Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs: From Cofachiqui, the Indian Princess, and Powhatan; down to and including Chief Joseph and Geronimo. Also an answer, from the latest research, of the query, Whence came the Indian? Together with a number of thrillingly interesting Indian stories and anecdotes from historyWood, Norman B. (Norman Barton)
History
Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs: From Cofachiqui, the Indian Princess, and Powhatan; down to and including Chief Joseph and Geronimo. Also an answer, from the latest research, of the query, Whence came the Indian? Together with a number of thrillingly interesting Indian stories and anecdotes from history
Wood, Norman B. (Norman Barton)
Indians -- Origin; Indians of North America -- Anecdotes; Indians of North America -- Biography
If the truth of this deliverance be denied, how then did Smith come back to
Jamestown loaded with presents when the other three men were killed, George
Cassen, in particular, in a most horrible manner? And how is it, supposing
Smith's account of it to be false, that Pocahontas afterward frequently
came to Jamestown with her attendants bringing baskets of corn and was,
next to Smith himself, the salvation of the colony? She was also sent by
her father to intercede with Smith for the release of prisoners. The fact
is, nobody doubted the story in Smith's life time and he had enemies
enough. Pocahontas never visited Jamestown after Smith went to England in
October, 1609, until she was kidnapped and taken there in April, 1613, by
the infamous Captain Argall, with the aid of Japazaws, the chief sachem of
the Patawomekes or Potomacs.
{Illustration: Captain Smith Making Toys For Pocahontas.}
It is true there is no mention of Pocahontas saving the life of Smith in
the "True Relation," but it must not be forgotten that it is confessed that
the editor came upon his copy at second or third hand; that is, we suppose
that it had been copied in MS. He also confesses to selecting what he
thought "fit to be printed." "Can any one doubt," says Eggleston, "that
the 'True Relation' was carefully revised, not to say corrupted, in the
interest of the company and the colony? And, if so, what more natural than
that the hostility of so great a chief as Powhatan would be concealed? For
the great need of the colony was a fresh supply of colonists. Nothing would
have so much tended to check emigration to Virginia (especially women) as a
belief that the most powerful neighboring prince was at war with the
settlement."
But Smith does mention the thrilling incident in his letter to Queen Anne,
on behalf of his protege, and rings the changes on it. Said he,
"Pocahontas, the King's most dear and well-beloved daughter, being but a
child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compassionate, pitiful
heart, of desperate estate, gave me much cause to respect her." . . . For
"at the minute of my execution she hazarded the beating out of her own
brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father
that I was safely conducted to Jamestown."
The amiable young "princess," Pocahontas, became the first Christian
convert in Virginia, as well as the first bride, when she married John
Rolfe, in 1613. At her baptism she received the name "Lady Rebecca," no
doubt in allusion to Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, who became the mother of
two distinct nations and two manner of people.
In 1616 she and her husband went to England. Here the "Lady Rebecca"
received great attentions at court and was entertained by the Bishop of
London. Pocahontas remained in England about a year; and when, with her
husband and son, she was about to return to Virginia, with her father's
counselor, Tomocomo, she was seized with smallpox at Gravesend and died in
June,1617, aged twenty-two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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