Powhatan; A Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos

Though the colony were several times threatened with famine while Captain Smith remained with them, yet the activity, talents and vigorous exertions of that remarkable man never failed to bring them a timely supply of provisions.

But after Smith was compelled, in consequence of a wound received from an explosion of gunpowder, to return to England, the sufferings of the colony were almost unparalleled. The following sad picture of the extremities to which they were reduced, is given by one of the writers in Smith’s History of Virginia.

“Of five hundred, within six months after Captain Smith’s departure, there remained not past sixtie men, women, and children, most miserable and poor creatures; and those were preserved for the most part, by roots, herbes, acorns, walnuts, berries, now and then a little fish. They that had starch in these extremities made no small use of it; yea, even the very skins of our horses. Nay, so great was our famine, that a savage we slew and buried, the poorer sort took him up again and eat him, and so did divers one another, boyled and stewed with roots and herbes. And one among the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne, for which he was executed, as hee well deserved. Now whether she was better roasted, boyled or carbonadoed, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of. This was that time, which still to this day we called the starving time.”

[NOTE 15—CANTO THIRD, SECT. VI.]

“Being six or seven in company, he went downe the river to Kecoughtan, where at first they scorned him as a famished man, and would in derision offer him a handful of corn, a peece of bread, for their swords and muskets, and such like proportions also for their apparel. But seeing by trade and courtesie there was nothing to be had, he made bold to try such conclusions as necessitie inforced, though contrary to his commission; let fly his muskets, ran his boat on shore, whereat they all fled into the woods. So, marching towards their houses, they might see great heapes of corne. Much adoe he had to restrain his hungry soldiers from present taking of it, expecting, as it happened, that the savages would assault them, as not long after they did with a most hideous noyse. Sixtie or seventy of them, some black, some red, some white, some party-coloured, came in a square order, singing and dancing out of the woods, with their Okee (which was an idoll made of skinnes, stuffed with moss, all painted, and hung with chains and copper) borne before them. And in this manner, being well armed with clubs, targets, bows and arrows, they charged the English, that so kindly received them with their muskets loaden with pistoll shot, that downe fell their god, and divers lay sprauling on the ground. The rest fled into the woods, and ere long sent one of their priests to offer peace, and redeeme their Okee. Smith told them if only six of them would come unarmed and load his boat, he would not only be their friend, but restore them their Okee, and give them beads, copper, and hatchets besides; which on both sides was to their contents performed. And then they brought him venison, turkies, wild-foule, bread, and what they had, singing and dancing in signe of friendship till they departed.”—Smith’s Virginia.

[NOTE 16—CANTO THIRD, SECT. VIII.]

“When he, [Powhatan,] dineth or suppeth, one of his women, before and after meat, bringeth him water in a wooden platter to wash his hands. Another waiteth with a bunch of feathers to wipe them instead of a towel, and the feathers, when he hath wiped, are dryed againe.”—Captain Smith.

[NOTE 17—CANTO FOURTH, SECT. I.]

Burk says that on one occasion Captain Smith, “whilst he walked unattended in the woods, was attacked by the king of Paspahey, a man of gigantic stature;” and Stith adds, that “the Indian, by mere dint of strength, forced him into the water with intent to drown him. Long they struggled, till the President (Smith) got such hold of his throat, that he almost strangled him.”

[NOTE 18—CANTO FOURTH, SECT. VII.]

“In every territory of a werowance is a temple and priest; two or three or more.

“Upon the top of certaine red sandy hills in the woods, there are three great houses filled with images of their kings, and devils, and tombs of their predecessors. Those houses are near sixty foot in length, built arbor-wise, after their building. This place they count so holy as that but the priests and kings dare come into them; nor the savages dare not go up the river in boats by it, but they solemnly cast some piece of copper, white beads, or pocones, into the river, for fear their Okee should be offended and revenged of them.”—Smith’s Virginia.

[NOTE 19—CANTO FOURTH, SECT. VII.]

“Their chief priest differed from the rest in his ornaments, but inferior priests could hardly be knowne from the common people, but that they had not so many holes in their ears to hang their jewells at. The ornaments of the chief priest were certaine attires for his head, made thus. They took a dozen or sixteen or more snakes’ skins, and stuffed them with mosse, and of weazles and other vermines’ skins a good many. All these they tie by their tails, so as all their tails meet on the top of their head like a great tassell. Round about this tassell is as it were a crowne of feathers; the skins hang round about his head, necke and shoulders, and in a manner cover his face. The faces of all their priests are painted as ugly as they can devise; in their hands they had every one his rattle, some base, some smaller.”—Smiths Virginia.

[NOTE 20—CANTO FOURTH, SECT. VII.]

“They have also another superstition, that they use in storms, when the waters are rough in the rivers and on the sea-coasts. Their conjurers runne to the water sides, or passing in their boats, after many hellish outcries and invocations, they cast tobacco, copper, pocones, or such trash into the water, to pacify that god, whom they think to be very angry in these storms.”—Smith’s Virginia.

[NOTE 21—CANTO FOURTH, SECT. VII.]

“The manner of their devotion is sometimes to make a great fire, in the house or fields, and all to sing and dance about it with rattels and shouts together, four or five hours. Sometimes they set a man in the midst, and about him they dance and sing, he all the while clapping his hands, as if he would keepe time; and after their songs and dancings ended, they go to their feasts.”—Smith’s Virginia.

[NOTE 22—CANTO FOURTH, SECT. XVII.]

After Captain Smith had been taken prisoner by Opechancanough, he was led in triumph through several of the tribes and witnessed many of the strange ceremonies of the Indians, till at last he was brought to the residence of the Emperor Powhatan. The scenes which occurred there, are described as follows, by John Burk in his History of Virginia, a work of which only one volume was completed, bringing the history down no later than 1624. This volume is highly valuable as far as it goes, and exhibits so much ability as to make it a matter of much regret that the author did not live to complete his work.

“On the entrance of Smith, Powhatan was dressed in a cloak made of the skins of the racoon. On either hand of the chief sat two young girls, his daughters. His counsellors, adorned with shells and feathers, were ranged on each side of the house, with an equal number of women standing behind them. On Smith’s entrance, the attendants of Powhatan shouted. The queen of Appamattox was appointed to bring him water to wash, whilst another dried his hands with a bunch of feathers.

“A consultation of the emperor and his council having taken place, it was adjudged expedient to put Smith to death, as a man whose superior courage and genius made him peculiarly dangerous to the safety of the Indians. The decision being made known to the attendants of the emperor, preparations immediately commenced for carrying it into execution by means as simple and summary as the nature of the trial.

“Two large stones were brought in and placed at the feet of the emperor; and on them was laid the head of the prisoner. Next a large club was brought in, with which Powhatan, for whom out of respect was reserved the honor, prepared to crush the head of his captive. The assembly looked on with sensations of awe, probably not unmixed with pity for the fate of an enemy whose bravery had commanded their admiration, and in whose misfortunes their hatred was possibly forgotten.

“The fatal club was uplifted; the breasts of the company already, by anticipation, felt the dreadful crash, which was to bereave the wretched victim of life; when the young and beautiful Pocahontas, the beloved daughter of the emperor, with a shriek of terror and agony, threw herself on the body of Smith. Her hair was loose and her eyes streaming with tears, while her whole manner bespoke the deep distress and agony of her bosom. She cast a beseeching look at her furious and astonished father, deprecating his wrath, and imploring his pity and the life of his prisoner, with all the eloquence of mute, but impassioned sorrow.

“The remainder of this scene is honorable to the character of Powhatan. It will remain a lasting monument, that, though different principles of action and the influence of custom have given to the manners and opinions of this people an appearance neither amiable nor virtuous, they still retain the noblest property of the human character, the touch of pity, and the feeling of humanity.

“The club of the emperor was still uplifted; but pity had touched his bosom, and his eye was every moment losing its fierceness. He looked round to collect his fortitude, or perhaps to find an excuse for his weakness in the faces of his attendants. But every eye was suffused with the sweetly contagious softness. The generous savage no longer hesitated. The compassion of the rude state is neither ostentatious nor dilatory; nor does it insult its object by the exaction of impossible conditions. Powhatan lifted his grateful and delighted daughter, and the captive, scarcely yet assured of safety, from the earth.”

[NOTE 23—CANTO FIFTH, SECT. XV.]

Powhatan having refused to go to Jamestown to receive the royal presents which Newport had brought from King James, it was decided that Newport and Smith should go to his residence with a file of men, and invest him with the robe of state and crown agreeably to King James’s request. A brief account of the ceremony is given in the quaint language of Captain Smith, as follows.

“The presents were sent by water, and the captains went by land with fifty good shot. All being met at Werowocomoco, the next day was appointed for his coronation. Then the presents were brought in, his bason and ewer, bed and furniture set up, his scarlet cloak and apparell with much adoe put on him, being perswaded by Namontack they would not hurt him. But a foule trouble there was to make him kneele to receive his crowne, he neither knowing the majesty nor meaning of a crowne, nor bending of the knee, endured so many perswasions, examples, and instructions, as tyred them all. At last, by leaning hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three having the crowne in their hands put it on his head.”

[NOTE 24—CANTO SIXTH, SECT. VII.]

SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF POCAHONTAS.

“The character of this interesting woman, as it stands in the concurrent accounts of all our historians, is not, it is with confidence affirmed, surpassed by any in the whole range of history; and for those qualities more especially, which do honor to our nature—a humane and feeling heart, an ardor and unshaken constancy in her attachments—she stands almost without a rival.

“At the first appearance of the Europeans, her young heart was impressed with admiration of the persons and manners of the strangers. But it is not during their prosperity that she displays her attachment. She is not influenced by awe of their greatness, or fear of their resentment, in the assistance she affords them. It was during their severest distresses, when their most celebrated chief was a captive in their hands, and was dragged through the country, as a spectacle for the sport and derision of her people, that she places herself between them and destruction.

“The spectacle of Pocahontas in an attitude of entreaty, with her hair loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, supplicating her enraged father for the life of Captain Smith, when he is about to crush the head of his prostrate victim with a club, is a situation equal to the genius of Raphael. And when the royal savage directs his ferocious glance for a moment from his victim, to reprove his weeping daughter; when, softened by her distress, his eye loses its fierceness, and he gives his captive to her tears, the painter will discover a new occasion for exercising his talents.

“In Pocahontas we have to admire, not the softer virtues only; she is found, when the interest of her friends demands it, full of foresight and intrepidity.

“When a conspiracy is planned for the extermination of the English, she eludes the jealous vigilance of her father, and ventures at midnight, through a thousand perils, to apprise them of their danger.

“But in no situation does she appear to more advantage, than when, disgusted with the cold formalities of a court (in England) and the impertinent and troublesome curiosity of the people, she addressed the feeling and pathetic remonstrance to Captain Smith on the distant coldness of his manner. Briefly she stated the rise and progress of their friendship; modestly she pointed out the services she had rendered him; concluding with an affecting picture of her situation, at a distance from her country and family, and surrounded by strangers in a strange land.

“Indeed there is ground for apprehension that posterity, in reading this part of American history, will be inclined to consider the story of Pocahontas as an interesting romance; perhaps recalling the palpable fictions of early travellers and navigators, they may suppose that in those times a portion of fiction was deemed essential to the embellishment of history. It is not even improbable, that considering every thing relating to Captain Smith and Pocahontas as a mere fiction, they may vent their spleen against the historian for impairing the interest of his plot by marrying the princess of Powhatan to a Mr. Rolf, of whom nothing had previously been said, in defiance of all the expectations raised by the foregoing parts of the fable.

“It is the last sad office of history to record the fate of this incomparable woman. The severe muse, which presides over this department, cannot plant the cypress over her grave, and consign her to the tomb, with the stately pomp and graceful tears of poetry. She cannot with pious sorrow inurn the ashes and immortalize the virtues of the dead by the soul-piercing elegy, which fancy, mysterious deity, pours out, wild and plaintive, her hair loose, and her white bosom throbbing with anguish. Those things are placed equally beyond her reach and her inclination. But history affects not to conceal her sorrow on this occasion.

“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.]

“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.]

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.]

“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.]

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.”