Sallie Southall Cotten

“ It seems a strange coincidence that the Indian maiden Pocahontas, friend and companion of the White Man, having adopted his people as her own, should sleep in death on English soil, while the English maiden, Virginia Dare, friend and companion of the Red Man, having adopted his people as her own, should sleep in death on American soil,—the two maidens thus exchanging nationality, and linking in life and in death the two countries whose destinies seem most naturally to intermingle.
The scattered fragments of this legend have been carefully collected and woven into symmetry for preservation. ”

“ Laid the red deer at her wigwam.
Brought her skins of furry rabbits
Soft and white as her own skin was;
Robbed the black bear and the otter
That her bed might soft and warm be.
And the children of the forest
Were uplifted by such loving
Of a higher type of being,
Who yet throbbed with human instincts.
Brave O-kis-ko loved the maiden
With a love which made him noble;
With the love that self-forgetting
Fills the soul with higher impulse. ”

“ Tradition was the mother of all history, and was necessarily robed in the superstitions of the era of which the tradition tells. History writers, jealously guarding the truth, have striven to banish all traditions which seemed colored by fancy or even freighted with a moral lesson. These exiled traditions, bearing the seed-germs of truth, cannot die, but, like wandering spirits, float down the centuries enveloped in the mists of superstition, until finally, embodied in romance or song, they assume a permanent form called legend and become the heritage of a people. ”

“ Elizabeth never forgave him for loving, marrying, and being true until death to her maid of honor, the beautiful Elizabeth Throckmorton. That vain and jealous queen permitted no rivals, and she wished to reign over the heart of this man, who, handsome, brave, gallant, intelligent, and romantic, made an ideal courtier. His life at court was brilliant but brief. Love anchored a soul attuned to loftier deeds, and after his marriage his career as a courtier was eclipsed by his later exploits as a statesman, warrior, explorer, and author. ”

“ Buried in the annals of that time lies the fact that twenty-seven years before any colonist even came to Jamestown, Virginia Dare was born and baptized, as the sequence of Christian birth and as the child of Christian parents. Virginia Dare was not a myth. She was a living, breathing reality, a human creature of good English descent, the granddaughter of the governor of the colonies, the daughter of the assistant governor, and a sharer in the mysterious fate of Raleigh's Lost Colony. ”

“ In studying the past, deeds come to be estimated more with reference to their ultimate results and as factors in universal progress, and less as personal efforts; just as more and more the personal merges into the universal in all lines of endeavor. Viewed in this light of ultimate results an imperishable and increased lustre envelops the name of Sir Walter Raleigh as the pioneer and faithful promoter of English colonization in America. The recognition of his services by the people who reap the reward of his labors has ever been too meagre. ”

“ There must have come to those who witnessed the scene that holy Sabbath-Day, just as it comes now to those who view it from afar, a deep realization that the God of the English and the Great Spirit of the Indian are one and the same, then, now, and evermore. The One God to whom in baptism Virginia Dare was brought and in whose name Manteo the savage was signed with the cross and given the promise of salvation, and who remains the God of the millions of English-speaking people who now worship in the land which was then and there dedicated to the service of Christ. ”

“ Till its fruit made all who labored 'neath its shade both bold and free,
Till a people dwelt beneath it strong to meet their destiny.
Now beneath its spreading branches dwells a nation brave and free,
Raising glad, triumphant pæans for the boon of Liberty;
Holding fast the Holy Cross-Sign,—Heirs of Duty and of Light,—
Still they speed the arrow, Progress, on its civilizing flight;
Keeping bright the Fires of Freedom, where Man, Brotherhood may know,
For God's breath upon the altar keeps the sacred flame aglow.
FOOTNOTES:
[AC] Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. ”

“ The delay of the development of grape-culture in its native home can only be explained on the theory that when nature boldly invites, man becomes shy. This indifference to grape-culture is peculiar to America, for in Europe all the aristocracy who are land-owners, where the climate makes it possible, are cultivators of the grape, take great pride in their wines, boast of their rare and fine vintages, and hold the making of wine as one of the fine arts.
The original Scuppernong has white skin, white pulp, white juice, and makes a white wine. ”

“ Man cannot see into the future and acquire the prescience of coming events which would make him infallible, but he can remove the veil from the past, contemplate the mistakes and successes of those who have lived before him, and who struggled with the same problems which now confront him. The results of their efforts are recorded in history, and inspired by high ideals he can study the past, and by feeding his lamp of wisdom with the oil of their experiences he secures a greater light to guide his own activities. ”

“ Many varieties remain wild, while others have been improved by cultivation. The three finest native American grapes, the Catawba, the Isabella, and the Scuppernong, are all indigenous to the soil of North Carolina. The Catawba, native to the banks of the river Catawba, from which it takes its name, is still found wild in North Carolina, while it has become celebrated at the North as a table-grape, and in Ohio as a wine-grape. In its adopted home it has revolutionized land values because of the money value of the product. ”

“ Our English ancestors, our heritage of English law and custom, of religion and home life, of language and ideals, all tempered by the development of new characteristics, bind us through him to England. [Pg v]
Sir Walter Raleigh was not an ordinary man. He was one of the most remarkable of a coterie of remarkable men whom a remarkable queen (Elizabeth) gathered around her, and to whom she owed much of the grandeur of her remarkable reign. Elizabeth's greatest gift was a capacity for discerning and using great minds, and she had the good fortune to find many around her at that period of time. ”

“ Spain was always his foe because she feared him, and it seems like the Nemesis of fate that three hundred years later the death-blow of Spain as a world power was dealt in Manila Bay by the nation which Raleigh strove so hard to plant, himself all unconscious of what the years were to bring. ”

“ This tradition of a white doe and a silver arrow has survived through three centuries, and not only lingers where the events occurred, but some portions of it are found wherever in our land forests abound and deer abide. From Maine to Florida lumbermen are everywhere familiar with an old superstition that to see a white doe is an evil omen. In some localities lumbermen will quit work if a white deer is seen. ”

“ The Spaniards were in Florida, the French were in Nova Scotia, but England had gained no possessions in North America when Raleigh began his efforts. This fact assumes more importance when we remember that civilization has made the greatest progress in those parts of America where the English became dominant. In South America, dominated by the Spaniards, civilization has made no strides, while in the United States a new nation has arisen whose ultimate destiny none may limit or foretell. ”

“ Another fact that should be enshrined in the hearts and perpetuated in the memorials of the nation, is that on Roanoak Island the first Christian baptism in the United States was administered. By order of Sir Walter Raleigh, Manteo, the friendly Indian chief, was baptized soon after the arrival of the colony under Governor White, and the following Sunday Virginia Dare, the granddaughter of Governor White, was baptized, both events being officially reported to Raleigh. In this day of religious freedom any enforced adoption of religious forms shocks our pious instincts. ”

“ The wonderful fertility of the soil of this island seemed a marvel to the early explorers, all of whom have testified to it. Ralph Lane, governor of the colony of 1585, in writing to Raleigh of the island and the surrounding country, declared it to be "the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven," and that "being inhabited with English no realm in Christendom were comparable to it;" every word of which is true now, provided that the English who inhabit it follow the suggestions of nature and adopt horticulture as the developing means. ”

“ From recent search into the subject by students of history a chain of evidence has been woven from which it has come to be believed that the lost colony, hopeless of succor from England, and deprived of all other human associations, became a part of a tribe of friendly Croatoan Indians, shared their wanderings, and intermarried with them, and that their descendants are to be found to-day among the Croatoan Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina. ”

“ That such a creature as a white deer really exists is demonstrated by their capture and exhibition in menageries, and to-day the rude hunters of the Alleghany Mountains believe that only a silver arrow will kill a white deer. [Pg 13]
The disappearance of this colony has been truly called "the tragedy of American colonization," and around it has hung a pathetic interest which ever leads to renewed investigation, in the hope of solving the mystery. ”

“ As a subject he was loyal and valiant, as a husband faithful and devoted, as a father affectionate and inspiring, as a scholar distinguished in prose and poetry, as a soldier he won fame and fortune, as a statesman he contributed to the renown of his sovereign's realm, and as a man he lived and died guided by the highest ideals. ”

“ Tradition relates that they transplanted this vine to Roanoak Island. On this island there still flourishes an old vine, which despite its gnarled body and evident age continues to bear fruit. It is claimed that it is the same vine Amadas and Barlowe planted. Some insist that it was planted by Sir Walter Raleigh himself, but as that famous knight did not realize his wish to visit his new possessions in North America, the honor of having planted the vine must revert to Amadas and Barlowe. It seems to be endowed with perennial youth, and the harvest from its branches is an annual certainty. ”

“ That he sought to extend the power of England must be admitted by those who correctly estimate his character; yet no one will deny that he was the most important factor in the colonization of America by the English. Spain, France, and England contended long for supremacy in the New World, but France failed to gain any permanent power, and Spanish dominance, as illustrated in South America and Mexico, was followed by slow progress. It was the English race, led by Raleigh, which has become the leading power and modern strength of America. ”

“ The surrounding country as well as Roanoak Island has a wealth of climbing vines and clustering grapes which point instinctively to grape culture. Amadas and Barlowe (1584) wrote that they found the land "so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them, of which we found such plenty, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the green soil, on the hills as on the plains, as well [Pg xi] as on every little shrub as also climbing towards the top of high cedars, that I think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found." ”

“ The mist of oblivion fades before the light of Truth, and Virginia Dare will be a shining jewel in the Chaplet of Memories which some day Christian America will place upon the tomb of the Past.
[Pg 5]
PREFACE
A familiar knowledge of the history of one's own country increases patriotism and stimulates valor. For this reason the study of written records called history should be supplemented by research into myths, folk-lore, and legends. While the value of history lies ever in its truth, it must yet bear the ideals of the people who participated in the events narrated. ”

“ The present and ever increasing greatness of these United States is due to the efforts of this remarkable man, who so wondrously combined in [Pg iii] one personality the attributes of statesman, courtier, soldier, scientist, poet, explorer, and martyr. Isabella of Spain offered her jewels to aid Columbus, and the deed has been lauded and celebrated as of international value, yet it contained no touch of personal sacrifice. ”

“ We read where the Spaniards, always religious fanatics, administered the Holy Sacrament to thousands in Central America and Mexico at the point of the sword; their zeal misleading them to force upon those less enlightened than themselves the hope of that heaven which they believed to be accessible [Pg xviii] only through certain Christian rites. So to order the baptism of an Indian chief seems a simple, kindly thing, and most probably Manteo desired it done. The only other Indian who received baptism in those early settlements was Pocahontas, in 1614. ”

“ As the gates of a new century open and disclose almost unlimited fields for human progress, this new nation, with an enthusiasm and courage born of success, has taken her place to lead in the eternal forward search for better opportunities [Pg 7] and higher life for the human race. ”