History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia — John Shaqi
History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of VirginiaCampbell, Charles
History
History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia
Campbell, Charles
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Virginia -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
On the fourth of June, Newport, Smith, and twenty others were dispatched
to discover the head of the river on which they were seated, called by
the Indians, Powhatan, and by the English, the James. The natives
everywhere received them kindly, dancing, and feasting them with bread,
fish, strawberries, and mulberries, for which Newport requited them with
bells, pins, needles, and looking-glasses, which so pleased them that
they followed the strangers from place to place. In six days they
reached a town called Powhatan, one of the seats of the great chief of
that name, whom they found there. It consisted of twelve wigwams,
pleasantly situated on a bold range of hills overlooking the river, with
three islets in front, and many corn-fields around. This picturesque
spot lies on the north bank of the river, about a mile below the falls,
and still retains the same name.
On the day of their arrival, the tenth of June, the party visited the
falls, and again on the day following, Whitsunday, when they erected a
cross there to indicate the farthest point of discovery. Newport, in
return for Powhatan's hospitality, presented him with a gown and a
hatchet. Upon their return, the Indians first gave occasion for distrust
at Weyanoke, within twenty miles of Jamestown. Arriving there on the
next day, June the twentieth, they found that a boy had been killed, and
seventeen men, including the greater part of the council, had been
wounded by the savages; that during the assault a cross-bar shot from
one of the vessels had struck down a bough of a tree among them and made
them retire, but for which all the settlers there would probably have
been massacred, as they were at the time of the attack planting corn in
security, and without arms. Wingfield now consented that the fort should
be palisaded, cannon mounted, and the men armed and exercised. The
attacks and ambuscades of the natives were frequent, and the English, by
their careless straggling, were often wounded, while the fleet-footed
savages easily escaped.
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