The implicit obedience which he exacted of his own subjects, notwithstanding the apparently precarious tenure by which he held his command, is a striking indication of the extent of his mere personal influence. "When he listeth," says an old writer, "his will is a law, and must be obeyed; not onely as a King, but as halfe a God, they esteeme him. What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing. At his feete they present whatsoever he commandeth, and at the least froune of his browe, their greatest spirits will tremble with feare." This subordination was sustained by measures which, for severity and courage, would do no discredit to the most absolute despot of the Eastern world. On one occasion, certain, offenders were burned to death in the midst of an immense heap of glowing coals, collected from many fires made for the purpose. A more merciful punishment was by braining the criminal with a club, as Smith was to have been sacrificed. The most horrible was fastening the poor wretch to a tree, breaking his joints one by one, and then whittling down the body with reeds and shells. Thrashing with cudgels was no trifle. Smith says he saw a man subjected to this discipline under the hands of two of his practised countrymen, till he fell prostrate and senseless; but he uttered no cry or complaint.
The extraordinary native shrewdness of Powhatan was abundantly manifested in the amusing advantages he obtained over Newport; his long and artful conversations with Smith, some of them sustained under the most embarrassing circumstances, merely to procure time; the promptness with which he rejected and defeated the proposal to make common cause against the Monacans—a bait, as he expressed it, too foolish to be taken; and, in fine, upon every occasion when the English undertook to negotiate or to argue with him. He availed himself most essentially of the aid of the German deserters heretofore mentioned, but he had too much sagacity to trust them after they deserted himself; and so, when two of them fled to him a second time, with proposals for delivering his great rival, Captain Smith, into his hands, he only observed, that men who betrayed the captain would betray the emperor, and forthwith ordered the scoundrels to be brained upon the spot. [FN]
[FN] Stith Book III.
Powhatan, like many others of his race, has been regarded with prejudice for the very reasons which entitle him to respect. He was a troublesome enemy to the colonists. His hostile influence extended for hundreds of miles around them; cutting off commerce with the natives in the first place, and making inveterate enemies of them in the next. Powhatan, we are told, "still as he found means cut off their boats, and denied them trade;" [FN] and again, "as for corne, contribution and provision from the salvages, we had nothing but mortall wounds, with clubs and arrowes." Here, too, we find the emperor availing himself of the disasters and despair of the colony, to procure swords, muskets and ammunition—so reckless had the colonists become through famine.
[FN] Authorities in Smith's History, Vol. II.
Still, it does not appear, that Powhatan adopted any policy but such as he believed indispensable to the welfare, not to say, the existence, of his sovereign dominions. His warfare was an Indian warfare, indeed. But setting aside those circumstances of education and of situation which rendered this a matter both of pride and necessity, it may be safely said, that he but followed the example of those who should have known better. Not only did he act generally in self-defence against what he deemed the usurpation of a foreign and unknown people, who had settled without permission upon his shores; but he was galled and provoked by peculiar provocations in numerous instances. The mere liberty of taking possession of a part of his territory might have been overlooked. Probably it was so. In the earliest days of the settlement, when nothing could be easier for Powhatan than to extinguish it at a single assault, it is acknowledged that his people often visited the English and treated them with kindness. [FN] Not long afterwards, indeed, they committed some trespasses, but meanwhile a party of the English had invaded the interior of the country. Considering the dissolute and unprincipled character of a large part of them, it is not improbable that still greater freedom was exercised with the Indians; such of course as the historians would be likely neither to record nor to know. And yet Smith himself has told enough—of himself—to make this point clear. In his very first expedition after corn, seeing, he says, "that by trade and, courtesie nothing was to be had, he made bold to try such conclusions as necessitie inforced." He let fly a volley of musketry, ran his boats ashore, skirmished with the natives, and forcibly obtained a supply of provisions. And thus—adds the scrupulous captain—
"Thus God vnboundlesse by his power
Made them so kinde would vs devour."