The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607

by Sara Agnes Rice Pryor

"Captain Smith my master (the King) is here present in this company thinking it Captain Winn and not you; and of him he intended to have been revenged, having never offended him. If he have offended you in escaping your imprisonment, the fishes swim, the fowls fly, and the very beasts strive to escape the snare and live; then blame not him being a man. He would entreat you remember your being a prisoner what pains he took to save your life. If since, he hath injured you, he was compelled to it, but however you have revenged it to our too great loss. We perceive and well know you intend to destroy us, that are here to entreat and desire your friendship, and to enjoy our houses and plant our fields, of whose fruit you shall participate; otherwise you will have the worst by our absence. For we can plant anywhere, though with more labour: and we know you cannot live if you want our harvest, and that relief we bring you. If you promise us peace we will believe you; if you proceed in revenge we will abandon the country." Upon these terms the Captain promised them peace until they did some injury, upon condition they should bring in provision. So all departed good friends and so continued until he left the country. After he left, Wochinchopunck, again found hanging around Jamestown, was "thrust twice through the body with an arming sword."

Smith now addressed himself with all his might to the defences of the colony. Although he had inspired the Indians with a wholesome fear of offending him, he knew their servile obedience to Powhatan, and that monarch had forfeited all claim to his confidence and respect. Powhatan's one dominant desire was to obtain the arms of the colonists, and with these arms drive them from the country. A fortunate circumstance changed the attitude for the present, even of that implacable enemy. A pistol was stolen from the fort, and an Indian arrested, to be hanged unless the pistol was returned. The prisoner was committed to the "dungeon." The night was bitterly cold, and Captain Smith pitied the poor savage and sent him a good supper and charcoal for a fire. At midnight his brother brought back the pistol, but upon opening the door of the dungeon the prisoner was found, stifled by the fumes of the charcoal, badly burned and apparently dead. His brother's lamentations touched the Captain's heart and he promised to make him alive again. Accordingly, with aqua vitæ and vinegar, he was restored, his burns dressed, and he was sent home after being well rested and refreshed.

The whole country rang with the wonderful news that the Englishman could raise the dead, and henceforth there was, during his administration, no trouble from the Indians. They frequently brought presents to the colonists of game and fruits, and no doubt Pocahontas visited them as of yore. It is expressly stated that she came as freely to the fort as to her father's house.

Another party was soon sent into the interior to the country of the Mangoags, in search of Raleigh's lost colony, and returned with "no newes except that they were all dead." Sicklemore, who had been despatched to Chowanock, returned after a similar fruitless search. He found the Chowan River not large, the country overgrown with pines. As to the "pemminaw," the silk grass growing like hemp, there was but little, only a few tufts here and there. Queen Anne was not yet to have a gown of Virginia grass-linen. Elizabeth's robe had been woven from North Carolina grass, and was probably a present from Sir Walter Raleigh.

A marginal note in Purchas's "His Pilgrimes" distinctly states that Powhatan confessed he had been cognizant of the massacre of Raleigh's men: also that the Indian king had in his treasure-house articles that had belonged to them. Strachey, writing in 1610-1611, asserted that Powhatan himself was their murderer. Expeditions were sent out, for several years, in search of them. No clew was ever found to their fate. Indians are good keepers of secrets, as was proven by the great massacre of 1622.

In March, 1609, a few months only remained of Smith's residence in Virginia. Had he known them to be his last, he could not have worked with more energy and efficiency. He "dug a well of most excellent sweet water," he built block-houses in various places—one at Hog Island to protect his fast-growing herd there. He built the "fort for retreat neere a convenient river, easie to be defended, and hard to be assalted," around which in the next century clustered the "Legends of the Stone House." But scarcity of food constrained him to abandon the work of defence and address himself to the ever recurring struggle for bread. There were two hundred men behind the palisades, and only thirty who were willing to work. He issued a stern threat that every idler would be sent across the river to shift for himself. No empty porringer would be filled from the common kettle unless the owner were sick, or had earned his meal. He was beset with disloyal, unmanly complainers, who were clamorous that the tools, arms, nay, the very houses should be bartered for corn. Newport had brought them a terrible, warlike colony of rats, "thousands on thousands," which destroyed all the contents of his casks of grain, and baffled the colonists' efforts to exterminate them. It was supposed that Newport introduced them into Virginia—they had come originally to England from the "poisonous East"—but in the early descriptions of the dress of a savage he is represented as clothing himself with skins, and then adorning his garment with the dead hand of an enemy or paw of a beast, while a dead rat hung from his ear, through which the tail was thrust. This rat was, however, evidently scarce—a rare gem—and not in common use for an ear-ring like a living green and yellow serpent. I think we shall have to thank Captain Newport for our rats, as we thank England for our colonists, and the Dutch for the negroes, who arrived in 1619.

The early spring before the ripening of fruits and berries was always the scarce season. Captain Smith sent some of his people to feed on Lynnhaven Bay oysters: and others were billeted with the savages, who treated them kindly. Roots and acorns were gathered for food. Smith perceived the folly of keeping the colony crowded into the narrow limits of the Jamestown peninsula, and projected a settlement in Nansemond, a fort at Point Comfort, and yet another on the high ground near the present city of Richmond. But his ardour was soon to be chilled. With the summer came Captain Argall in his trading-ship, who brought the astounding intelligence that the present charter and government had been overthrown, everything reorganized, and President Smith removed.

The reasons for his disgrace were known to Argall. He had been accused of cruelty to the "Naturells," and of suffering the ships to return unfreighted. No allowance had been made for Indian outrages, for sickness, or for any of the difficulties of which I have written.

The seven vessels, shattered by storm and having lost the greater portion of their supplies, and many passengers by sickness, reached Jamestown in August, 1609. They brought back the old ringleaders:[58] "Ratcliffe the mutineer, Wingfield the imbecile, Newport the tale-bearer, Archer an agitator, Martin a cat's-paw." They had wrangled through the early days of 1607 and 1608, been opposed by the hard workers and fighters, and crushed. They had, in England, effected by intrigue what they had failed to effect by force. They had their revenge! Ratcliffe, whose epitaph Hamor wrote in a few pithy words, "He was not worth remembering but to his dishonour," had gained the willing ear of the disappointed London Company, and had laid the blame of the failure in Virginia wholly and solely upon John Smith. The "Rude Answer" of the honest fighting man had offended the Right Honourables, and so they rid themselves of him.

Now, upon landing, Ratcliffe claimed authority. Smith refused to allow it, until the charter and leaders, who were in the Sea Venture, should arrive. Ratcliffe declared they were lost at sea. All Jamestown was in an uproar. Ratcliffe and his followers paraded the town denouncing Smith. His men "drank deep and uttered threats and curses," and their leader nursed the storm and inflamed them more and more against the tyrant. Chaos had come again.[59] Those "unruly gallants would dispose and determine of the government sometimes to one, sometimes to another: to-day the old commission must rule; to-morrow the new; the next day neither; in fine they would rule all or ruin all. Yet in charity," continues our early historian, "we must endure them thus sent to destroy us; or by correcting their follies bring the world's censure upon us to be guilty of their blood. Happy had we been had they never arrived, and we forever abandoned, and as we were left to our fortunes: for on earth, for their number, was never more confusion, or misery than their factions occasioned.