On one of the islets below the Falls, Captain Newport set up a cross
with the inscription “Jacobus, Rex, 1607,” and his own name beneath, and
James was proclaimed King with a great shout. Powhatan was displeased
with their importunity to go further up the river, and departed with all
the Indians, except the friendly Navirans, who had accompanied them from
Arahatic. Navirans greatly admired the cross, but Newport hit upon
an explanation of its meaning that should dispel the suspicions of
Powhatan. He told him that the two arms of the cross signified King
Powhatan and himself, the fastening of it in the middle was their
united league, and the shout was the reverence he did to Powhatan. This
explanation being made to Powhatan greatly contented him, and he came
on board and gave them the kindest farewell when they dropped down the
river. At Arahatic they found the King had provided victuals for them,
but, says Newport, “the King told us that he was very sick and not able
to sit up long with us.” The inability of the noble red man to sit up
was no doubt due to too much Christian sack and aquavite, for on “Monday
he came to the water side, and we went ashore with him again. He told us
that our hot drinks, he thought, caused him grief, but that he was well
again, and we were very welcome.”
It seems, therefore, that to Captain Newport, who was a good sailor
in his day, and has left his name in Virginia in Newport News, must be
given the distinction of first planting the cross in Virginia, with a
lie, and watering it, with aquavite.
They dropped down the river to a place called Mulberry Shade, where the
King killed a deer and prepared for them another feast, at which they
had rolls and cakes made of wheat. “This the women make and are very
cleanly about it. We had parched meal, excellent good, sodd [cooked]
beans, which eat as sweet as filbert kernels, in a manner, strawberries;
and mulberries were shaken off the tree, dropping on our heads as we
sat. He made ready a land turtle, which we ate; and showed that he was
heartily rejoiced in our company.” Such was the amiable disposition
of the natives before they discovered the purpose of the whites to
dispossess them of their territory. That night they stayed at a place
called “Kynd Woman's Care,” where the people offered them abundant
victual and craved nothing in return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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