John Rolfe was not beholden to the Company for bringing him here, and he carried his own weight in all general endeavors, as well as in his personal projects. He was a far cry from the pampered aristocrats whose idling and futile digging for fool gold had annoyed Captain John Smith. He hailed from the sturdy British farming class, which could come through a Bermuda ship-wreck or a Jamestown disaster in that time, as well as they could a Dunkirk or a "blitz" in the twentieth century. Having arrived with Gates in a prudently salvaged ship, he left with Gates when the Jamestown outpost seemed untenable. He also returned with Gates at Delaware's reinforcement. He, for one, determined to make a go of it, although after his wife's death he was the loneliest of all the bachelor colonists. He sublimated his grief in hard work, and soon in a shrewd project which was to be of value to the colony as well as to his personal fortunes.
He knew instinctively the wisdom of the dying farmer who told his sons that they could dig for their heritage and treasure in the lands on which they lived. If others had heeded such a fable, they would have warmed on the trail of wealth for the colony. In Rolfe's case this was not merely profitable production of the land, but of the specific and prime crop for Virginia—tobacco. He put his finger on the business pulse of the new world. Here was the pot of gold at the foot of Columbus's rainbow; here was the gold for which the laziest colonists had wasted time prospecting elsewhere. For most of the next two centuries tobacco would be virtually coin of the realm. With it a man would pay the preacher, buy a wife, set her up in fine style, and then be taxed according to the degree of that style, paying in tobacco.
Rolfe was the first tobacconist. In 1610 an excellent plant was imported from Trinidad. Later, another from Venezuela was transported here, and cross-breeding was tried. He had seeds from Bermuda, and he was willing to learn from Indians about what they knew of the soil, and its cultivation. Like a good cook he savored his own product. He sensed that the Indians had none of the earnest industry of his own thrifty family who made the most of every tended acre in England, for they craved only so-so tobacco for their own pipes. This "apooke" was harsh, and English smokers preferred the West Indies product. He was going to improve it until England clamored for its import. Tobacco was a better crop than corn, a more valuable export than mica, lumber, iron, pitch, tar, walnut or cedar. It was more profitable than the mulberry trees which were supposed to produce silk. Rats ate the silk worms, and neither foreign teachers nor statutes could make the silk business succeed. The Glass House never satisfied investors. Yes, tobacco was the thing, and he was keenly on its scent. Within two years he and his neighbors were sending their product to England.
Meanwhile he "looked around," and was one of those Johns who could speak for himself. He could not do without a woman, any more than John Smith could have done with one. When he saw the slim and pensive prisoner, Pocahontas, he was susceptible at first glance, although he admitted that there were plenty of Christians more pleasing to the eye, and he tried to convince himself that he was more concerned for her soul than for her heart. Like an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl she was learning the language and the catechism from the Reverend Alexander Whitaker, and as a devout layman Rolfe was happy to enlighten her.
Three months after she had been taken as a hostage Powhatan did return the seven Englishmen and three muskets and he promised five hundred bushels of corn. The English did not want to give Pocahontas up until they got more arms from Powhatan, and Rolfe and Whitaker did not want to surrender her until they were sure of her becoming the first convert on this side of the world.
Rolfe craved her in marriage with an intensity that troubled his mind no less than his heart, and his conscience was more sorely beset than either, for no one else had risked marriage with the alien race, so why should he of all people, the most religious and ambitious man in the lot? His course seemed brave to him—"to sweep and make clean the path wherein I walk, from all suspicions and doubts." He wrote to Governor Dale about the "grounds and principal agitations which thus should provoke me to be in love."
He still had no compunctions about being impure. "Nor am I in so desperate an estate that I regard not what becometh of me, nor am I out of hope one day to see my country, not so void of friends, nor mean in birth, but there to obtain a match to my great content." Rolfe believed that he was not "led with unbridled desire of carnal affection; but for the good of this plantation; for the honor of our country; for the glory of God; for my own salvation; and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pocahontas, to whom my heart is and best thoughts are, and have a long time been so entangled, and inthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was ever awearied to unwind myself thereout."
Rolfe confessed his heart's erring with the local preacher as well as the Governor. Both surprised him by thinking it a good thing. Governor Dale thought it would be a love match between the races.
The preacher said: "Don't worry about being unequally yoken with an unbeliever. That one is easy. Convert the heathan." He thought that it would be a feather in his cap to baptize, and later to marry the girl to Rolfe, and not too flamboyant a feather in Rolfe's to marry her. Powhatan would be immensely pleased, although he would never admit it.
All these doubts that had tormented the distraught John made him more bewilderingly in love with this dusky sweetheart. It was April, and redbud blushed through the forest, promising another spring. What that dogwood drifted tardily along in its trail, pure white, and sure of itself? For most men dogwood is synonymous of spring in Virginia, but to him redbud bloomed first, and the more persuasively of spring. To John Rolfe, this comely maid with gentler manners than habitual in her race, yet with warm bloom belonging to this land and this moment, seemed enchanting.