The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and DiscoveryHakluyt, Richard
History
The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English -- Juvenile literature; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile literature
This done and acknowledged by them all in the presence of Ensenore, and
Pemisapan and his council, apparently quite changed Pemisapan’s
disposition. At all events he agreed with Ensenore that his people
should set up weirs for the colonists, and sow his land. This was done,
and by the end of April the Indians had sown sufficient land to produce
a crop that would have kept the whole company for a year. The king also
gave the colonists a plot of land for themselves to sow. These
proceedings put them in “marvellous comfort,” for if they could keep
themselves till the opening of July, which was the beginning of the
Indian harvest, they would then have, even though their expected new
supplies from England had not then arrived, enough store of their own to
sustain them.
But Ensenore died within a few days after these promising arrangements,
and now Pemisapan perfected his conspiracy. The plot was artfully
contrived. First king Okisko of Weopomiok, who had so dramatically given
his allegiance to the English queen, was to be moved through the agency
of a “great quantitie of copper” to take a hand in it with the Mangoaks
to the number of seven or eight hundred bows. They of Weopomiok were to
be invited ostensibly to a “certaine kind of moneths mind,” or ceremony
which the savages were wont to hold in memory of a dead personage, in
this case Ensenore. At the same time the Mangoaks and the Chespians with
their allies, to the number of seven hundred, were to be assembled at
“Dasamonguepeio” or Dasamonguepeuk—the mainland lying west of Roanoke
Island. The clans here were to lie low in ambush till signals were
exchanged with the other forces, the signals to be fires, denoting the
moment for action. Then Pemisapan and his fellows were to seize and
execute Lane and some of his principal men, while the Dasamonguepeuk
bands were to cross to Roanoke and despatch the rest of the colony. It
was expected that they would then be dismayed by hunger and scattered
over the island and elsewhere, seeking crabs and fish for food. For it
was to be agreed that from the time of the formation of the conspiracy
no corn or other supplies should be sold the colony, and that the weirs
which had been built for them should be robbed at night and broken up.
By these means Pemisapan felt assured that Lane would be enforced for
lack of sustenance at Roanoke to disband his people into sundry places
to live upon shell fish as the savages themselves were accustomed to do
while their corn was growing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account