Daring and full of resources as Captain John Smith was, he had taken a dangerous risk in thus venturing alone into those forest depths, peopled only by prowling and hostile savages. It proved to be the most desperate crisis of his life, full of adventure as this life had been. As a youthful soldier he had gone through great perils in the wars with the Turks, and once had killed three Turkish warriors in single combat between two armies, but never before had he been in such danger of death as he was now, alone with a treacherous Indian while a dozen or more of others, bent on his death, were trailing him through the woods.
He was first made aware of his danger when a flight of arrows came from the low bushes near by. Then, with fierce war-whoops, the Indian braves rushed upon him with brandished knives and tomahawks. But desperate as was his situation, in the heart of the forest, far from help, surrounded by foes who thirsted for his blood, Smith did not lose his courage or his coolness. He fired his pistol at the Indians, two of them falling wounded or dead. As they drew back in dismay, he seized his guide and tied him to his left arm with his garter as a protection from their arrows, and then started through the woods in the direction of the canoe. Walking backward, with his face to his pursuers, and keeping them off with his weapons, he had not taken many steps before he found his feet sinking in the soft soil. He was in the edge of the great swamp still known in that region, and before he was aware of the danger he sank into it to his waist and his guide with him. The other Indians held back in fear until he had thrown away his weapons, when they rushed upon him, drew him out of the mud, and led him captive to the fire where his two companions lay dead.
Smith's case now seemed truly desperate. He knew enough of the savages to have very little hope of life. Yet he was not inclined to give up while a shadowy chance remained. Taking from his pocket a small compass, which he carried to aid him in his forest journeys, he gave it to the Indian chief, showing him how the needle always pointed to the north. But while the chief was looking curiously at this magic toy, as it seemed to him, the other Indians bound their captive to a tree, and bent their bows to shoot him. Their deadly purpose was prevented by the chief, who waved the compass in the air and bade them stop. For the time the mystery of the compass seemed to have saved the captive's life.
Smith was now taken through the woods, the journey ending at an Indian village called Orapakes. Here the dusky women and children took the captive in hand, dancing wildly around him, with fierce cries and threatening gestures, while the warriors looked grimly on. Yet Smith bore their insults and threats with impassive face and unflinching attitude. At length Opechancanough, the chief, pleased to find that he had a brave man for captive, bade them cease, and food was brought forth for Smith and his captors.
While they were in this village two interesting examples of the simplicity of Indian thought took place. Smith wrote a message to Jamestown, the settlement of the whites, sending it by one of the Indians, and receiving an answer. On his reading this and speaking of what he had learned from it, the Indians looked on it as the work of enchantment. They could not comprehend how "paper could talk." Another thing was the following: They showed him a bag of gunpowder which they had somehow obtained, saying that they were going to sow it in the ground the next spring and gather a crop of this useful substance. After spending some days in this and other villages, the captive was taken into the woods, his captors making him understand that they were going on a long journey.
Whither he was being taken or what was to be his fate Smith was not aware. The language of gestures, which was his only way of conversing with the savages, soon reached its limit, and he was quite ignorant of what they proposed to do with him, though his heart must have sunk as they went on day after day, northward through the forest. On they walked in single file, Smith unbound and seemingly free in their midst, but with a watchful Indian guard close beside him, ready to shoot him if he made any effort to escape. Village after village was passed, in each of which the women and children danced and shrieked around him as at Orapakes. It was evident they knew the value of their prisoner, and recognized that they had in their hands the great chief of the Pale Faces.
In fact, the Chickahominy chief felt that his captive was of too much importance to be dealt with hastily, and was taking him to the village of the great chief Powhatan, who ruled like an emperor over a powerful confederation of tribes. In summer his residence was near the Falls of the James River, but he was in the habit of spending the winter on the banks of York River, his purpose being to enjoy the fish and oysters of the neighboring Chesapeake. Wesowocomoca was the name of this winter residence, and here the captive was at length brought, after the long woodland journey.
Captain Smith had met the old Indian emperor before, at his summer home on the James River, near where the city of Richmond now stands. But that was as a freeman, with his guard around him and his hands unbound. Now he was brought before him as a captive, subject to his royal will or caprice.
He found the famous lord of the tribes in his large wigwam, with his wives around him, and his vigilant guard of warriors grouped on the greensward outside, where the Indian lodges stretched in a considerable village along the stream. Powhatan wore a large robe made of raccoon skins. A rich plume of feathers ornamented his head and a string of beads depended from his neck. At his head and feet sat two young Indian girls, his favorite wives, wearing richly adorned dresses of fur, with plumes in their hair and necklaces of pearls. Other women were in the room, and a number of the leading warriors who sat around gave the fierce war-cry of the tribe as the captive was brought in.
The old chieftain looked with keen eyes on his famous prisoner, of whose capture he had been advised by runners sent before. There was a look of triumph and malignity in his eyes, but Captain Smith stood before him unmoved. He had been through too many dangers to be easily dismayed, and near death's door too often to yield to despair. Powhatan gave an order to a young Indian woman, who brought him a wooden basin of water that he might wash his hands. Then she presented him a bunch of feathers to serve as a towel. This done, meat and corn-bread were placed before him. As he ate Powhatan talked with his warriors, consulting with them, the captive feared, upon his fate. But he finished his meal with little loss of appetite, trusting to the Providence which had saved him more than once before to come to his aid again.
As he ate, his vigilant eyes looked heedfully around the room. Many who were there gazed on him with interest, and one of them, a young Indian girl of twelve or thirteen years of age, with pity and concern. It was evident that she was of high rank in the tribe, for she was richly dressed and wore in her hair a plume of feathers like that of Powhatan, and on her feet moccasins embroidered like his. There was a troubled and compassionate look in her eyes, as she gazed on the captive white man, a look which he may perhaps have seen and taken comfort from in his hour of dread.
No such feeling as this seemed to rest in the heart of the old chief and his warriors. Their conference quickly ended, and, though its words were strange to him, the captive could read his fate in their dark and frowning faces. They had grown to hate the whites, and now that their leader was a captive before them, they decided to put him to death.
There was no loss of time in preparation for the execution of the fatal decree. At an order from Powhatan the captive was seized and securely bound, then he was laid on the floor of the hut, with his head on a large stone brought in from outside. Beside him stood a stalwart savage grasping a huge war-club. A word, a signal from Powhatan, was alone needed and the victim's brains would have been dashed out.
At this critical moment Smith's good angel watched over him. A low cry of pity was heard, and the young girl who had watched him with such concern sprang forward and clasped her arms around the poor prisoner, looking up at the Indian emperor with beseeching eyes. It was Pocahontas, his favorite daughter. Her looks touched the old man's heart, and he bade the executioner to stand back, and gave orders that the captive should be released. Powhatan soon showed that he was in earnest in his act of mercy. He treated the prisoner in a friendly fashion, and two days later set him free to return to Jamestown.
All that he asked in return was that the whites should send him two of their great guns and a grindstone. Smith readily consented, no doubt with a secret sense of amusement, and set out for the settlement, led by Indian guides. Rawhunt, a favorite servant of Powhatan, was one of the guides, and on reaching Jamestown Smith showed him two cannon and a grindstone, and bade him carry them home to his master. Rawhunt tried, but when he found that he could not stir one of the weighty presents from the ground, he was quite content to take back less bulky presents in their place.
So runs the story of Captain Smith's remarkable adventure. No doubt it is well to say here that there are writers who doubt the whole story of Pocahontas and her deed of mercy, simply because Captain Smith did not speak of it in his first book. But there is no very good reason to doubt it, and we know that things like this happened in other cases. Thus, in the story of De Soto we have told how Juan Ortiz, the Spanish captive, was saved from being burned alive by an Indian maiden in much the same way.
Pocahontas after that was always a friend of the English, and often visited them in Jamestown. Once she stole away through the woods and told her English friends that Powhatan and his warriors were going to attack them. Then she stole back again. When the Indians came they found the English ready, and concluded to defer their attack. Later, after she had grown up, she was taken prisoner and held in Jamestown as a hostage to make her father quit threatening the English. While there a young planter named John Rolfe fell deeply in love with her, and she loved him warmly in return.
In the end Pocahontas became a Christian and was baptized at Jamestown under the name of Rebecca. Then she and John Rolfe were married and went to live in England, where she was known as the "Lady Rebecca" and treated as if she were indeed a princess. She met John Smith once more, and was full of joy at sight of her "father," as she called him. But when he told her that she must not call him that, and spoke to her very respectfully as Lady Rebecca, she covered her face with her hands and began to weep. She had always called him father, she said, and he had called her child, and she meant to do so still. They had told her he was dead, and she was very glad to learn that this was false, for she loved him as a father and would always do so.
That was her last meeting with Captain Smith. In less than a year afterward she was taken sick and died, just as she was about to return to her beloved Virginia.
Friday, the 22d of March, of the year 1622, dawned brightly over a peaceful domain in Virginia. In the fifteen years that had passed since the first settlers landed and built themselves homes at Jamestown the dominion of the whites had spread, until there were nearly eighty settlements, while scattered plantations rose over a space of several hundred square miles. Powhatan, the Indian emperor, as he was called, had long shown himself the friend of the whites, and friendly relations grew up between the new-comers and the old owners of the soil that continued unbroken for years.
Everywhere peace and tranquillity now prevailed. The English had settled on the fertile lands along the bay and up the many rivers, the musket had largely given place to the plough and the sword to the sickle and the hoe, and trustful industry had succeeded the old martial vigilance. The friendliest intercourse existed between the settlers and the natives. These were admitted freely to their houses, often supplied with fire-arms, employed in hunting and fishing, and looked upon as faithful allies, many of whom had accepted the Christian faith.
But in 1618 the mild-tempered Powhatan had died, and Opechancanough, a warrior of very different character, had taken his place as chief of the confederacy of tribes. We have met with this savage before, in the adventurous career of Captain John Smith. He was a true Indian leader, shrewd, cunning, cruel in disposition, patient in suffering, skilled in deceit, and possessed of that ready eloquence which always had so strong an influence over the savage mind. Jealous of the progress of the whites, he nourished treacherous designs against them, but these were hidden deep in his savage soul, and he vowed that the heavens should fall before he would lift a hand in war against his white friends. Such was the tranquil and peaceful state of affairs which existed in Virginia in the morning of March 22, 1622. There was not a cloud in the social sky, nothing to show that the Indians were other than the devoted allies and servants of the whites.
On that morning, as often before, many of the savages came to take their breakfast with their white friends, some of them bringing deer, turkeys, fish, or fruit, which, as usual, they offered for sale. Others of them borrowed the boats of the settlers to cross the rivers and visit the outlying plantations. By many a hearth the pipe of peace was smoked, the hand of friendship extended, the voice of harmony raised.
Such was the aspect of affairs when the hour of noontide struck on that fatal day. In an instant, as if this were the signal of death, the scene changed from peace to terror. Knives and tomahawks were drawn and many of those with whom the savages had been quietly conversing a moment before were stretched in death at their feet. Neither sex nor age was spared. Wives were felled, weltering in blood, before the eyes of their horrified husbands. The tender infant was snatched from its mother's arms to be ruthlessly slain. The old, the sick, the helpless were struck down as mercilessly as the young and strong. As if by magic, the savages appeared at every point, yelling like demons of death, and slaughtering all they met. The men in the fields were killed with their own hoes and hatchets. Those in the houses were murdered on their own hearth-stones. So unlooked-for and terrible was the assault that in that day of blood three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children fell victims to their merciless foes. Not content with their work of death, the savage murderers mutilated the bodies of their victims in the most revolting manner and revelled shamelessly in their crimes.
Yet with all their treacherous rage, they showed themselves cowardly. Wherever they were opposed they fled. One old soldier, who had served under Captain John Smith, was severely wounded by his savage assailants. He clove the skull of one of them with an axe, and the others at once took to flight. In the same way a Mr. Baldwin, whose wife lay bleeding from many wounds before his eyes, drove away a throng of murderers by one well-aimed discharge from his musket. A number of fugitive settlers obtained a few muskets from a ship that was lying in a stream near their homes, and with these they routed and dispersed the Indians for a long distance around.
The principal settlement, that of Jamestown, was a main point for the proposed Indian assault. Here the confidence and sense of security was as great as in any of the plantations, and only a fortunate warning saved the settlers from a far more terrible loss. One of the young converts among the Indians, moved by the true spirit of his new faith, warned a white friend of the deadly conspiracy, and the latter hastened to Jamestown with the ominous news. As a result, the Indian murderers on reaching there found the gates closed and the inhabitants on the alert. They made a demonstration, but did not venture on an assault, and quickly withdrew.
Such was the first great Indian massacre in America, and one of the most unexpected and malignant of them all.
It was the work of Opechancanough, who had laid his plot and organized the work of death in the most secret and skilful manner. Passing from tribe to tribe, he eloquently depicted their wrongs, roused them to revenge, pointed out the defenceless state of the whites, and worked on their passions by promises of blood and rapine. A complete organization was formed, the day and hour were fixed, and the savages of Virginia waited in silence and impatience for the time in which they hoped to rid the land of every white settler on its soil and win back their old domain.
While they did not succeed in this, they filled the whole colony with terror and dismay. The planters who had survived the attack were hastily called in to Jamestown, and their homes and fields abandoned, so that of the eighty recent settlements only six remained. Some of the people were bold enough to refuse to obey the order, arming their servants, mounting cannon, and preparing to defend their own homes. One of these bold spirits was a woman. But the authorities at Jamestown would not permit this, and they were all compelled to abandon their strongholds and unite for the general defence.
The reign of peace was at an end. A reign of war had begun. The savages were everywhere in arms, with Opechancanough at their head. The settlers, as soon as the first period of dread had passed, marched against them, burning for revenge, and relentless slaughter became the rule. It was the first Indian war in the British settlements, but was of the type of them all. Wherever any Indian showed himself he was instantly shot down. Wherever a white man ventured within reach of the red foe he was slain on the spot or dragged off for the more dreadful death by torture. There was no truce, no relaxation; it was war to the knife.
Only when seed-time was at hand did necessity demand a temporary pause in hostilities. The English now showed that they could be as treacherous and lacking in honor as their savage enemy. They offered peace to the savages, and in this way induced them to leave their hiding-places and plant their fields. While thus engaged the English rushed suddenly upon them and cut down a large number, including some of the most valiant warriors and leading chiefs.
From that time on there was no talk or thought of peace. Alike the plantation buildings of the whites and the villages of the Indians were burned. The swords and muskets of the whites, the knives and tomahawks of the red men, were ever ready for the work of death. For ten years the bloody work continued, and by the end of that time great numbers of the Indians had been killed, while of the four thousand whites in Virginia only two thousand five hundred remained.
Exhaustion at length brought peace, and for ten years more the reign of blood ceased. Yet the irritation of the Indians continued. They saw the whites spreading ever more widely through the land and taking possession of the hunting-grounds without regard for the rights of the native owners, and their hatred for the whites grew steadily more virulent. Opechancanough was now a very aged man. In the year 1643 he reached the hundreth year of his age. A gaunt and withered veteran, with shrunken limbs and a tottering and wasted form, his spirit of hostility to the whites burned still unquenched. Age had not robbed him of his influence over the tribes. His wise counsel, the veneration they felt for him, the tradition of his valorous deeds in the past, gave him unquestioned control, and in 1643 he repeated his work of twenty-one years before, organizing another secret conspiracy against the whites.
It was a reproduction of the former plot. The Indians were charged to the utmost secrecy. They were bidden to ambush the whites in their plantations and settlements and at a fixed time to fall upon them and to spare none that they could kill. The conspiracy was managed as skilfully as the former one. No warning of it was received, and at the appointed hour the work of death began. Before it ended five hundred of the settlers were ruthlessly slain. They were principally those of the outlying plantations. Wherever the settlers were in a position for effective resistance, the savages were routed and driven back to their forest lurking-places.
Their work of death done, the red-skinned murderers at once dispersed, knowing well that they could not withstand their foes in open fight. Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Virginia, hastily called out a strong force of armed men and marched to the main seat of the slaughter. No foes were to be found. The Indians had vanished in the woodland wilderness. It was useless to pursue them farther on foot, and the governor continued the pursuit with a troop of cavalry, sweeping onward through the tribal confines.
The chief result of the expedition was the capture of the organizer of the conspiracy, the hoary leader of the tribal confederacy, who was found near his place of residence on the Pamunky. Too feeble for hasty flight, his aged limbs refusing to bear him and his weakened sight to aid him, he was easily overtaken by the pursuers, and was carried back in triumph to Jamestown, as the very central figure of Indian hostility.
It was the clement purpose of the governor to send the old chief to England as a royal captive, there to be held in honorable custody until death should close his career. But this purpose was not to be achieved. A death of violence awaited the old Indian chieftain. A wretched fellow of the neighborhood, one of the kind who would not have dared to face an Indian in arms, slipped secretly behind the famous veteran and shot him with his musket through the back, inflicting a deadly wound.
Aged and infirm as Opechancanough was, the wound was not instantly mortal. He lingered for a few days in agonizing pain. Yet to the last moment of his life his dignity of demeanor was preserved. It was especially shown when a crowd of idlers gathered in the room to sate their unfeeling curiosity on the actions of the dying chief.
His muscles had grown so weak that he could not raise his eyelids without aid, and, on hearing the noise around him, he motioned to his attendants to lift his lids that he might see what it meant. When he saw the idle and curious crowd, a flash of wounded pride and just resentment stirred his vanished powers. Sending for the governor, he said, with a keen reproach that has grown historic, "Had I taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not have exposed him as a show to my people." Closing his eyes again, in a short time afterward the Indian hero was dead.
With the death of Opechancanough, the confederacy over which Powhatan and he had ruled so long came to an end. It was now without a head, and the associated tribes fell apart. How long it had been in existence before the whites came to Virginia we cannot say, but the tread of the white man's foot was fatal to the Indian power, and as that foot advanced in triumph over the land the strength of the red men everywhere waned and disappeared.
The years ending in "'76" are remarkable in America as years of struggle against tyranny and strife for the right. We shall not soon forget the year 1776, when the famous rebellion of the colonies against Great Britain reached its climax in the Declaration of Independence. In 1676, a century before, there broke out in Virginia what was called the "Great Rebellion," a famous movement for right and justice. It was brought about by the tyranny of Sir William Berkeley, the governor of the colony of Virginia, as that of 1776 was by the tyranny of George III., the King of England. It is the story of the first American rebellion that we are about to tell.
Sir William had ruled over Virginia at intervals for many years. It was he who took old Opechancanough prisoner after the massacre of 1643. In 1676 he was again governor of the colony. He was a man of high temper and revengeful disposition, but for a long time he and the Virginians got along very well together, for the planters greatly liked the grand style in which he lived on his broad estate of "Green Springs," with his many servants, and rich silver plate, and costly entertainments, and stately dignity. They lived much that way themselves, so far as their means let them, and were proud of their governor's grand display.
But what they did not like was his arbitrary way of deciding every question in favor of England and against Virginia, and the tyranny with which he enforced every order of the king. Still less were they pleased with the fact that, when the Indians in the mountain district began to attack the settlers, and put men, women, and children to death, the governor took no steps to punish the savage foe, and left the people to defend themselves in the best way they could. A feeling of panic like that of the older times of massacre ensued. The exposed families were forced to abandon their homes and seek places of refuge. Neighbors banded together for work in the field, and kept their arms close at hand. No man left his door without taking his musket. Even Jamestown was in danger, for the woodland stretched nearly to its dwellings, and the lurking red men, stealing with noiseless tread through the forest shades, prowled from the mountains almost to the sea, like panthers in search of prey.
At that time there was a man of great influence in Virginia, named Nathaniel Bacon. He was a new-comer, who had been in America less than three years, but he had bought a large estate and had been made a member of the governor's council. He was a handsome man and a fine speaker, and these and other qualities made him very popular with the planters and the people.
Bacon's plantation was near the Falls of the James River, where the city of Richmond now stands. Here his overseer, to whom he was much attached, and one of his servants were killed by the Indians. Highly indignant at the outrage, Bacon made up his mind that something must be done. He called a meeting of the neighboring planters, and addressed them hotly on the delay of the governor in coming to their defence. He advised them to act for themselves, and asked if any of them were ready to march against the savages, and whom they would choose as their leader. With a shout they declared that they were ready, and that he should lead.
This was very much like taking the law into their own hands. If the governor would not act, they would. As a proper measure, however, Bacon sent to the governor and asked for a commission as captain of the force of planters. The governor received the demand in an angry way. It hurt his sense of dignity to find these men acting on their own account, and he refused to grant a commission or to countenance their action. He went so far as to issue a proclamation, in which he declared that all who did not return to their homes within a certain time would be held as rebels. This so scared the planters that the most of them went home, only fifty-seven of them remaining with their chosen leader.
With this small force Bacon marched into the wilderness, where he met and defeated a party of Indians, killing many of them, and dispersing the remainder. Then he and his men returned home in triumph.
By this time the autocratic old governor was in a high state of rage. He denounced Bacon and his men as rebels and traitors, and gathered a force to punish them. But when he found that the whole colony was on Bacon's side he changed his tone. He had Bacon arrested, it is true, when he came to Jamestown as a member of the House of Burgesses, but this was only a matter of form, to save his dignity, and when the culprit went down on one knee and asked pardon of God, the king, and the governor, Berkeley was glad enough to get out of his difficulty by forgiving him. But for all this fine show of forgiveness Bacon did not trust the old tyrant, and soon slipped quietly out of Jamestown and made his way home.
He was right; the governor was making plans to seize him and hold him prisoner; he had issued secret orders, and Bacon had got away in good time. Very soon he was back again, this time at the head of four hundred planters. As they marched on, others joined them, and when they came into the old town, and drew up on the State-house green, there were six hundred of them, horse and foot.
The sight of this rebel band threw old Berkeley into a towering rage. He rushed out from the State-house at the head of his council, and, tearing open his ruffled shirt, cried out, in a furious tone:
"Here, shoot me! 'fore God, fair mark; shoot!"
"No," said Bacon, "may it please your honor, we will not hurt a hair of your head, nor of any other man's. We are come for a commission to save our lives from the Indians, which you have so often promised; and now we will have it before we go."
Both men were in a violent rage, walking up and down and gesticulating like men distracted. Soon Sir William withdrew with his council to his office in the State-house. Bacon followed, his hand now touching his hat in deference, now his sword-hilt as anger rose in his heart. Some of his men appeared at a window of the room with their guns cocked and ready, crying out, "We will have it; we will have it."
This continued till one of the burgesses came to the window and waved his handkerchief, calling out, "You shall have it; you shall have it."
Hearing this, the men drew back and rested their guns on the ground and Bacon left the chamber and joined them. The matter ended in Bacon's getting his commission as general and commander-in-chief, while an act was passed by the legislature justifying him in all he had done, and a letter to the same effect was written to the king and signed by the governor, council, and assembly. Bacon had won in all he demanded.
His triumph was only temporary. While he was invading the country of the Pamunky Indians, killing many of them and destroying their towns, Berkeley repudiated all he had done. He proclaimed Bacon a rebel and traitor and issued a summons for the train-bands to the number of twelve hundred men, bidding them pursue and put down Bacon the rebel. The men assembled, but when they heard for what they were wanted they broke out into a shout of "Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!" and dispersed again, leaving the old tyrant and his attendants alone. News of these events quickly reached Bacon and his men in the field. He at once turned and marched back.
"While I am hunting wolves which are destroying innocent lambs," he exclaimed, indignantly, "here are the governor and his men after me like hounds in full cry. I am like one between two millstones, which will grind me to powder if I do not look to it."
As he came near Jamestown the governor fled, crossing Chesapeake Bay to Accomac, and leaving Bacon in full possession. A new House of Burgesses was called into session and Bacon's men pledged themselves not to lay down their arms. Sir William had sent to England for soldiers, they said, and they would stand ready to fight these soldiers, as they had fought the governor. A paper to this effect was drawn up and signed, dated August, 1676. It was the first American declaration of independence.
The tide of rebellion was now in full flow. The movement against the Indians had, by the unwarranted behavior of the governor, been converted into civil war, nearly the whole colony supporting Bacon and demanding that the tyrant governor should be deposed.
But, while this was going on, the Indians took to the war-path again, and Bacon at once marched against them, leaving Sir William to his own devices. His first movement was against the Appomattox tribe, which dwelt on the river of the same name, where Petersburg now stands. Taking them by surprise, he burned their town, killed many of them, and dispersed the remainder. Then he marched south and attacked other tribes, driving them before him and punishing them so severely as quite to cure them of all desire to meddle with the whites.
From that time forward Eastern Virginia was free from Indian troubles, and Bacon was looked upon as the deliverer of the colony. But lack of provisions forced him to return and disband his forces, only a few men remaining with him. He soon learned that he had a worse enemy than the Indians to fight at home. Some of his leading supporters in Jamestown, Lawrence, Drummond, Hansford, and others, came hastily to his camp, saying that they had been obliged to flee for safety, as Sir William was back again, with eighteen ships in the river and eight hundred men he had gathered in the eastern counties.
The affair had now come to a focus. It was fight, or yield and be treated as a traitor. Bacon resolved to fight, and he found many to back him in it, for he soon had a force collected. How many there were we do not know. Some say only one hundred and fifty, some say eight hundred; but however that be, he marched with them on Jamestown, bringing his Indian captives with him. Rebels and Royalists the two parties were now called; people and tyrant would have been better titles, for Bacon was in arms for the public right and had the people at his back.
The old governor was ready. While in Accomac he had taken and hung two friends of Bacon, who had gone there to try and capture him. He asked for nothing better than the chance to serve Bacon in the same way. His ships, armed with cannon, now lay in the river near the town. A palisade, ten paces wide, had been built across the neck of the peninsula in which Jamestown stood. Behind it lay a strong body of armed men. Berkeley felt that he had the best of the situation, and was defiant of his foes.
It was at the end of a September day when Bacon and his small army of "rebels" arrived. Springing from his horse, he led the tired men up to the palisades and surveyed the governor's works of defence. Then he ordered his trumpeter to sound defiance and his men to fire on the garrison. There was no return fire. Sir William knew that the assailants were short of provisions, and trusted to hunger to make them retire. But Bacon was versed in the art of foraging. At Green Spring, three miles away, was Governor Berkeley's fine mansion, and from this the invading army quickly supplied itself. The governor afterwards bitterly complained that his mansion "was almost ruined; his household goods, and others of great value, totally plundered; that he had not a bed to lie on; two great beasts, three hundred sheep, seventy horses and mares, all his corn and provisions, taken away." Evidently the "rebels" knew something about the art of war.
This was not all, for their leader adopted another stratagem not well in accordance with the rules of chivalry. A number of the loyalists of the vicinity had joined Berkeley, and Bacon sent out small parties of horse, which captured the wives of these men and brought them into camp. Among them were the lady of Colonel Bacon, Madame Bray, Madame Page, and Madame Ballard. He sent one of these ladies to the town, with a warning to the husbands not to attack him in his camp, or they would find their wives in front of his line.
What Bacon actually wanted these ladies for was to make use of them in building his works. He raised by moonlight a defensive work of trees, brushwood and earth around the governor's outwork of palisades, placing the ladies in front of the workmen to keep the garrison from firing on them. But he had the chivalry to take them out of harm's way when the governor's men made a sortie on his camp.
The fight that took place may have been a hard one or a light one. We have no very full account of it. The most we know is that Bacon and his men won the victory, and that the governor's men were driven back, leaving their drum and their dead behind them. Whether hard or light, his repulse was enough for Sir William's valor. Well intrenched as he was and superior in numbers, his courage suddenly gave out, and he fled in haste to his ships, which set sail in equal haste down the river, their speed accelerated by the cannon-balls which the "rebels" sent after them.
Once more the doughty governor was a fugitive, and Bacon was master of the situation. Jamestown, the original Virginia settlement, was in his hands. What should he do with it? He could not stay there, for he knew that Colonel Brent, with some twelve hundred men, was marching down on him from the Potomac. He did not care to leave it for Berkeley to return to. In this dilemma he concluded to burn it. To this none of his men made any objection. Two of them, indeed, Lawrence and Drummond, who had houses in the place, set fire to them with their own hands. And thus the famous old town of John Smith and the early settlers was burned to the ground. Old as it was, we are told that it contained only a church and sixteen or eighteen houses, and in some of these there were no families. To-day nothing but the ruined church tower remains.
Bacon now marched north to York River to meet Colonel Brent and his men. But by the time he got there the men had dispersed. The news of the affair at Jamestown had reached them, and they concluded they did not want to fight. Bacon was now master of Virginia, with the power though not the name of governor.
What would have come of his movement had he lived it is impossible to say, for in the hour of his triumph a more perilous foe than Sir William Berkeley was near at hand. While directing his men in their work at the Jamestown trenches a fever had attacked him, and this led to a dangerous dysentery which carried him off after a few weeks' illness. His death was a terrible blow to his followers, for the whole movement rested on the courage and ability as a leader of this one man. They even feared the vindictive Berkeley would attempt some outrage upon the remains of the "rebel" leader, and they buried his body at night in a secret place. Some traditions assert that he was dealt with as De Soto had been before him, his body being sunk in the bosom of the majestic York River, where it was left with the winds and the waves to chant its requiem.
Thus ended what Sir William Berkeley called the "Great Rebellion." Its leader dead, there was none to take his place. In despair the men returned to their homes. Many of them made their way to North Carolina, in which new colony they were warmly welcomed. A few kept up a show of resistance, but they were soon dispersed, and Berkeley came back in triumph, his heart full of revengeful passion. He had sent to England for troops, and the arrival of these gave him support in his cruel designs.
All the leading friends of Bacon whom he could seize were mercilessly put to death, some of them with coarse and aggravating insults. The wife of Major Cheeseman, one of the prisoners, knelt at the governor's feet and pitifully pleaded for her husband's life, but all she got in return from the old brute was a vulgar insult. The major escaped the gallows only by dying in prison.
One of the most important of the prisoners was William Drummond, a close friend of Bacon. Berkeley hated him and greeted him with the most stinging insult he could think of.
"Mr. Drummond," said he, with a bitter sneer, "you are very welcome; I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour."
And he was. His property was also seized, but when the king heard of this he ordered it to be restored to his widow.
"God has been inexpressibly merciful to this poor province," wrote Berkeley, with sickening hypocrisy, after one of his hangings. Charles II., the king, took a different view of the matter, saying: "That old fool has hung more men in that naked province than I did for the murder of my father." More than twenty of Bacon's chief supporters were hung, and the governor's revenge came to an end only when the assembly met and insisted that these executions should cease.
We have told how Bacon came to his end. We must do the same for Berkeley, his foe. Finding that he was hated and despised in Virginia, he sailed for England, many of the people celebrating his departure by firing cannon and illuminating their houses. He never returned. The king was so angry with him that he refused to see him; a slight which affected the old man so severely that he soon died, of a broken heart, it is said. Thus ended the first rebellion of the people of the American colonies.
There are two great explorers whose names have been made famous by their association with the mighty river of the West, the Mississippi, or Father of Waters,—De Soto, the discoverer, and La Salle, the explorer, of that stupendous stream. Among all the rivers of the earth the Mississippi ranks first. It has its rivals in length and volume, but stands without a rival as a noble channel of commerce, the pride of the West and the glory of the South. We have told the story of its discovery by De Soto, the Spanish adventurer; we have now to tell that of its exploration by La Salle, the French chevalier.
Let us say here that though the honor of exploring the Mississippi has been given to La Salle, he was not the first to traverse its waters. The followers of De Soto descended the stream from the Arkansas to its mouth in 1542. Father Marquette and Joliet, the explorer, descended from the Wisconsin to the Arkansas in 1673. In 1680 Father Hennepin, a Jesuit missionary sent by La Salle, ascended the stream from the Illinois to the Falls of St. Anthony. Thus white men had followed the great river for nearly its whole length. But the greatest of all these explorers and the first to traverse the river for the greater part of its course, was the Chevalier Robert de la Salle, and to his name is given the glory of revealing this grand stream to mankind.
Never was there a more daring and indefatigable explorer than Robert de la Salle. He seemed born to make new lands and new people known to the world. Coming to Canada in 1667, he began his career by engaging in the fur trade on Lake Ontario. But he could not rest while the great interior remained unknown. In 1669 he made an expedition to the west and south, and was the first white man to gaze on the waters of the swift Ohio. In 1679 he launched on the Great Lakes the first vessel that ever spread its sails on those mighty inland seas, and in this vessel, the Griffin, he sailed through Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan.
La Salle next descended the Illinois River, and built a fort where the city of Peoria now stands. But his vessel was wrecked, and he was forced to make his way on foot through a thousand miles of wilderness to obtain supplies at Montreal. Such was the early record of this remarkable man, and for two years afterward his life was full of adventure and misfortune. At length, in 1682, he entered upon the great performance of his life, his famous journey upon the bosom of the Father of Waters.
It was midwinter when La Salle and his men set out from the lakes with their canoes. On the 4th of January, 1682, they reached the mouth of the Chicago River, where its waters enter Lake Michigan. The river was frozen hard, and they had to build sledges to drag their large and heavy canoes down the ice-closed stream. Reaching the portage to the Illinois, they continued their journey across the bleak and snowy waste, toilsomely dragging canoes, baggage, and provisions to the other stream. Here, too, they found a sheet of ice, and for some days longer trudged down the channel of the silent and dreary stream. Its banks had been desolated by Indian wars, and where once many flourishing villages rose there were to be seen only ashes and smoke-blackened ruins.
About the 1st of February they reached Crevecœur, the fort La Salle had built some years earlier. Below this point the stream was free from ice, and after a week's rest the canoes were launched on the liquid surface. They were not long in reaching the point where the Illinois buries its waters in the mighty main river, the grave of so many broad and splendid streams.
Past the point they had now reached the Mississippi poured swiftly downward, its waters swollen, and bearing upon them great sheets of ice, the contribution of the distant north. It was no safe channel for their frail birch-bark canoes, and they were obliged to wait a week till the vast freightage of ice had run past. Then, on the 13th of February, 1682, they launched their canoes on the great stream, and began their famous voyage down its mighty course.
A day's journey brought them to the place where the turbulent Missouri pours its contribution, gathered from thousands of miles of mountain and prairie, into the parent stream, rushing with the force and roar of a rapid through a channel half a mile broad, and quickly converting the clear Mississippi waters into a turbid yellow torrent, thick with mud.
La Salle, like so many of the early explorers, was full of the idea of finding a short route across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, and he found the Indians at the mouth of the Missouri ready to tell him anything he wanted to know. They said that by sailing ten or twelve days up the stream, through populous villages of their people, he would come to a range of mountains in which the river rose; and by climbing to the summit of these lofty hills he could gaze upon a vast and boundless sea, whose waves broke on their farther side. It was one of those imaginative stories which the Indians were always ready to tell, and the whites as ready to believe, and it was well for La Salle that he did not attempt the fanciful adventure.
Savage settlements were numerous along the Mississippi, as De Soto had found a century and more earlier. About thirty miles below the Missouri they came to another village of peaceful natives, whose souls they made happy by a few trifling gifts which were of priceless worth to their untutored minds. Then downward still they went for a hundred miles or more farther, to the mouth of another great stream, this one flowing from the east, and as noble in its milder way as the Missouri had been in its turbulent flow. Unlike the latter, this stream was gentle in its current, and its waters were of crystal clearness. It was the splendid river which the Indians called the Wabash, or Beautiful River, and the French by the similar name of La Belle Rivière. It is now known as the Ohio, the Indian name being transferred to one of its tributaries. This was the stream on whose waters La Salle had gazed with admiration thirteen years before.
The voyagers were obliged to proceed slowly. Unable to carry many provisions in their crowded canoes, they were often forced to stop and fish or hunt for game. As the Indians told them they would find no good camping-grounds for many miles below the Ohio, they stopped for ten days at its mouth, hunting and gathering supplies. Parties were sent out to explore in various directions, and one of the men, Peter Prudhomme, failed to return. It was feared that he had been taken captive by the Indians, traces of whom had been seen near by, and a party of Frenchmen, with Indian guides, was sent out on the trails of the natives. They returned without the lost man, and La Salle, at length, reluctantly giving him up, prepared to continue the journey. Just as they were entering the canoes the missing man reappeared. For nine days he had been lost in the forest, vainly seeking his friends, and wandering hopelessly. His gun, however, had provided him with food, and he reached the stream just in time.
Once more the expedition was launched on the swift-flowing current, eight or ten large birch canoes filled with Indians and Frenchmen in Indian garb, and laden with supplies. The waters bore them swiftly onward, there was little labor with the paddles, the wintry weather was passing and the air growing mild, the sky sunny, and the light-hearted sons of France enjoyed their daily journey through new and strange scenes with the warmest zest.
About one hundred and twenty miles below the Ohio they reached the vicinity of the Arkansas River, the point near which the voyage of Marquette had ended and that of the followers of De Soto began. Here, for the first time in their journey, they met with hostile Indians. As the flotilla glided on past the Arkansas bluffs, on the 3d of March, its people were startled by hearing the yells of a large body of savages and the loud sound of a drum, coming from behind the bluff. The natives had taken the alarm, supposing that a war party of their enemies was coming to attack them.
La Salle ordered his canoes at once to be paddled to the other side of the stream, here a mile wide. The party landing, some intrenchments were hastily thrown up, for across the river they could now see a large village, filled with excited and armed warriors. Preparations for defence made, La Salle advanced to the water's edge and made signs of friendship and amity. Pacified by these signals of peace, some of the Indian chiefs rowed across until near the bank, when they stopped and beckoned to the strangers to come to them.
Father Membré, the priest who accompanied the expedition, entered a canoe and was rowed out to the native boat by two Indians. He held out to them the calumet, or pipe of peace, the Indian signal of friendship, and easily induced the chiefs to go with him to the camp of the whites. There were six of them, frank and cordial in manner, and seemingly disposed to friendship. La Salle made them very happy with a few small presents, and at their request the whole party embarked and accompanied them across the river to their village.
All the men of the place crowded to the bank to receive their strange visitors, women and children remaining timidly back. They were escorted to the wigwams, treated with every show of friendship, and regaled with the utmost hospitality. These Arkansas Indians were found to be a handsome race, and very different in disposition from the northern tribes, for they replaced the taciturn and often sullen demeanor of the latter with a gay and frank manner better suited to their warmer clime. They were also much more civilized, being skilled agriculturists, and working their fields by the aid of slaves captured in war. Corn, beans, melons, and a variety of fruits were grown in their fields, and large flocks of turkeys and other fowls were seen round their dwellings.
La Salle and his party stayed in the village for some two weeks, and before leaving went through the form of taking possession of the country in the name of the king of France. This proceeding was conducted with all the ceremony possible under the circumstances, a large cross being planted in the centre of the village, anthems sung, and religious rites performed. The Indians looked on in delight at the spectacle, blankly ignorant of what it all meant, and probably thinking it was got up for their entertainment. Had they known its full significance they might not have been so well pleased.
Embarking again on the 17th of March, the explorers continued their journey down the stream, coming after several days to a place where the river widened into a lake-like expanse. This broad sheet of water was surrounded with villages, forty being counted on the east side and thirty-four on the west. On landing in this populous community, they found the villages to be well built, the houses being constructed of clay mixed with straw, and covered with dome-like roofs of canes. Many convenient articles of furniture were found within.
These Southern Indians proved to be organized under a very different system from that prevailing in the North. There each tribe was a small republic, electing its chiefs, and preserving the liberty of its people. Here the tribes were absolute monarchies. The head-chief, or king, had the lives and property of all his subjects at his disposal, and kept his court with the ceremonious dignity of a European monarch. When he called on La Salle, who was too sick at that time to go and see him, the ceremony was regal. Every obstruction was removed from his path by a party of pioneers, and the way made level for his feet. The spot where he gave audience was carefully smoothed and covered with showy mats.
The dusky autocrat made his appearance richly attired in white robes, and preceded by two officers who bore plumes of gorgeously colored feathers. An official followed with two large plates of polished copper. The monarch had the courteous dignity and gravity of one born to the throne, though his interview with La Salle was conducted largely with smiles and gestures, as no word spoken could be understood. The travellers remained among this friendly people for several days, rambling through the villages and being entertained in the dwellings, and found them far advanced in civilization beyond the tribes of the North.
Father Membré has given the following account of their productions: "The whole country is covered with palm-trees, laurels of two kinds, plums, peaches, mulberry, apple, and pear-trees of every variety. There are also five or six kinds of nut-trees, some of which bear nuts of extraordinary size. They also gave us several kinds of dried fruit to taste. We found them large and good. They have also many varieties of fruit-trees which I never saw in Europe. The season was, however, too early to allow us to see the fruit. We observed vines already out of blossom."
Continuing their journey down the stream, the adventurers next came to the country of the Natchez Indians, whom they found as friendly as those they had recently left. La Salle, indeed, was a man of such genial and kind disposition and engaging manners that he made friends of all he met. As Father Membré says, "He so impressed the hearts of these Indians that they did not know how to treat us well enough." This was a very different reception to that accorded De Soto and his followers, whose persistent ill-treatment of the Indians made bitter enemies of all they encountered.
The voyagers, however, were soon to meet savages of different character. On the 2d of April, as they floated downward through a narrow channel where a long island divided the stream, their ears were suddenly greeted with fierce war-whoops and the hostile beating of drums. Soon a cloud of warriors was seen in the dense border of forest, gliding from tree to tree and armed with strong bows and long arrows. La Salle at once stopped the flotilla and sent one canoe ahead, the Frenchmen in it presenting the calumet of peace. But this emblem here lost its effect, for the boat was greeted with a volley of arrows. Another canoe was sent, with four Indians, who bore the calumet; but they met with the same hostile reception.
Seeing that the savages were inveterately hostile, La Salle ordered his men to their paddles, bidding them to hug the opposite bank and to row with all their strength. No one was to fire, as no good could come from that. The rapidity of the current and the swift play of the paddles soon sent the canoes speeding down the stream, and though the natives drove their keen arrows with all their strength, and ran down the banks to keep up their fire, the party passed without a wound.
A few days more took the explorers past the site of the future city of New Orleans and to the head of the delta of the Mississippi, where it separates into a number of branches. Here the fleet was divided into three sections, each taking a branch of the stream, and very soon they found the water salty and the current becoming slow. The weather was mild and delightful, and the sun shone clear and warm, when at length they came into the open waters of the Gulf and their famous voyage was at an end.
Ascending the western branch again until they came to solid ground, a massive column bearing the arms of France was erected, and by its side was planted a great cross. At the foot of the column was buried a leaden plate, on which, in Latin, the following words were inscribed:
"Louis the Great reigns. Robert, Cavalier, with Lord Tonti, Ambassador, Zenobia Membré, Ecclesiastic, and twenty Frenchmen, first navigated this river from the country of the Illinois, and passed through this mouth on the ninth of April, sixteen hundred and eighty-two."
La Salle then made an address, in which he took possession for France of the country of Louisiana; of all its peoples and productions, from the mouth of the Ohio; of all the rivers flowing into the Mississippi from their sources, and of the main stream to its mouth in the sea. Thus, according to the law of nations, as then existing, the whole valley of the Mississippi was annexed to France; a magnificent acquisition, of which that country was destined to enjoy a very small section, and finally to lose it all.