Historic Girlhoods, Part One

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The Indian girl seemed sorry the Captain was leaving when he said good-bye to her the next day, and wished him a safe journey back to the Virginia settlement. Captain Smith gave her a few small gifts he had managed to carry with him, and he promised to bring her more when he should come again. With the rest of the children she stood out in the snow to wave him a farewell as he left the village in company with two of Pow-ha-tan's guides, and that night she dreamed of the "Great Captain" as a hero in a far country doing prodigious deeds of valor. To her he now seemed the most wonderful man in the world.

After the excitement of the "Great Captain's" visit the village of Wero-woco-moco sank back to its ordinary life, and Po-ca-hun-tas shared the work of the other girls, although being the daughter of the chief she was relieved of much of the drudgery that fell to most of them. Two things she particularly wished for now, the one that she might see the white Captain again, and the other that she might visit a white man's village and see all the wonders she had heard so much about. Winter changed to spring and the Indian braves went hunting, and spring deepened into summer, and in the early fall her first wish was granted, for Captain Smith with some friends came to Pow-ha-tan's village to invite that chief to go with them to the white man's town of Jamestown to be crowned by the English people as king of the Pow-ha-tan tribe. The Captain had not forgotten the twelve-year old Indian princess and had brought her a necklace of coral beads and bracelets set with red stones, and in thanks she led ten other girls of her own age in an Indian dance before the Captain and his friends, a graceful dance about a fire in the forest to the accompaniment of gay Indian songs and the music of the Indian drum. By now Po-ca-hun-tas and Captain Smith had become great friends, and Pow-ha-tan, watching them with his shrewd eyes, decided that if he should ever need to ask a favor of the white settlers this little daughter of his might prove the best of messengers to send.

It was only a few weeks afterward that some of Pow-ha-tan's braves were made prisoners by the settlers through fear that a conspiracy was being planned against them. The old chief sent his daughter with Ra-bun-ta to Jamestown, and she begged the Captain to free the captive braves. Like Pow-ha-tan John Smith knew when to be gracious, and he at once gave orders for the release of the Indians. Then he entertained Po-ca-hun-tas as though she were a royal princess. She met the white girls and boys who lived at Jamestown and learned their games, teaching them in exchange the sports of the Algonquin children. One day when Captain Smith came into the market-place square he found his young guest leading a line of boys who were turning handsprings. A crowd had gathered to watch them go round and round the square in a great circle, the Indian princess at the head, turning better wheels than any of the boys. She had such a good time that she came again and again, sometimes on matters of business with Ra-bun-ta, sometimes with her brother Nun-ta-qua-us, and sometimes with her girl friends. With each visit her admiration for Captain John Smith increased.

Those were times when there was little real safety for either Indians or white men. The settlers were far too often greedy and selfish, taking land as they pleased, regardless of the fact that it had belonged to other men for generations, and breaking their agreements with the Indians as though a promise given to a redskin was of no value. What the settlers wanted they tried to get by hook or crook, and so the Indians soon came to distrust, and then to fear and hate them. Certain discontented men in Jamestown also were planning to rid the colony of its strong governor Captain Smith, and conspired with restless Indians to capture and kill him when he was unprepared. Some of these Indians were of the Algonquin tribe, and one day Po-ca-hun-tas, stealing silently through the woods, came upon a meeting of them and overheard their plans.

This was in midwinter of the year 1609. Provisions had run low in Jamestown and the settlers were almost starving. Captain Smith, trusting to the old friendship of Pow-ha-tan, left the colony and journeyed through the forest to Wero-woco-moco. There he met Pow-ha-tan and made a treaty with him, by which he was to receive a supply of corn to carry back to the settlement with him. The chief said it would take him several days to collect the provisions, and so the Captain pitched his camp in the woods by the York River to wait until the promised corn was sent out to him. But meantime certain braves had come to Pow-ha-tan and shown him how easy it would be to deal the pale-faces a serious blow by killing their leader and letting the people suffer for supplies. Pow-ha-tan listened, considered how much harm the white men had already done his Algonquins, and at last nodded his head. None of those seated at the council-fire knew that the sharp-eared Po-ca-hun-tas was hiding close behind one of the deerskin curtains that hung at her bedroom door.

The braves ceased their conference and scattered for the night. Then the girl stole out from her room and glided down the passageway to the door. There was no moon and she could cross the open space about the houses without observation. She slipped into the forest, and with scarcely a crackle of twigs to mark her progress over the dead leaves she made her way in and out through the trees, following the trail to the camp on the river with the sure instinct born and bred in her.

Now and then she would stop and listen or glance up through the bare branches at the star-strewn sky. Then she would turn and steal on again, fleet-footed as a deer. So she covered several miles and came near the river. She stopped to listen and then stepped on again. Soon she caught the light of a camp-fire shining through the trees.

She stood behind the trunk of a giant oak and looked at the little camp before her. At the fire sat a man, his gun resting across his arms. Near him lay a dozen other men, wrapped in blankets and apparently asleep. She knew the man on watch was Captain Smith.

She took a step forward and a dry twig crackled ever so little under her tread. The Captain turned like the wind, his gun raised in defense. "Wake up!" he cried. "Watch! I heard a noise!"

The girl took another step, holding up her hands. "It is I, Po-ca-hun-tas," she said. "I come alone to speak with you."