Children's Stories in American History

by Henrietta Christian Wright

SMITH SAVED BY POCAHONTAS.

This man was Captain John Smith, a great soldier, who had already won much fame in fighting against the Turks.

He and his companions founded Jamestown, in Virginia, the first English colony which succeeded in America. While exploring the country he had been captured by the Indians. His companions were put to death immediately, but he saved his life by his presence of mind. When the Indians captured him he did not show any sign of fear, but began talking to them about his friends in Jamestown, and wrote a letter which he asked them to send there. Then he took out a pocket-compass and showed them how to use it, and also talked to them about the shape of the earth, and its motion around the sun.

All this surprised the Indians very much. They had never seen a written letter before, and they imagined it could only be done by magic, and they thought that if Smith were guided through the forest by means of the compass it was because he could talk to the stars and the sun. And then, had they not always been taught that the sun came up from the east in the morning, and went down in the west at night, never to return, but that a new sun came each day to light the world? So they listened to all these wonderful things with great awe and fear, and Powhatan and his council decided that it was not safe to let such a man live, as he might do them great harm, being so powerful and wise, and knowing so much about the unseen world. When Pocahontas was told that Smith must die, she felt very sad indeed. During the time that he had been a prisoner in the village she had grown very fond of him, as he also had of her, and it seemed a dreadful thing that such a brave and good man should die.

Many a story had he told her of the lands beyond the sea, where lived the little English boys and girls whom he had left behind him, and Pocahontas was never tired of listening to the tales of that fair England that Smith loved so well. How different it was from her own home, and how she would like to see those blue-eyed, fair-haired children, whose lives were so unlike her own. Ah, it was such a cruel thing to think that this good man must die. If she could only save him in some way, how glad she would be. And he was so brave too, he did not flinch when he was told that he must die—not even when he was told that he was to be put to death in the most cruel way that the Indians could think of. And so the Indian maiden grieved and grieved and tried to think of some way in which she might save her friend's life, but she could not.

At length the time came for his execution. He was brought out in the village square, and after his hands and feet were bound he was stretched on the ground with his head resting upon a great stone. Beside him stood an Indian with a great club in his hand with which he was to dash out the Englishman's brains. The club was lifted in the air and in another moment would have fallen upon Smith's head, had not Pocahontas, who at the last moment resolved to save his life at the risk of her own, rushed up to the spot and, clasping the captive's head in her arms, begged her father with tears in her eyes to spare his life.

Powhatan was touched by his daughter's sorrow and listened to her request; he ordered Smith's bonds to be taken off, and said that he would spare his life.

So Smith rose from the ground a free man, and with an escort of twelve men was sent back to Jamestown.

You can well imagine that he would never forget this brave, beautiful Indian maid who had saved his life. And many times after that he had reason to be grateful to Pocahontas. At that time the Jamestown settlement was in constant fear of attacks from the Indians, and more than once Pocahontas came through the forest at night to warn the English of danger, and Captain Smith said that, had it not been for her help, the Jamestown colony would have died of starvation. The Indians were very unfriendly and very unwilling to supply the English with food, and if Pocahontas and her father had not brought them corn they could not have gotten it anywhere else. Jamestown soon became as familiar to Pocahontas as her own father's home. She often went there to offer help and counsel to the colonists, and always showed the same fondness for Smith that she had shown in early childhood. Smith was obliged to go back to England after a while, to be treated for a wound, and after he went away Pocahontas did not visit Jamestown any more. The English told her that he was dead, and she could not bear to go there without seeing him. But he was not dead, and the two friends were to meet once more—not in Jamestown, it is true, but in England, where Pocahontas went as the bride of the young Englishman John Rolfe.

Rolfe loved the young Indian maiden dearly, but he could not marry her, as it was then considered very wrong for an Englishman to marry a heathen; but after a time Pocahontas became a Christian and was baptized under the name of Rebecca, and soon after she was married.