Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America -- Canada
There yet remains to be told one terrible incident in the earlier story
of Virginia, an incident that resulted in the total destruction of the
Indian race. The successor to the father of Pocahontas had conceived a
deadly enmity against the English: this was embittered from day to day,
as he saw the hated white men multiplying and spreading over the hunting
grounds of his fathers. Then a fierce determination took possession of
his savage heart. For years he matured his plans, and watched the
favorable moment to crush every living stranger at a blow. He took all
his people into counsel, and such was their fidelity, and so deep the
wile of the Indian chief, that, during four years of preparation, no
warning reached the intended victims. To the last fatal moment, a
studied semblance of cordial friendship was observed; some Englishmen,
who had lost their way in the woods were kindly and carefully guided
back again.
One Friday morning (March 22d, 1622) the Indians came to the town in
great numbers, bearing presents, and finding their way into every house.
Suddenly the fierce shout of the savages broke the peaceful silence, and
the death-shriek of their victims followed. In little more than a
minute, three hundred and forty-seven, of all ages and sexes, were
struck down in this horrid massacre. The warning of an Indian converted
to Christianity saved Jamestown. The surviving English assembled there,
and began a war of extermination against the savages. By united force,
superior arms, and, it must be added, by treachery as black as that of
their enemies, the white men soon swept away the Indian race forever
from the Virginian, soil.[311]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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