On this supposition, what could have been the editor's motive in suppressing the passage? We need not go far afield for an answer if we bear in mind the instructions with which the first colonists started,—"to suffer no man ... to write [in] any letter of anything that may discourage others."[57] This very necessary and important injunction may have restrained Smith himself from mentioning his deadly peril; if he did mention it, we can well understand why the person who published the letter should have thought it best to keep the matter private. After a few years had elapsed and the success of the colony was assured, there was no longer any reason for such reticence. My own opinion is that Smith, not intending the letter for publication, told the whole story, and that the suppression was the editor's work. It will be remembered that in the fight in which he was captured, Smith slew two Indians. In the circumstantial account given in the "General History" we are told that while Opekankano was taking him up and down the country, a near relative of one of these victims attempted to murder Smith but was prevented by the Indians who were guarding him. The "True Relation" preserves this incident, while it omits all reference to the two occasions when Smith's life was officially and deliberately imperilled, the tying to the tree and the scene in The Powhatan's wigwam. One can easily see why the editor's nerves should not have been disturbed by the first incident, so like what might happen in England, while the more strange and outlandish exhibitions of the Indian's treatment of captives seemed best to be dropped from the narrative.
There is no incongruity between the two narratives, except the omission.
But, we are told, the difficulty is not merely one of omission. In the "True Relation" Smith not only omits all reference to Pocahontas, but he says that he was kindly and courteously treated by his captors, and this statement is thought to be incompatible with their having decided to beat his brains out. Such an objection shows ignorance of Indian manners. In our own time it has been a common thing for Apaches and Comanches to offer their choicest morsels of food, with their politest bows and smiles, to the doomed captive whose living flesh will in a few moments be hissing under their firebrands. The irony of such a situation is inexpressibly dear to the ferocious hearts of these men of the Stone Age, and American history abounds in examples of it. In his fuller account, indeed, Smith describes himself as kindly treated on his way to the scene of execution[58] and after his rescue. Drop out what happened in the interval and you get the account given in the "True Relation."
The account in the "General History" is the more probable.
Now that omission creates a gap in the "True Relation" such as to fatally damage its credibility. We are told that Smith, after killing a couple of Indians, is taken captive and carried to the head war-chief's wigwam, and is then forsooth allowed to go scot free with no notice taken of the blood debt that he owes to the tribe! To any one who has studied Indians such a story is well-nigh incredible. As a prisoner of war Smith's life was already forfeited.[59] It is safe to say that no Indian would think of releasing him without some equivalent; such an act might incur the wrath of invisible powers. There were various ways of putting captives to death; torture by slow fire was the favourite mode, but crushing in the skull with tomahawks was quite common, so that when Smith mentions it as decided upon in his case he is evidently telling the plain truth, and we begin to see that the detailed account in the "General History" is more consistent and probable than the abridged account in the "True Relation."
The rescue was in strict accordance with Indian usage.
Adoption of Smith.
The consistency and probability of the story are made complete by the rescue at the hands of Pocahontas. That incident is precisely in accordance with Indian usage, but it is not likely that Smith knew enough about such usage to have invented it, and his artless way of telling the story is that of a man who is describing what he does not understand. From the Indian point of view there was nothing romantic or extraordinary in such a rescue; it was simply a not uncommon matter of business. The romance with which white readers have always invested it is the outcome of a misconception no less complete than that which led the fair dames of London to make obeisance to the tawny Pocahontas as to a princess of imperial lineage. Time and again it used to happen that when a prisoner was about to be slaughtered, some one of the dusky assemblage, moved by pity or admiration or some unexplained freak, would interpose in behalf of the victim; and as a rule such interposition was heeded. Many a poor wretch, already tied to the fatal tree and benumbed with unspeakable terror, while the firebrands were heating for his torment, has been rescued from the jaws of death, and adopted as brother or lover by some laughing young squaw, or as a son by some grave wrinkled warrior. In such cases the new-comer was allowed entire freedom and treated like one of the tribe. As the blood debt was cancelled by the prisoner's violent death, it was also cancelled by securing his services to the tribe; and any member, old or young, had a right to demand the latter method as a substitute for the former. Pocahontas, therefore, did not "hazard the beating out of her own brains," though the rescued stranger, looking with civilized eyes, would naturally see it in that light. Her brains were perfectly safe. This thirteen-year-old squaw liked the handsome prisoner, claimed him, and got him, according to custom. Mark now what happened next. Two days afterward The Powhatan, "having disguised himselfe in the most fearfullest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods, and there vpon a mat by the fire be left alone. Not long after frome behind a mat that divided the house [i. e. a curtain] was made the most dolefullest noyse he ever heard."[60] Then the old chieftain, looking more like the devil than a man, came to Smith and told him that now they were friends and he might go back to Jamestown; then if he would send to The Powhatan a couple of cannon and a grindstone, he should have in exchange a piece of land in the neighbourhood, and that chief would evermore esteem him as his own son. Smith's narrative does not indicate that he understood this to be anything more than a friendly figure of speech, but it seems clear that it was a case of ceremonious adoption. As the natural result of the young girl's intercession the white chieftain was adopted into the tribe. A long incantation, with dismal howls and grunts, propitiated the tutelar deities, and then the old chief, addressing Smith as a son, proposed an exchange of gifts. The next time that Smith visited Werowocomoco, The Powhatan proclaimed him a "werowance" or chief of the tribe, and ordered "that all his subjects should so esteem us, and no man account us strangers ... but Powhatans, and that the corn, women, and country should be to us as to his own people."[61]
Importance of the story of Pocahontas.