This Country of OursMarshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)
History
This Country of Ours
Marshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)
United States -- History
For days and weeks the Indians had watched the habits of the
settlers until they knew the daily haunts of every man. Then they
had planned one swift and deadly blow which was to wipe out the
whole colony. And so cunning was their plot, so complete and perfect
their treachery, that they might have succeeded but for the love
of one faithful Indian. This Indian, named Chanco, lived with one
of the settlers named Pace, and had become his servant. But Pace
treated him more as a son than as a servant, and the Indian had
become very devoted to him. When, then, this Indian was told that
his chief commanded him to murder his master he felt that he could
not do it. Instead, he went at once to Pace and told him of the
plot. Pace then made ready to defend himself, and sent warnings
to all the other settlers within reach. Thus a great many of the
colonists were saved from death, but three hundred and fifty were
cruelly slain.
This sudden and treacherous attack, after so many years of peace,
enraged the white men, and they followed the Redmen with a terrible
vengeance. They hunted them like wild beasts, tracking them down
with bloodhounds, driving them mercilessly from place to place,
until, their corn destroyed, their houses burned, their canoes
smashed to splinters, the Indians were fain to sue for mercy, and
peace once more was restored for more than twenty years.
__________
Chapter 18 - How Englishmen Fought a Duel With Tyranny
At last Virginia prospered. But while it prospered the man who had
first conceived the idea of this New England beyond the seas had
fallen on evil days. Sir Walter Raleigh had been thrown into prison
by King James. There for twelve long years he languished, only to
be set free at length on condition that he should find a gold-mine
for his King. He failed to find the mine, and by his efforts only
succeeded in rousing to greater heights than before the Spanish
hatred against him. For Spain claimed the land and gold of which
Raleigh had gone in search. And now the King of Spain demanded that
he should be punished. And James, weakly yielding to his outcry,
condemned Sir Walter to death. So on 29th of October, 1618,
this great pioneer laid his head upon the block, meeting death as
gallantly as ever man died.
"I shall yet live to see it (Virginia) an English nation," he had
said, after his own fifth failure to found a colony, and his words
had come true. But long ere his death Raleigh had ceased to have
any connection with Virginia. And perhaps there was scarce a man
among those who had made their homes there who remembered that it
was Raleigh who had prepared the way, that but for Raleigh a new
Spain and not a New England might have been planted on the American
shores.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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