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The Great Republic by the Master Historians
John Smith and the Jamestown Colony
by Bancroft, Hubert H.
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[The return of Bartholomew Gosnold, after his voyage to North America, and his
account of the country he had visited, led to the formation of a company for the
purpose of forming colonies on these new shores. The Virginia Company, thus
called into being, received the right to hold all the land from Cape Fear to the
St. Croix River. This company comprised two divisions,--the London Company, with
control over the southern part of the territory, and the Plymouth Company,
controlling the northern. Under the auspices of the London Company the first
permanent English colony in America was founded. Three vessels, under Captain
Christopher Newport, with about one hundred men, were sent out. They had been
instructed to land on Roanoke Island, but were driven by a storm into Chesapeake
Bay. The beauty of the situation attracted them, and they determined to settle
there. Sailing up James River to a convenient spot, they landed on May 13, the
place chosen for their settlement being named by them Jamestown.
The instructions for the colony had been placed by the king in a sealed box, on
opening which it was found that seven men were appointed a governing council,
among them Gosnold, Newport, and the celebrated Captain John Smith, who was a
member of the expedition. Most of the colony were gentlemen, who hoped to find
gold at once and make their fortune, and no attempt at agriculture was made. A
terrible summer followed. The position chosen for security against the Indians
proved unhealthy, and more than half the colony was swept away by a pestilence.
Only the friendly aid of the Indians saved the rest from death by starvation.
Meanwhile, Captain Smith was prevented from taking his place in the council by
the action of his enemies, and was arrested on false accusations. For several
months he lay under a cloud. But, boldly defying the malice of his enemies, he
cleared himself of their charges and resumed his place in the council. By the
autumn the sole control of the colony fell into the hands of Smith, the
president finding the duty beyond his ability. The behavior of Smith in this
capacity is well told in Campbell's "History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion
in Virginia," from which we extract some passages, with the caution to the
reader that the story of Smith's adventures among the Indians is told by
himself, and that his character for veracity is not a high one.]
At the approach of winter the rivers of Virginia abounded with wild-fowl, and
the English now were well supplied with bread, peas, persimmons, fish, and game.
But this plenty did not last long, for what Smith carefully provided the
colonists carelessly wasted. The idlers at Jamestown, including some of the
council, now began to mutter complaints against Smith for not having discovered
the source of the Chickahominy, it being supposed that the South Sea, or Pacific
Ocean, lay not far distant, and that a communication with it would be found by
some river running from the northwest. The Chickahominy flowed in that
direction, and hence the solicitude of these Jamestown cosmographers to trace
that river to its head. To allay this dissatisfaction of the council, Smith made
another voyage up that river, and proceeded until it became necessary, in order
to pass, to cut away a large tree which had fallen across the stream. When at
last the barge could advance no farther, he returned eight miles and moored her
in a wide bay out of danger, and leaving orders to his men not to venture on
shore until his return, accompanied by two of his men and two Indian guides, and
leaving seven men in the barge, he went still higher up in a canoe to the
distance of twenty miles. In a short time after he had parted from the barge the
men left in her went ashore, and one of them, George Cassen, was surprised and
killed. Smith, in the meanwhile, not suspecting this disaster, reached the
marshy ground towards the head of the river, "the slashes," and went out with
his gun to provide food for the party, and took with him one of the Indians.
During his excursion his two men, Robinson and Emry, were slain, and he himself
was attacked by a numerous party of Indians, two of whom he killed with a
pistol. He protected himself from their arrows by making a shield of his guide,
binding him fast by the arm with one of his garters. Many arrows pierced his
clothes, and some slightly wounded him. Endeavoring to reach the canoe, and
walking backward with his eye still fixed on his pursuers, he sunk to his waist
in an oozy creek, and his savage with him. Nevertheless the Indians were afraid
to approach until, being now half dead with cold, he threw away his arms, when
they drew him forth, and led him to the fire where his two companions were lying
dead. Here the Indians chafed his benumbed limbs, and, having restored the vital
heat, Smith inquired for their chief, and they pointed him to Opechancanough,
the great chief of Pamunkey. Smith presented him a mariner's compass: the
vibrations of the mysterious needle astonished the untutored sons of the forest.
In a short time they bound the prisoner to a tree, and were about to shoot him
to death, when Opechancanough holding up the compass, they all laid down their
bows and arrows. Then marching in Indian file they led the captive, guarded by
fifteen men, about six miles, to Orapakes, a hunting town in the upper part of
the Chickahominy swamp, and about twelve miles northeast from the falls of James
River [Richmond]. At this town, consisting of thirty or forty houses, built like
arbors and covered with mats, the women and children came forth to meet them,
staring in amazement at Smith. Opechancanough and his followers performed their
military exercises, and joined in the war-dance. Smith was confined in a long
house under a guard, and an enormous quantity of bread and venison was set
before him, as if to fatten him for sacrifice, or because they supposed that a
superior being required a proportionately larger supply of food. An Indian who
had received some toys from Smith at Jamestown now, in return, brought him a
warm garment of fur,--a pleasing instance of gratitude, a sentiment often found
even in the breast of a savage. Another Indian, whose son had been mortally
wounded by Smith, made an attempt to kill him in revenge, and was only prevented
by the interposition of his guards.
[Smith then sent a written message to Jamestown, and received a reply, the
Indians being astonished on perceiving that "paper could talk." The captive was
next taken to Pamaunkee, the residence of the chief.]
Here, for three days, they engaged in their horrid orgies and incantations, with
a view to divine their prisoner's secret designs, whether friendly or hostile.
They also showed him a bag of gunpowder, which they were reserving till the next
spring, when they intended to sow it in the ground, as they were desirous of
propagating so useful an article.
Smith was hospitably entertained by Opitchapan (Opechancanough's brother), who
dwelt a little above, on the Pamunkey. Finally, the captive was taken to
Werowocomoco, probably signifying chief place of council, a favorite seat of
Powhatan, on the York River, then called the Pamaunkee or Pamunkey. They found
this chief in his rude palace, reclining before the fire, on a sort of throne,
resembling a bedstead, covered with mats, his head adorned with feathers and his
neck with beads, and wearing a long robe of raccoon-skins. At his head sat a
young female, and another at his feet; while on each side of the wigwam sat the
men in rows, on mats, and behind them as many young women, their heads and
shoulders painted red, some with their heads decorated with the snowy down of
birds, and all with strings of white beads falling over their shoulders. On
Smith's entrance they all raised a terrific yell. The queen of Appomattock
brought him water to wash, and another, a bunch of feathers for a towel. After
feasting him, a long consultation was held. That ended, two large stones were
brought, and the one laid upon the other, before Powhatan; then as many as could
lay hold, seizing Smith, dragged him to the stones, and, laying his head on
them, snatched up their war-clubs, and, brandishing them in the air, were about
to slay him, when Pocahontas, Powhatan's favorite daughter, a girl of only
twelve or thirteen years of age, finding all her entreaties unavailing, flew,
and, at the hazard of her life, clasped the captive's head in her arms, and laid
her own upon his. The stern heart of Powhatan was touched: he relented, and
consented that Smith might live.
[The story here given is one in which the reader may be advised not to put too
great credit, as it is doubted by historical critics, and has, in all
probability, been greatly embellished by its chief actor. Two days afterwards
Smith was permitted by Powhatan to return to Jamestown, on condition of sending
him two great guns and a grindstone.]
Smith now treated his Indian guides kindly, and, showing Rawhunt, a favorite
servant of Powhatan, two pieces of cannon and a grindstone, gave him leave to
carry them home to his master. A cannon was then loaded with stones, and
discharged among the boughs of a tree hung with icicles, when the Indians fled
in terror, but upon being persuaded to return they received presents for
Powhatan, his wives and children, and departed.
At the time of Smith's return to Jamestown, he found the number of the colonists
reduced to forty. Of the one hundred original settlers, seventy-eight are
classified as follows: fifty-four gentlemen, four carpenters, twelve laborers, a
blacksmith, a sailor, a barber, a bricklayer, a mason, a tailor, a drummer, and
a "chirurgeon." Of the gentlemen, the greater part were indolent, dissolute
reprobates, of good families; and they found themselves not in a golden El
Dorado, as they had fondly anticipated, but in a remote wilderness, encompassed
by want, exposure, fatigue, disease, and danger.
The return of Smith, and his report of the plenty that he had witnessed at
Werowocomoco, and of the generous clemency of Powhatan, and especially of the
love of Pocahontas, revived the drooping hopes of the survivors at Jamestown.
The arrival of Newport at the same juncture with stores and a number of
additional settlers, being part of the first supply sent out from England by the
treasurer and council, was joyfully welcomed. Pocahontas too, with her tawny
train of attendants, frequently visited Jamestown, with presents of bread, and
venison, and raccoons, sent by Powhatan for Smith and Newport. However, the
improvident traffic allowed between Newport's mariners and the natives soon
extremely enhanced the price of provisions, and the too protracted detention of
his vessel made great inroads upon the public store.
[The events described were followed by a visit to Powhatan, and the accidental
burning of Jamestown, which took place on their return. Other troubles
succeeded.]
The stock of provisions running low, the colonists at Jamestown were reduced to
a diet of meal and water, and this, together with their exposure to cold after
the loss of their habitations, cut off upwards of one-half of them. Their
condition was made still worse by a rage for gold that now seized them. "There
was no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold."
Smith, not indulging in these empty dreams of imaginary wealth, laughed at their
infatuation in loading "such a drunken ship with gilded dust."
Captain Newport, after a delay of three months and a half, being now ready to
sail for England, the planters, having no use for parliaments, places,
petitions, admirals, recorders, interpreters, chronologers, courts of plea, nor
justices of the peace, sent Master Wingfield and Captain Archer home with him,
so that they, who had engrossed all those titles to themselves, might seek some
better place of employment. Newport carried with him twenty turkeys, which had
been presented to him by Powhatan, who had demanded and received twenty swords
in return for them. This fowl, peculiar to America, had been many years before
carried to England by some of the early discoverers of North America.
After Newport's departure, Ratcliffe, the president, lived in ease, peculating
on the public store. The spring now approaching, Smith and Scrivener undertook
to rebuild Jamestown, repair the palisades, fell trees, prepare the fields,
plant, and erect another church. While thus engaged they were joyfully surprised
by the arrival of the Phoenix, commanded by Captain Nelson, who had left England
with Newport about the end of the year 1607, and, after coming within sight of
Cape Henry, had been driven off to the West Indies. He brought with him the
remainder of the first supply, which comprised one hundred and twenty settlers.
Having found provisions in the West Indies, and having economically husbanded
his own, he imparted them generously to the colony, so that now there was
accumulated a store sufficient for half a year.
Powhatan, having effected so advantageous an exchange with Newport, afterwards
sent Smith twenty turkeys, but, receiving no swords in return, he was highly
offended, and ordered his people to take them by fraud or force, and they
accordingly attempted to seize them at the gates of Jamestown. The president and
Martin, who now ruled, remained inactive, under pretence of orders from England
not to offend the natives; but some of them happening to meddle with Smith, he
handled them so roughly, by whipping and imprisonment, as to repress their
insolence.
Pocahontas, in beauty of feature, expression, and form, far surpassed any of the
natives, and in intelligence and spirit "was the nonpareil of her country."
Powhatan, hearing that some of his people were kept prisoners at Jamestown, sent
her, with Rawhunt (who was as remarkable for his personal deformity, but shrewd
and crafty), with presents of a deer and some bread, to sue for their ransom.
Smith released the prisoners, and Pocahontas was dismissed with presents. Thus
the scheme of Powhatan to destroy the English with their own swords was happily
frustrated.
The Phoenix was freighted with a cargo of cedar, and the unserviceable, gold-
hunting Captain Martin concluded to return with her to England. Of the one
hundred and twenty settlers brought by Newport and Nelson, there were thirty-
three gentlemen, twenty-one laborers (some of them only footmen), six tailors,
two apothecaries, two jewellers, two gold-refiners, two goldsmiths, a gunsmith,
a perfumer, a surgeon, a cooper, a tobacco-pipe maker, and a blacksmith.
[On the 2d of June, 1608, Smith left Jamestown with the purpose of exploring
Chesapeake Bay. During this journey he discovered the Potomac and sailed up it
to the head of navigation. He continued his explorations, and during the summer,
"with a few men, in a small barge, in his several voyages of discovery he
traversed a distance of not less than three thousand miles." In September, 1608,
he accepted the office of president, which he had formerly declined.]
Smith, the president, now set the colonists to work; some to make glass, others
to prepare tar, pitch, and soap-ashes; while he, in person, conducted thirty of
them five miles below the fort to cut down trees and saw plank. Two of this
lumber party happened to be young gentlemen who had arrived in the last supply.
Smith sharing labor and hardship in common with the rest, these woodmen, at
first, became apparently reconciled to the novel task, and seemed to listen with
pleasure to the crashing thunder of the falling trees; but when the axes began
to blister their unaccustomed hands, they grew profane, and their frequent loud
oaths echoed in the woods. Smith, taking measures to have the oaths of each one
numbered, in the evening, for each offence, poured a can of water down the
offender's sleeve; and this curious discipline, or water-cure, was so effectual
that after it was administered an oath would scarcely be heard in a week. Smith
found that thirty or forty gentlemen who volunteered to work could do more in a
day than one hundred that worked by compulsion; but he adds that twenty good
workmen would have been better than the whole of them put together.
[Further troubles with the Indians succeeded, and only the energy of the
governor defeated the murderous schemes of Opechancanough.]
Returning [from his visit to this chief], he descended the York as far as
Werowocomoco, intending to surprise Powhatan there, and thus secure a further
supply of corn; but Powhatan had abandoned his new house, and had carried away
all his corn and provisions; and Smith, with his party, returned to Jamestown.
In this expedition, with twenty-five pounds of copper and fifty pounds of iron,
and some beads, he procured, in exchange, two hundred pounds of deer suet, and
delivered to the Cape merchant four hundred and seventy-nine bushels of corn.
At Jamestown the provision of the public store had been spoiled by exposure to
the rain of the previous summer, or eaten by rats and worms. The colonists had
been living there in indolence, and a large part of their implements and arms
had been trafficked away to the Indians. Smith undertook to remedy these
disorders by discipline and labor, relieved by pastimes and recreations; and he
established it as a rule that he who would not work should not eat. The whole
government of the colony was now, in effect, devolved upon him, Captain Wynne
being the only other surviving councilor, and the president having two votes.
Shortly after Smith's return, he met the chief of Paspahegh near Jamestown, and
had a reencounter with him. This athletic savage attempting to shoot him, he
closed and grappled, when, by main strength, the chief forced him into the river
to drown him. They struggled long in the water, until Smith, grasping the savage
by the throat, well-nigh strangled him, and, drawing his sword, was about to cut
off his head, when he begged for his life so piteously that Smith spared him,
and led him prisoner to Jamestown, where he put him in chains. He was daily
visited by his wives, and children, and people, who brought presents to ransom
him. At last he made his escape. Captain Wynne and Lieutenant Percy were
dispatched, with a party of fifty, to recapture him, failing in which they
burned the chief's cabin and carried away his canoes. Smith now going out to
"try his conclusions" with "the salvages," slew some, and made some prisoners,
burned their cabins, and took their canoes and fishing-weirs. Shortly afterwards
the president, passing through Paspahegh, on his way to the Chickahominy, was
assaulted by the Indians; but, upon his firing, and their discovering who he
was, they threw down their arms and sued for peace. Okaning, a young warrior,
who spoke in their behalf, in justifying the escape of their chief from
imprisonment at Jamestown, said, "The fishes swim, the fowls fly, and the very
beasts strive to escape the snare, and live." Smith's vigorous measures,
together with some accidental circumstances, so dismayed the savages that from
this time to the end of his administration they gave no further trouble.
[In 1609 an addition to the colony of five hundred men and women was sent out,
with stores and provisions, in a fleet of nine vessels.]
Upon the appearance of this fleet near Jamestown, Smith, not expecting such a
supply, took them to be Spaniards, and prepared to encounter them, and the
Indians readily offered their assistance. The colony had already, before the
arrival of the fleet, been threatened with anarchy, owing to intelligence of the
premature repeal of the charter, brought out by Captain Argall, and the new
settlers had now no sooner landed than they gave rise to new confusion and
disorder. The factious leaders, although they brought no commission with them,
insisted on the abrogation of the existing charter, rejected the authority of
Smith, whom they hated and feared, and undertook to usurp the government. Their
capricious folly equalled their insolence: to-day the old commission must rule,
to-morrow the new, the next day neither,--thus, by continual change, plunging
all things into anarchy.
Smith, filled with disgust, would cheerfully have embarked for England, but,
seeing little prospect of the arrival of the new commission (which was in the
possession of Gates on the island of Bermudas), he resolved to put an end to
these incessant plots and machinations. The ringleaders, Ratcliffe, Archer, and
others, he arrested; to cut off another source of disturbance, he gave
permission to Percy, who was in feeble health, to embark for England, of which,
however, he did not avail himself. West, with one hundred and twenty picked men,
was detached to the falls of James River, and Martin, with nearly the same
number, to Nansemond. Smith's presidency having expired about this time, he had
been succeeded by Martin, who, conscious of his incompetence, had immediately
resigned it to Smith. Martin, at Nansemond, seized the chief, and, capturing the
town, occupied it with his detachment; but owing to want of judgment, or of
vigilance, he suffered himself to be surprised by the savages, who slew many of
his party, rescued the chief, and carried off their corn. Martin not long after
returned to Jamestown, leaving his detachment to shift for themselves.
Smith, going up the river to West's settlement at the falls, found the English
planted in a place not only subject to the river's inundation, but "surrounded
by many intolerable inconveniences." To remedy these, by a messenger he proposed
to purchase from Powhatan his seat of that name, a little lower down the river.
The settlers scornfully rejected the scheme, and became so mutinous that Smith
landed among them and arrested the chief malcontents. But, overpowered by
numbers, being supported by only five men, he was forced to retire on board of a
vessel lying in the river. The Indians daily supplied him with provisions, in
requital for which the English plundered their corn, robbed their cultivated
ground, beat them, broke into their cabins, and made them prisoners. They
complained to Captain Smith that the men whom he had sent there as their
protectors "were worse than their old enemies, the Monacans." Smith, embarking,
had no sooner set sail for Jamestown than many of West's party were slain by the
savages.
It so happened that before Smith's vessel had dropped a mile and a half down the
river she ran aground, where-upon, making a virtue of necessity, he summoned the
mutineers to a parley, and they, now seized with a panic on account of the
assault of a mere handful of Indians, submitted themselves to his mercy. He
again arrested the ringleaders, and established the rest of the party at
Powhatan, in the Indian palisade fort, which was so well fortified by poles and
bark as to defy all the savages in Virginia. Dry cabins were also found there,
and nearly two hundred acres of ground ready to be planted, and it was called
Nonsuch, as being at once the strongest and most delightful place in the
country. Nonsuch was the name of a royal residence in England.
When Smith was now on the eve of his departure, the arrival of West again threw
all things back into confusion. Nonsuch was abandoned, and all hands returned to
the falls, and Smith, finding all his efforts abortive, embarked in a boat for
Jamestown. During the voyage he was terribly wounded, while asleep, by the
accidental explosion of a bag of gunpowder, and in the paroxysm of pain he
leaped into the river, and was wellnigh drowned before his companions could
rescue him. Arriving at Jamestown in this helpless condition, he was again
assailed by faction and mutiny, and one of his enemies even presented a cocked
pistol at him in his bed; but the hand wanted the nerve to execute what the
heart was base enough to design.
Ratcliffe, Archer, and their confederates laid plans to usurp the government of
the colony, whereupon Smith's faithful soldiers, fired with indignation at
conduct so in-famous, begged for permission to strike off their heads; but this
he refused. He refused also to surrender the presidency to Percy. For this Smith
is censured by the historian Stith, who yet acknowledges that Percy was in too
feeble health to control a mutinous colony. Anarchy being triumphant, Smith
probably deemed it useless to appoint a governor over a mob. He at last, about
Michaelmas, 1609, embarked for England, after a stay of a little more than two
years in Virginia, to which he never returned.
Here, then, closes the career of Captain John Smith in Virginia, "the father of
the colony," and a hero like Bayard, "without fear and without reproach."
Charles Campbell
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