DARK HEROINES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2429, 3 October 1900, Page 67

DARK HEROINES.

By Jessie Mackay.

IV.— POCAHONTAS OF VIRGINIA (Concluded. A brighter day seemed to daAvn on Virginia when John Smith Avas made president of 'the council in ttie second year of ithe colony. He had nobly avoii the honour ; he had neA T er ceased to labour for the common good. He had explored the deeplyindented coasts of Chesapeake Bay; he had forced PoAvhatau to fly from his old haunt near JamestoAvn ; with 18 folloAvers he had 'bearded his old captor, PoAvhatau's brother, amid his hundreds of Indian biwes, and aAved him into selling the coloniwts food. The ascendancy thus obtained OA'er the dusky people was maintained by the even justice of Ins dealings -with them. His position among the a^ hite colonists Avar-, no sinecure. The London Company had not picked Avhom it avouM, but Avho n it could. Many of them Avere broken spendthrifts and ruflling adventurers of the Michael Lambourne type, utterly unfitted ior the sober, arduous task of nation-building ; unfitted, too, for the trying drudgery of forest-clearing jmd agriculture. These "wild spirits, iioweA'er, Avere shaping themselves into reputable citizens under the firm rule of their neAv president. Very characteristic ot the man and the lime is the legend of his treatment of swearers. Profanity Avas a common sin among these undesirable immigrants, a sin all the more m evidence seeing they «-ere o'bvioiisly debarred from drunkenness and riotous living. He device! a Avay of reckoning each man's oaths during Avoiking hours, Avhich the delinquent atoned for by suffering a coiresponding number of cans of Avater to be poured do*vtn his sleeAe at night! Under this discipline the 3ai gi age of itfhc settlement speedily 'n,proved. Both English and Indians,* av-i c now quiet under the captain's «nvay. One can avgll imagine the delight of Pocahontas in the success of her friend, the nig] ty Sagamore of the east. Most likely these peaceful visits io the lit'fcle town s-he had done &o much to saA"e Avere the '-.jiucst days of her short life. The plans and prospects of the Avhite men must have dazzled her simple mind by their magnitude. For Virginia of to-day i's but a fragment of the vast territory over Avhich Smith Avas lord in name. The generouslj--Avorded charter of King James granted 'tLe company 400 miles of coast, stretching back across the continent from sea to sea. Moreover, though Newfoundland Avas doubtfully claimed and partially settled during Elizabeth's reign, this Avas England's first footing on the American mainland. The Virginian pioneers came a dozen years before the Pilgrims of ithe -Mayflower landed in x^eAV England — the very name of Avhich Avas suggested by Smith in his later exploiationy there.

But changes soon came. The success of the colony -was noised abroad ; in 1609 a batch, of 500 colonists Avas landed. But these Avere seA^en times Avor&e than the first, and completely swamped Ihe orderly portion of 'the settlers. They defied Smith's authority, and robbed and wronged Powhatau's people, undoing *he toil ol years in a few Aveeks. As M/hey Avere plotting the captain's murder, be accidentally leceived a frightful Around through an explosion of gunpoAvder. His compulsory return to England tc seek proper surgical treatment summarily cut the Gordian knot of his Virginian difficulties.

But, according to Virginian story, there was one pathetic loA'e-knot he resolved to cut another Avay, and that *by the only fcubterfugo or falsehood Ate know of this

Paladin of Elizabethan romance. He kneiv that PoAvha tau's daughter loA'ed 'him, and he had for her no Avarmer feeling than gratitude. We do not knoAV whether, like Lancelot, he nerved himself to the merciful unkindness of leaving Avithout bidding good-bye to Ms friend of the Avocds. But it seems that he outdid Lancelot, in causing her to belieA r e that 'he had died abroad. In the years ef strife that folloAved his departure Pocahontas sought no more to stand betAveen the Avhite men and their fate, and never of her oavii free Avill set foot in the little town by the river. One is satisfied to knoAV that Smith's Avould-be murdereis suffered due retribution : the Avinter after he left them being the ghastly season knoAvn in Virginian annals as "the starving time.'' Out of 490 colonists all but 60 died in five months. Still the colony struggled on, reinforced from England ; the rudiments of a reputable government seemed restored ; but the Indians Avere hopelessly estranged and menaced the settlement continually. The memory of the savage princess, Avho&e favour Avas their hhicld in by-gone times, still lived among the colonists ; and their desperate need set them plotting to regain her services by fair means or foul. In 1613 Captain Argall, Deputy-Governor of Virginia, triumphantly brought her into JamestoAvn as a State prisoner. Site fell into his hands through Indian treachery — being betrayed, it is said, by her oavii Avorthless uncle, Patoroomek. She Avas not, hoAveA'er, treated Avith rudeness or rigour; she at as merely guarded as a hostage and medium of communication. During this captivity she met an ''honest and discreet' 1 young Englishman, John Rolfe, who, against his judgment, fell in loA r e a^ itli this daughter of a "cursed race." Seeing, hoAvever, that ;<he was maivellously apt in overcoming the disadA'antages of her "barbarous breeding," he paid his addresses in all decorum ; and she, belieA r ing John binith dead, Avas content to marry Rolfe in the little church at JamestoA'-n, her reconciled father and brothers looking op. This marriage, in 1614, secured for the settlement a peace Avith PoAvhatau that lasted for the rest of his daughter's short lifetime. John Rolfe Avas then supposed to be a AvidoAver ; lioav-eA-er, it subsequently appeared that his first partner still liA~ed. Hoav this double tie squared Avith his "honesty" and "discretion," Are knoAV not, but the circumstances must have been far from ordinary, for neither in England nor Virginia does the position of Pocahontas as his laAvful Avife appear to have been questioned.

In 1616 Pocahontas, Avith her husband and child, Avent to England. Scarcely had she landed Avhen she met the hero of her youth, so long mounied as dead. John Smith did not forget his preserver ; Avith Ins usual promptitude he addressed a petition on her behalf to Queen Anne, of Denmark, the consort of James I. In this petition, he set forth her sendees to the colony, and Avrote doAvn for the first time the story, so familiar iioav, of his deliverance at her hands. The Queen Avas interested. Pocahontas, during the seA r en months of her stay in England, received no little notice from court and people. But this dark Elaine — a Avedded Elpine, alas ! — Avas neA'er again to knoAV peace. It is confidently stated that she never rallied from the shock of finding Smith aliA'e and iireA'ocably lost to her — a significant commentary on fake dealing, be the motive AvLat it AA'ill. In 1617 s-he embarked for America Avith her husband mid child, but died off Gravesend. Her &on liA*ed, and through him the proudest families of Virginia traced their descent from the famous Pocahontas.

It may fairly be questioned Avhcther this child of the forest died of a broken heart alcne, or Avhether she died as much -voni c \llisation, Ailuch is itself deemed a pa--s-ing malady of the race by certain eiratic thinker,'. It seems likely that the strong primeval emotions Avould beat out the fragile bunds of the ardent spirit all the faster in that unfamiliar enA'ironment of roaring Lond on.

Ar,d what say the iconoclasts about the Indian girl? No doubt was cast on her history, as I have related it, till after the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was pointed out that Smith never made any reference in writing to the story of the club till his petition lo Queen Anne. Other researches were made and the result is professed to be given by E. D. Neill, an American Consul. According to him, Pocahontas was first heard of "tumbling wheels'' in the market place of an English fort. Then she lived with a certain Gaptain Cookham. She left him and returned to her ov.ti people. Subsequently she was betrayed to Captain Argall and brought as a State prisoner to Jamestown. She did many a Mr Rolfe, and Avas supposed to embrace Christianity ; she did go to England with her husband, and died returning to America. To falsify the club legend in particular, and to deny the general esteem in which her memory Avas held in Virginia, the iconoclasts had to shatter the popular conception of John Smith, on Avhose testimony so much of her history rented. Accordingly they have portrayed him os a braggart and trifier, whose vanity created for the public this picture of a noble Indian Avoman who Avas his friend. It is, of course, impossible to offer any opinion of value Avithout having studied the ancient documents of Virginia ; so far as the data at hand slioav, hoAvever, the ma-