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Historic Girlhoods Volume 1

<h2> VII Pocahontas The Girl of the Virginia Woods: 1595-1617 </h2> Deep snow covered the fields about the encampment of the Algonquin Indians on the banks of the river James. The snow had been falling for days during January, and made the long, low houses of bark and boughs look like so many great white ridges high above the ice-bound river. They were big houses, these "long houses" as they were called, each one large enough to hold twenty families. Each family had a compartment to itself, with sleeping bunks built against the walls, and curtains of deerskin to shield the family from the open passage which ran the length of the house. At different places in this passage fire-pits were built on the earth floor, and each pit gave heat enough to warm four Indian families and an opportunity for them to cook their meals. Some smoke went out at rude chimneys made in the roof, but much of it stayed in and filtered through to the different living-rooms. Each of these "long houses" was the home of from eighty to one hundred Indians. The river James was called by the Indians the Pow-ha-tan, and the Algonquin tribe that lived upon its shores went by the same name. The tribe's chief settlement was the village of Wero-woco-moco, and here the famous old chief, called by the white men Pow-ha-tan but by the Indians Wa-bun-so-na-cook, was usually to be found. He had built there a "long house" for his own family, and at one end of it was the council room in which the various chiefs of the tribe met with him to discuss all matters relating to tribe affairs. Here they spent much of the time smoking about a fire-pit when the snow was falling and the hunting season at an end. Before the council-house a group of boys were playing "snow-snake" and tumbling about in the drifts on a raw afternoon in January. Suddenly there appeared an Indian runner, coming noiselessly out of the woods and crossing the open space where the boys were playing. "It's Ra-bun-ta," cried one of them, and making a snowball threw it at the slim young Indian. Others took up the cry and pelted him with snowballs, while one named Nan-ta-qua-us dashed forward and tried to trip him with the knob-headed stick they had been using in their game of "snow-snake." Ra-bun-ta, however, kicked the stick away and gave the boy a push which sent him sprawling. He dodged the snowballs and ran on without a word to the door of the old chief's house. Pushing the matting aside he dashed in and spied the chief sitting with other braves about a fire at the farther end of the house. Other Indians were lounging about nearer fires and children were playing up and down the passage. Some of these were turning somersaults in the open spaces between the fires while others were trying to balance on their heads and walk on their hands. As the runner darted along the passage a girl, dressed in buckskin, came whirling along turning handsprings. Ra-bun-ta leaped to one side, but the girl's feet struck full against his breast, and with such force that he was thrown backward while the girl went tumbling to the ground. Both fell sprawling just clear of a fire-pit. There followed a great roar of laughter, the other children danced about in delight, while the chiefs, loving a rough joke, leaned back and ridiculed the upset messenger. "Knocked down by a girl! Oh, for shame, Ra-bun-ta!" called one as the young man slowly picked himself up. "You'd make a splendid brave," cried another. But the old chief, taking his pipe from his mouth, looked at the girl on the floor. "My daughter, you have nearly killed our brother Ra-bun-ta with your foolery," said he. "That is hardly young girl's play. Why will you be such a little po-ca-hun-tas!" "Po-ca-hun-tas! Po-ca-hun-tas!" called the other children delightedly, using the word which in the Algonquin tongue meant "little tomboy." Ra-bun-ta, laughing, turned quickly and made a dash at the little girl, but she jumped aside in time to avoid him. "A po-ca-hun-tas must always be on guard," she exclaimed as he stepped past her. The runner now turned and faced the chief Pow-ha-tan. "Oh, strong one," said he, "the feet of the little princess Ma-ta-oka, whom you have now renamed Po-ca-hun-tas, are more dangerous to me than the 'snake-stick' of her brother Nun-ta-qua-us. I have with difficulty escaped from these two with my life, but it is well I have been able to do so, for I have news for you. I have traveled fast over the snow to tell you. The braves who are with your mighty brother O-pe-chan-ca-nough have seized the pale-face chieftain in the swamp-lands of the Chicka-hominy and are even now bringing him here to this your council-house." Pow-ha-tan nodded his head. "It is well, Ra-bun-ta," said he. "We will be ready for him." The young Indian messenger bowed and made his way to one of the nearer fire-pits. As he warmed his hands over the blaze other young braves crowded about him, asking him countless questions. One wanted to know if it was true that the white chief wore a headpiece of heavy iron, and another if the chief had used magic against the braves, and a third if he was indeed half as tall again as any Indian chief. Ra-bun-ta answered their questions as best he could, and then, squatting by the fire while he ate the parched Indian corn that the little Ma-ta-oka brought him, he told how the "Great Captain" had been surprised and taken prisoner in the swamps by O-pe-chan-ca-nough and two hundred of his braves. "The Great Captain" had only had two white warriors with him, and these had been slain by the Indian chief, but then the white chief had caught his Indian guide and held him in front of him as a shield, and so saved his life while he shot flames through his magic fire-tube. Finally the Captain's foot had slipped and he had fallen into a mud-hole, and then the braves had found it an easy matter to surround him and make him prisoner. They found his clothes shot through and through with arrows, but the Captain as brave and confident as ever. The news that the great White Captain was coming to the village caused great excitement. The Indians admired courage and craftiness above all other qualities, and this pale-face was known to be extraordinarily brave and cunning. Reports of this Captain John Smith, the governor of the little settlement of white people that was called Virginia, had spread far and wide among the Indians, and he was undoubtedly the white chief whom the Indians most admired and feared. All that night and the next day the Pow-ha-tans talked of Captain Smith, and the chief's daughter Ma-ta-oka, or Po-ca-hun-tas as she was now called in jest, listened eagerly to all the stories about him. Already she thought of him as an all-conquering hero. The Indians were all waiting out-of-doors when the chief O-pe-chan-ca-nough and his braves reached the village with their prisoner. Wild yells rent the air as they caught sight of the tall white man, walking fearlessly among the red men, his head held high, and his eyes smiling. He was led to the council-house, and there a great feast was spread before him, which he shared with Pow-ha-tan and the other chiefs of the tribe. Po-ca-hun-tas, watching secretly from a corner, saw that the white man ate heartily, although she knew he must be in doubt as to what fate lay in store for him. Pow-ha-tan was a wise chieftain and he knew that if he should kill Captain Smith he would cause a relentless hatred among the white settlers towards his own tribe. He knew the white men were strong and he preferred to have them as friends rather than as enemies in his wars with his tribe's chief foes, the Manna-ho-acks. When a prisoner was not killed he was usually made a slave, but Pow-ha-tan thought the Captain too big a man to use in that way, and so he decided to treat him as a guest, talk with him for several days about affairs between the settlers and his tribe, and then send him home with many presents. To Captain Smith's surprise he was invited to regard himself as a guest in Pow-ha-tan's house, and the following day was adopted by the chief as a son, and given a large grant of land in the neighborhood. The old chief's daughter seemed much interested in him, and was always waiting to serve him in any way, occasionally asking him questions which showed her great curiosity in the white people. The Captain could not help liking her for her kindness to him, and asked the chief her name. The latter hesitated, for Indians did not like to let their real names be known to these strange people. "She is called Po-ca-hun-tas," he answered evasively. And to Captain Smith she was known as Po-ca-hun-tas from that time. 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." The Captain lowered his gun. "Come, Po-ca-hun-tas," he answered. "You are always welcome." She stepped into the clearing, and the men, glad to find only one girl where they had feared to see a line of savage Indians, sank back on the ground. "What would you say to me, Po-ca-hun-tas?" asked the Captain, extending his hand in welcome to her. "I hope you have come to tell me that the corn and the good cheer will soon be here." She took his hand and stood very close to him. "Be guarded, oh, my father," she answered. "The corn and the good cheer will come just as they have been promised to you, but even now my father, chief of the Pow-ha-tans, is gathering all his power to fall upon you and your men here and kill you. If you would live, get you away from these woods at once." "Is it so?" said the Captain. "Then, men, we must be up and off before the twigs crack again. How can I thank you, Po-ca-hun-tas, for this warning?" He thought of the Indian's love of presents and put his hand in the pocket of his coat, but there was nothing there. Then his eyes fell on the small compass which hung from a chain at his neck. It was very valuable to him, but he wanted to show the girl his appreciation of the greatness of her service. He took it from his neck and held it out to her. "My daughter," said he, "three times you have come to me in Jamestown to warn me of dangers that waited for me, and now again you have saved my life, coming alone, and at risk of your own young life through the lonely woods and in this gloomy night to warn me. Take this present, I pray you, from me, and let it always speak to you of the love for you of Captain Smith." All Indians looked upon the compass, or "path-teller" as they called it, as an instrument of magic, and as Po-ca-hun-tas saw this present gleaming in the Captain's hand she would have liked to own it. But she shook her head. "No, no, Cau-co-rouse," said she, using the Indian word for "Great Captain." "I must not take it. If it should be seen by my tribesmen, or even by my father, the chief, I should be as but dead to them, for they would know that I had warned you whom they have sworn to kill, and so they would kill me too. Stay not to parley, my father, but be gone at once." "It is well we should," agreed the Captain, and he gave orders to his men to prepare for the march at once. "Good-bye," said Po-ca-hun-tas, giving him her hand again, after the fashion of the white people. "Good-bye, my daughter," he answered. "May we soon meet again when there will be no danger in the meeting." Po-ca-hun-tas slipped away into the forest as silently as she had come, and threaded her way safely home to her own "long house." No one knew she had been out of bed. When the Algonquin braves, in war paint, reached the bank of the York River they found only the embers of a camp-fire to show that the white men had waited for them there. <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG width-obs="384" height-obs="500" src="images/004.jpg" alt="Pocahontas"> <div class="image"> Pocahontas From the only authentic portrait </div> </div> Captain Smith got safely back to Jamestown, but he found many of his own people discontented, and soon afterward, tired out by the continual difficulties that beset him in Virginia, he gave up his position there and sailed back to England. Po-ca-hun-tas heard the news and decided that she had better keep away from Jamestown now that the settlers were hostile to her father and her great protector was gone. Troubles were increasing between the Indians and the white men, and neither trusted the others any more. When she was sixteen Po-ca-hun-tas was visiting friends in another village on the James when she was suddenly made prisoner by a man named Captain Argall, a trader, who decided to hold the Indian girl as hostage for the friendship of Pow-ha-tan. He took her to Jamestown, and there Po-ca-hun-tas was given a certain amount of liberty and met again some of the boys and girls she had played with before. They all liked her, and although she missed her free life in the woods she found so much that was new and strange to interest her that she was not sorry to stay for a time in Jamestown. Here she soon met a young Englishman named John Rolfe, who was much attracted by her, and who at length asked her to marry him. She consented, and a short time after their marriage she sailed with him to visit his home across seas in England. The people of London had seen few Indians and were very curious to learn more about them. They were charmed with Mistress John Rolfe, or the Princess Po-ca-hon-tas of Pow-ha-tan, as they liked to call her. Captain John Smith met her again and told his friends how she had saved his life that night on the York River. The story spread, and the Princess Po-ca-hon-tas found herself a heroine in England. But she bore her honors very modestly, and was much happier alone with her devoted husband than when she was being stared at by crowds of strange people. She did not live to go back to Virginia or see her own tribesmen again, but died in England when she was only twenty-two. Ma-ta-oka, or Pocahontas as we call her, was a real heroine, one of the few daughters we know of that brave, romantic race which so quickly vanished from America after the white settlers came. Many among the Indians were cruel and bloodthirsty, many were treacherous and sly, but Pocahontas we know was warm-hearted and true, faithful to the great Captain she had admired before she had even seen him and risking her life to save him from her father. It is fortunate that history has kept her story, for we must always think more kindly of the Indians when we remember the little daughter of Powhatan, nicknamed Pocahontas by her father because she was such a tomboy. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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