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CH. IV.]

1612.

MARRIAGE AND DEATH OF POCAHONTAS.

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garded, and in general scant justice the Episcopal Church. The powerful was meted out to them. Chickahominies sought the friendship of the English, and it was earnestly hoped that intermarriages might become frequent; but no such result followed. The colonists seemed to have eschewed all alliances of the kind; and the Indians nursed their vexation and wrath for a fitting revenge.

In the following year the Adventurers in England obtained from the king an enlargement of their grants. The Bermudas were included within the limits of their third patent, but were soon after transferred to a separate Company, and named, in honor of Sir George Somers, the Somers Islands. The supreme power which heretofore resided in the Council was now transferred to the Company, and frequent meetings were held for the transaction of business, thus giving to the corporation something of a democratic form. The colony continued steadily to increase in prosperity, and was especially favored at this period in its history by a firm alliance being effected between the English and Powhatan and the Indians, in consequence of the marriage of the gentle and affectionate Pocahontas.

1613.

A foraging party, headed by Argall, had succeeded in carrying off this noble maiden, and when her father indignantly demanded her return it was refused. Hostilities were about to break out, when a worthy young Englishman, named John Rolfe, winning the favor of Pocahontas, asked her in marriage. Powhatan was delighted; his daughter, docile and gentle, was soon instructed in the Christian faith, and received baptism at the hands of that good man and minister of Christ, the Rev. Alexander Whitaker. The marriage was solemnized by the same clergyman,* according to the usages of

* Dr. Hawks's “ Protestant Episcopal Church in

Virginia," p. 28.

A few words seem to be only due to the fate of Pocahontas. About three years after her marriage she accompanied her husband to England, where she was much caressed for her gentle, modest behavior, and her great services to the colony. Here she fell in again with the gal lant Smith, whom from report she supposed to have been long dead, and who has left us an interesting account of his interview with her, and of the circumstances of her untimely death: "Being about this time preparing to set sail for New England, I could not stay to do her that service I desired and she well deserved; but hearing shee was at Branford with divers of my friends, I went to see her. After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humour, her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three houres, repenting myselfe to have writ she could speake English; but not long after, she began to talke, and remembered mee well what courtesies she had done, saying, 'You did promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you; you called him father, being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I doe you;'

which though I would have excused, I durst not allow of that title, because she was a king's daughter; with a wellset countenance, she said, 'Were you not afraid to come into my father's countrie, and caused feare in him and all his people but mee, and feare you here I should call you father? I tell you, then, I will, and you shall call mee child, and so I will bee for ever and ever your countrieman. They did tell us alwais you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plimoth; yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seeke you and know the truth, because your countriemen will lie

much.'.

"The treasurer, councell, and companie having well furnished Captaine Samuel Argall, the Lady Pocahontas, alias Rebecca, with her husband and others, in the good ship called the George, it pleased God, at Gravesend, to take this young lady to his mercie, where shee made not more sorrow for her unexpected death, than joy to the beholders to hear and see her make so religious and godly an end."* This sad event occurred in 1617, when Pocahontas was about twenty-two years of age. She left an infant son, who was educated in England, and through whom several families in Virginia claim direct descent from the daughter of Powhatan.

The stability of the colony was much promoted by the establishment of a right of private property, and the addition of a number of respectable young women from England. Sir Thomas Dale, though empowered to

* Smith's "History of Virginia,” p. 121.

exercise martial law, was yet so discreet and just withal, that no oppression was felt during the five years that he remained in the colony-from 1611 to 1616. Argall, in 1613, fell upon a colony which the French were just planting on the Penobscot, and completely destroyed it: subsequently he sailed north again, on a sort of pirati cal expedition, and threw down the fortifications of De Monts on the isle of St. Croix, and set fire to the deserted settlement of Port Royal. On his return, in November, it is said that he entered the mouth of the Hudson and compelled the Dutch traders on the island of Manhattan to make an acknowledgment of the authority and claims of England. But the statement is unsupported, and probably fictitious.*

1614.

1616.

1617.

Gates returned to England in 1614, and Dale two years later, leaving George Yeardley as deputygovernor. Through the efforts of a faction he was displaced, and Argall, an active, but coarse and tyrannical man, was appointed deputy-governor, and also admiral of the country and the neighboring seas. His rapacity and tyranny soon occasioned loud complaints, and the Company solicited Lord Delaware to resume his former office: he left England, but died on the passage off the entrance of the bay which bears. his name. After a struggle, Yeardley, the former deputy, was appointed governor, and the honor of knighthood was conferred upon him.

1619.

*Mr. Brodhead positively asserts its falsity. See his "History of the State of New York," First Poriod, p. 54.

CH. IV.]

INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY.

Argall made a hasty departure to the West Indies. Yeardley, soon after his arrival, called together the first Colonial Assembly of Virginia, composed of the governor, the council, and deputies from the eleven plantations. These deputies were called burgesses, a name of note in the history of Virginia. Two years later, when Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Yeardley, the Company issued a Charter or Ordinance, which gave a constitution and permanent government to the colony. At the same time the plantations were divided into parishes, a glebe of a hundred acres was allowed to each clergyman, and public worship according to the usages of the Church of England was positively enjoined.

Sir Edwin Sandys, whose integrity and energy were of the highest value, had succeeded Sir Thomas Smith, as treasurer. During the year that he held office he sent out to Virginia twelve hundred emigrants, among whom were ninety young women, who became wives of the planters on the payment to the Company of a hundred pounds of tobacco, equal to about $75. The introduction of these into the colony, sanctioned by marriage and domestic ties, was in every point of view a decided advantage, and proved in the result a blessing. The king also did the colony the great injustice to send out a hundred dissolute vagabonds, picked out of the jails and sold to be servants for a term of years-a practice, by the way, which was long continued, though earnestly protested against by the colonists. At this date, a Dutch trading vessel brought into

VOL. I.-8

41

Jamestown a cargo of twenty negroes, who were purchased by the 1620. planters for slaves: at intervals others were brought and purchased in the same way, and for the same purpose. Whatever may have since been thought and said of the practice of buying and selling negroes, it is but simple justice to state, that neither the Virginians of that day, nor any one else, supposed that there was the slightest moral wrong in condemning to perpetual slavery that part of the human race whose skin is black.

The Earl of Southampton succeeded Sandys as treasurer, and, during the two years following, twenty-three hundred emigrants were sent to Virginia. New plantations were established on James and York Rivers; and an estate of ten thousand acres near the falls of James River was assigned as an endowment for a College in which the Indians, as well as colonists, were to be educated. "The cultivation of tobacco had given a sudden impulse to Virginia; but the use of it was still quite limited, and the English market was soon overstocked. The price began to fall, and great anxiety was evinced by the enlightened treasurer for the introduction into the colony of other staples-flax, silk, wine, and the preparation of lumber. New attempts were made at the manufacture of glass, pitch, tar, and potashes, and some Italians and Dutch were sent out to instruct the colonists in these opera tions.

The colony thus far, on the whole,
Hildreth's "History of the United States," vol. i.,

p. 121.

1621.

had not proved profitable to the Company; although it had taken deep root, and promised great results in the future.* Sir Francis Wyatt superseded Yeardley as governor, and was instructed, beside restricting the amount of tobacco which each planter might raise, to cultivate the good will of the natives. But unhappily it was too late, and a fearful visitation fell upon the colony in consequence.

The aged Powhatan was dead. Opechancanough, his successor, a bold and cunning chief, had bided his time, and in profound secrecy he arranged and matured a scheme for an universal massacre of the whites. The Indians had been treated with contempt, as enemies of no moment; military exercises had gone into desuetude; and the Indians had gradually become as dexterous as the colonists in the usé of

fire-arms. On the 22d of March, 1622. at a given signal, in the midst of apparent security, they fell upon every settlement; men, women, and children were slaughtered without mercy; and had not a converted Indian, named Chanco, given warning the night before, the extent of the massacre must have been nearly universal. As it was, three hundred and fifty persons perished, including six of the Council. "And thus," says a contemporary, quoted by old Purchas, "the rest of the colony, that had warning given them, by this means was

"The first culture of cotton in the United States

deserves commemoration. This year (1621) the seeds were planted as an experiment; and their

'plentiful coming up' was, at that early day, a sub

ject of interest in America and England."-Ban

croft's "History of the United States," vol. i., p. 179.

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A savage war of retaliation and extermination ensued. Sickness and famine, too, came upon them, and within a brief period the colonists were reduced from four thousand to twentyfive hundred. But the white men soon regained their wonted superiority over the red race, and the Indians, entrapped by lying promises of security and immunity, were slain without mercy: this state of warfare continued for about fourteen years.

1623.

The colonists, by the terms of the charter, were not much better than indented servants to the Company, who, notwithstanding the privileges they had granted, still retained the supreme direction of affairs. Their policy was narrow, timid, and fluctuating; and its unfortunate result led to dissensions, in which political, even more than commercial, questions, soon became the subject of eager dispute. In England the ministerial faction eagerly endeavored to fortify itself by gaining adherents among the Virginia Company, but the great majority were determined to assert the rights and liberties of the subject at home, as well as of the colonists abroad. A freedom of discussion on political matters in general was thus generated, which was regarded by the asserters of royal prerogative, as being of highly dangerous

CH. IV.]

FALL OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY.

tendency. King James, who had taken the alarm, was appealed to as arbiter by the minority, and, furnished with a pretext in the ill-success and presumed mismanagement of the Company's affairs, determined upon a summary method of reforming them after his own standard. Without legal right, by the exercise of his prerogative alone, he ordered the records of the Company in London to be taken possession of, and appointed a commission to sit in judgment upon its proceedings, 1624. while another body was sent to Virginia to inquire into the condition and management of the colony. The first inquiry brought, it was confessed, much mismanagement to light, upon which the king, by an order in council, declared his own intention to assume in future the appointment of the officers of the colony, and the supreme direction of its affairs. The directors were invited to accede to this arrangement, on pain of the forfeiture of their charter. Paralysed by the suddenness of this attack upon their privileges, they begged that they might be allowed time for consideration. An answer in three days' time was peremptorily insisted on. Thus menaced, they determined to stand upon their rights, and to surrender them only to force. Upon their decided refusal, a writ of Quo Warranto was issued by the king against the Company, in order that the validity of its charter might be tried in

43

the court of King's Bench. Parliament having assembled, a last appeal was made; little sympathy, however, had that body for their exclusive privileges. At length the commissioners returned from Virginia with accumulated evidences of misgovernment, and an earnest recommendation to the monarch to recur to the original constitution of 1606, and to abrogate the democratic element which, it was asserted, had occasioned so much dissension and misrule. This afforded additional ground for a decision, which, as usual in that age, says Robertson, was perfectly consonant to the wishes of the monarch. The charter was forfeited, the Company was dissolved, and all the rights and privileges conferred on it returned to the king, from whom they flowed." Thus fell the Virginia Company, in 1625, after spending nearly $700,000 in their efforts to establish the colony.

66

1625.

An agent was sent to England by the colonists praying that no change might take place in their acquired franchises and privileges; he, however, died on the passage. James continued Wyatt in office to exercise his authority on the precedent of the last five years, i. e., from the time that the Company established the Colonial Assembly. The king had further plans in view, but his death on the 27th of March, 1625, finally closed his career with all its good and all its evil.

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