child in a dark robe, with face in the shadow.

Powhatan greeted his brother gravely and bade him be seated. The lodge
soon filled with braves packed closely together, and about the opening
crowded all who could, and these repeated to the men and squaws left
outside the words that were spoken within.

Proudly Opechanchanough began to tell how he had tracked the Monachans
to a hill above the river, and how he and his war party had fallen upon
them, driving them down the steep banks, slaying and scalping, even
swimming into the icy water to seize those who sought to escape. And The
Powhatan nodded in approval, uttering now and again a word of praise.
When Opechanchanough had finished his recital the shaman, or
medicine-man, rose and sang a song of praise about the brave Pamunkeys,
brothers of the Powhatans.

Then, one after another, Opechanchanough's braves told of their personal
exploits.

"I," sang one, "I, the Forest Wolf, have devoured mine enemy. Many suns
shall set red between the forest trees, but none so red as the blood
that flowed when my sharp knife severed his scalp lock."

And as each recited his deeds his words were received with clappings of
hands and grunts of approval.

Powhatan gave orders to open the guest lodge and to prepare a feast for
the victors. Then Opechanchanough rose again to speak. After he had
finished another song of triumph, he turned to Powhatan and asked:

"Brother, how long hath it been that thy warriors keep within their
lodges, leaving to young squaws the duty of sentinels who cannot
distinguish friends from foes?"

Powhatan gazed at the speaker in astonishment.

"What dost thou mean by such strange words?" asked the chief.

"As we returned through the forest," explained Opechanchanough, "before
we reached the boundary of thy fields, while we still believed that a
part of the Monachans might lie in ambush for us there, an arrow, shot
from the westward, flew before my face. Then came a second arrow out of
the branches of an oak tree. We took the bowman prisoner, and what
thinkest thou we found?--a squaw child!"

"A squaw child!" repeated Powhatan in astonishment. "Was it one of this
village?"

"Even so. Brother. I have her captive outside that thou mayst pronounce
judgment upon one who endangers thus the life of thy brother and who
forgetteth she is not a boy. Bring in the prisoner," he commanded.

But no one came forward. The young braves to whom Pocahontas had been
entrusted kept wisely on the outskirts of the crowd.

Then the little sombre figure at Powhatan's feet rose and stood with
the firelight shining on her face and dark hair and asked in a gentle
voice:

"Didst thou want me, mine uncle?"

"Pocahontas," exclaimed Opechanchanough, "how camest thou here ahead of
us, and in that dark robe?"

"Pocahontas can run even better than she can shoot. Uncle, and the
changing of a robe is the matter but of a moment."

"What meaneth this, Matoaka?" asked Powhatan, making use of her special
intimate name, which signified Little Snow Feather. He spoke in a low
tone, but one so stern that Cleopatra shivered and rejoiced that she was
not the culprit.

"It was but a joke, my father," answered Pocahontas. "I meant no harm."
She hung her head and waited until he should speak again.

"I will have no such jokes in my land," he said angrily, "remember
that."

With a gesture of his hand and a whispered word of command he sent the
Pamunkey braves to the guest lodge. Opechanchanough, still angry at the
ridicule that a child had brought upon him, lingered to ask;

"Wilt thou not punish her?"

"Surely I will," Powhatan answered. "Go ye all to the guest lodge and I
will follow. Away, Nautauquas, and carry my pipe thither."

They were now alone in the lodge, the great chief over thirty tribes and
his daughter, who still stood with downcast head. The Powhatan gazed at
her curiously. She waited for him to speak, then as he kept silent, she
turned and looked straight into his face and asked:

"Father, dost thou know how hard it is to be a girl? Nautauquas, my
brother, is a swift runner, yet I am fleeter than he. I can shoot as
straight as he, though not so far. I can go without food and drink as
long as he. I can dance without fatigue when he is panting. Yet
Nautauquas is to be a great brave and I--thou bidst remember to be a
squaw. Is it not hard, my father? Why then didst thou give me strong
arms and legs and a spirit that will not be still? Do not blame me.
Father, because I must laugh and run and play."

As she spoke she slipped to her knees and embraced his feet and when she
had ceased speaking, she smiled up fearless into his face.

Powhatan tried not to be moved by the child's pleading. Yet he was a
chief who always harkened to the excuses made by offenders brought
before him and judged them justly, if sometimes harshly. This child of
his was as dear to him as a running stream to summer heat. If at times
its spray dashed too high, could he be angry?

And Pocahontas, seeing that his anger had gone from him, stood up and
laid her head against his arm. She did not have to be told that the
mighty Powhatan loved no wife nor child of his as he loved her. Then his
hand stroked her soft hair and cheek, and she knew that she was
forgiven.

"Thine uncle is very angry," he said.

"If thou couldst but have seen him. Father, when the arrow whizzed," and
she laughed gaily in memory of the picture.

"I have promised to punish thee."

"Yea, as thou wilt." But she did not speak as if afraid.

"Hear what I charge thee," he said in mock solemnity. "Thou shalt
embroider for me with thine own hands--thou that carest not for squaw's
needles--a robe of raccoon skin in quills and bits of precious shells."

Pocahontas laughed.

"That is no punishment. 'Tis a strange thing, but when I do things I
like not for those I love, why, then I pleasure in doing them. I will
fashion for thee such a robe as thou hast never seen. Oh! I know how
beautiful it will be. I will make new patterns such as no squaw hath
ever dreamed of before. But thou wilt never be really angry with me.
Father, wilt thou?" she questioned pleadingly. "And if I should at any
time do what displeaseth thee, and thou wearest this robe I make thee,
then let it be a token between us and when I touch it thou wilt forgive
me and grant what I ask of thee?"

And Powhatan promised and smiled on her before he set forth for the
guest lodge.

[Illustration: Decorative]

CHAPTER II

POCAHONTAS AND THE MEDICINE MAN

Some months later on there came a hot day such as sometimes appears in
the early spring. The sun shone with almost as much power as if the corn
were high above the ground in which it had only just been planted with
song and the observance of ancient sacred rites and dances. Little
leaves glistened like fish scales, as they gently unfurled themselves on
the walnut and persimmon trees about Werowocomoco, and in the forest the
ground was covered with flowers. The children tied them together and
tossed them as balls to and fro or wound them into chaplets for their
hair; the old squaws searched among them for certain roots and leaves
for dyes to stain the grass cloth they spun, called pemmenaw.

The boys played hunters, pretending their dogs were wild beasts, but the
bears and wolves did not always understand the parts assigned them and
frolicked and leaped up in delight upon their little masters instead of
turning upon them ferociously. The elder braves lay before their lodges,
many of them idling in the sunshine, others busied themselves making
arrows, fitting handles to stone knives or knotting crab nets. Two
slaves, brought home prisoners by a war party, were hollowing out a
dugout, which the Powhatans used instead of the birchbark canoes
preferred by other tribes. They had cut down an oak tree that, judging
from its rings, must have been an acorn when Powhatan was a papoose,
seventy years before. They had burned out a portion of the outer and
inner bark and were now hacking at the heart of the wood with sharp
obsidian axes.

The squaws were also all busy out of doors, though they chatted in
groups as eagerly as if their energy were being expended by their
tongues only. Many were at work scraping deerskin to soften it before
they cut it into robes for themselves or into moccasins for the men.
Here and there little puffs of smoke that seemed to come from beneath
the earth testified to the dinners that were being cooked under heated
stones.

Pocahontas was seated upon a small hill overlooking the village. As the
chief's daughter, it was only on special occasions and as an honored
guest, that she joined the knots of squaws or maidens chatting before
the wigwams. But she was not alone now in solitary grandeur. She was
accustomed to surround herself, when she desired company, with a number
of younger girls of the tribe who obeyed her, less because she was the
daughter of the feared werowance, than because she had a way with her
that made it pleasant to do as she willed and difficult to oppose her.
Cleopatra, her youngest sister, sat beside her, trying to coax a
squirrel on the branch above them to come down and eat some parched corn
from her hands.

Over Pocahontas's knees was spread a robe of raccoon skin, smooth,
painted in a wide border. Along the edge of this she was embroidering a
deep pattern of white beads made from sea shells. A basket of reeds
beside her was full of other beads, large and small, white, red, yellow
and blue.

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