Powhatan

“ While they sat making merry with the savages, feasting and taking tobacco and seeing the dances, Powhatan himself appeared and was received with great show of honor, all rising from their seats except King Arahatic, and shouting loudly. To Powhatan ample presents were made of penny-knives, shears, and toys, and he invited them to visit him at one of his seats called Powhatan, which was within a mile of the Falls, where now stands the city of Richmond. All along the shore the inhabitants stood in clusters, offering food to the strangers. ”

“ Great joy then felt King Powhatan,
Great joy felt all his men,
And wild and loud were the shouts that made
Their forests ring again.
No more in long suspense and fear
They lay like a strong man bound,
But light and free, the feast and song{131}
Through all the tribes went round ”

“ It is not in our minds to make war upon the great Powhatan nor yet to rob him of his lands. Whatsoever we ask at his hands we are ready to pay for. If the great Werowance allows the clamor of his warriors for my life to override his own good judgment, so be it. But I would warn Powhatan and his chiefs that my death will be the signal for relentless war against their people, for I am the subject of a mighty king whose rule extends over lands many times greater than those of Powhatan, whose soldiers are as numerous as the stars in the heavens and whose ships sail the seas in every direction. ”

“ Werrowance Powhatan, unto whom they pay tribute of skinnes, beads, copper, pearle, deere, turkies, wild beasts, and corne. What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing. It is strange to see with what great feare and adoration, all these people doe obey this Powhatan. For at his feet they present whatsoever he commandeth, and at the least frowne of his brow, their greatest spirits will tremble with feare: and no marvell, for he is very terrible & tyrannous in punishing such as offend him. ”

“ The English invested savage life with all the dignity of European courts. Powhatan was styled 'King,' or 'Emperor,' his principal warriors were lords of the kingdom, his wives were queens, his daughter was a 'princess,' and his cabins were his various seats of residence. ... In his younger days Powhatan had been a great warrior. Hereditarily, he was the chief or werowance of eight tribes; through conquest his dominions had been extended. ... The name of his nation and the Indian appellation of the James River was Powhatan. ”

“ ACT II. Scene I. Inside the palace at Werocomoco. Powhatan in state, Grimosco, &c., his wives, and warriors, ranged on each side. Music.
Powhatan. My people, strange beings have appeared among us; they come from the bosom of the waters, amid fire and thunder; one of them has our war-god delivered into our hands: behold the white being!
Music. Smith is brought in; his appearance excites universal wonder; Pocahontas expresses peculiar admiration.
Pocahontas. O Nima! is it not a God!
Powhatan. Miami, though thy years are few, thou art experienced as age; give us thy voice of counsel. ”

“ Besides its forming a bond of peace, you shall have in return for her, three times the value of the rawrenoke, in beads, copper, and hatchets." Powhatan: "I love my daughter as my life, and though I have many children, I delight in none so much as her, and if I should not often see her I could not possibly live, and if she lived at Jamestown I could not see her, having resolved on no terms to put myself into your hands, or go among you. ”

“ She would ask Powhatan to send some one to England to find out, for she could not bear to go to Jamestown and miss him at every turn.
Looking down the river she descried a ship approaching, filled with white men. Calling Japazaws, and pointing to the ship, she said, “Pocahontas will not see the pale-faces now. Her heart is sorrowful, for there is no friendship between us. Powhatan does not heed the pleadings of his best-loved daughter.” ”

“ Powhatan must be viewed as he stands in relation to the several Indian nations of Virginia. To judge him by European ideas of greatness would be the climax of injustice and absurdity.{13}”
PROEM.
There’s a warrior race of a hardy form,
Who are fearless in peril, and reckless of storm;
Who are seen on the mountains when wintry winds blow,
And, in midsummer’s blaze, in the valleys below—
Their home is the forest, the earth is their bed,
And the theme of their boast is the blood they have shed;
With a spirit unbroken by famine or toil,
They traverse the rivers and woods for their spoil ”

“ The remainder of this scene is honorable to the character of Powhatan. It will remain a lasting monument, that, though different principles of action and the influence of custom have given to the manners and opinions of this people an appearance neither amiable nor virtuous, they still retain the noblest property of the human character, the touch of pity, and the feeling of humanity.
“The club of the emperor was still uplifted; but pity had touched his bosom, and his eye was every moment losing its fierceness. ”

“ In as stately a manner as that of the werowance—so at variance with his appearance—and with the best words at his command, he spoke his thanks.
"I thank thee, great Powhatan, for thy words of kindness and the good news thou bringest me. In truth if thou wilt be to me a father, I will be to thee a son, and there shall be peace between Werowocomoco and Jamestown. If thou wilt send men with me to show me the way they shall return with presents for thee." ”

“ I will demand of him if he be the friend of Powhatan.
Grimosco. Yes; but demand it of him as thou drawest thy reeking hatchet from his cleft head. [King starts.] The despoilers of our land must die!
Powhatan. What red man can give his eye-ball the glare of defiance when the white chief is nigh? He who stood alone amidst seven hundred foes, and, while he spurned their king to the ground, dared them to shoot their arrows; who will say to him, "White man, I am thine enemy?" No one. ”

“ Pocahontas, the favorite daughter of Powhatan, was seized with emotions of tender pity, and ran up to her father, pathetically pleading for the life of the stranger. When all entreaties were lost on that stern and savage potentate, she hastened to Smith, snatched his head in her arms, and laid her own on his, declaring that the first blow must fall upon her. The heart even of a savage father was at last melted, and Powhatan granted to his favorite daughter the life of Smith. ”

“ Powhatan was a remarkable man; a sort of savage Napoleon, who, by the force of his character and the superiority of his talents, had raised himself from the rank of a petty chieftain to something of imperial dignity and power. He had two places of abode, one called Powhatan, where Richmond now stands, and the other at Werowocomoco, on the north side of York River, within the present county of Gloucester. ... Besides the large confederacy of which Powhatan was the chief, there were two others, with which that was often at war. ”

“ Hidden by the overhanging branches of the trees which grew near the gleaming ocean, some suspicious natives watched the fair-skinned strangers with awe and apprehension. They were followers of Powhatan—Chief of the Indians of seacoast Virginia, and one of the most remarkable warriors of history. They had never before seen the features of a white man, and, although rumors of these strange people who came from far-distant lands had reached them from the natives who lived to the south, these were the first palefaces upon whom their eyes had ever rested. ”

“ The powerful confederacy of the Manakins and Manahoacks, and the more distant inhabitants of the lakes, heard the name of Powhatan with uneasiness and alarm.
“At the coming of the English he had reached the advanced age of sixty years, and enjoyed in the bosom of his family the fruits of his long and glorious exertions. The spectacle of men who came from beyond the sea, in floating and winged houses, and who fought with thunder and lightnings, could not fail to strike him by its grandeur and novelty. The intent of the strangers appeared, at first view, to be friendly ”

“ Powhatan held himself with such a grand majesticall countenance as drave me into admiration to see such state in a naked savage. He is of personage a tall, well-proportioned man with a sower looke. His head is somewhat gray, his beard so thinne it seemeth none at all. His age neare 60, [33] of a very able and hardy body to endure any labour. This King will make his own robes, shooes, pots, bowes, and arrows; and plant, hunt, or doe anything as well as the rest."
At the entrance of the escort with their captive all the people cheered and shouted. ”

“ Breathless interest pervades the whole assembly. Powhatan, the proud king of thirty nations, is satisfied. Still his lip trembles, when the darling of his heart transfers her fealty to another. The colonists regard the gentle bride as the hostage of peace, and rejoice in an event which will reprieve them from the perils of savage warfare.
The hallowed rite proceeds. The mystic ring is pressed upon the slender finger of the forest-princess. The Old World weds the New. The benediction is swelled by the tearful ardor of many hearts. ”

“ But how about those deeper-draft, chartless sailing craft? Well, they managed to get along anyway, and our houseboat must on after them.
One more straight reach of the river, one more great sweeping bend, and we should come upon the site of that old village of James Towne. Still the tawny Powhatan, like many another proud savage, showed small sign of succumbing to civilization. There seemed scarce any mark of human habitation. The life of the people, where there were people, must have been back from the banks. ”

“ Through the long Council-room echoed Powhatan's order, and a perfunctory shout rose from the savage throng, who were always quick to echo their Chief's commands. Captain Smith, bewildered by the sudden turn of affairs, was helped to rise, led to the beaming girl, and told that the condition of his release from death was that he might "make hatchets and trinkets" for Pocahontas, the Werowance's dearest daughter. ”

“ Powhatan is a very large figure in early Virginia history, and deserves his prominence. He was an able and crafty savage, and made a good fight against the encroachments of the whites, but he was no match for the crafty Smith, nor the double-dealing of the Christians. There is something pathetic about the close of his life, his sorrow for the death of his daughter in a strange land, when he saw his territories overrun by the invaders, from whom he only asked peace, and the poor privilege of moving further away from them into the wilderness if they denied him peace. ”

“ Powhatan fell neatly into the trap, and bought them for two or three hundred bushels of corn! Blue beads rose in value. [172] Opechancanough was allowed to buy a few, but "none durst weare any of them but their greate kings, their wives and children."
The outwitted Newport retired in chagrin to his pinnace. Before he sailed, Powhatan sent a feast of bread and venison, and Nantauquas to beg Captain Smith to visit him again, but to leave his sword and pistol behind. "But these," said Smith, significantly, "are requests made by our enemies, never by our friends." ”

“ Pocahontas was a small maiden about ten years of age; Cleopatre (where did Powhatan get the name Cleopatre?) was destined to figure in history as soon as she reached the marriageable age of twelve. None of these young people lived with their own mothers. Powhatan never kept a wife after the birth of a child, but made a present of her to some chief or captain. But he was extremely fond of his own offspring, a sentiment which civilized man deems a high virtue, but which is shared with keen intensity by savage man, and savage beast as well. ”

“ Soon a most doleful noise came from behind the mat, and Powhatan, disguised in "the most fearfullest manner," and looking "more like a devil than a man," entered, with some two hundred Indians, painted black. The outcome of this impressive ceremony was that Powhatan told Captain Smith that they were now friends, and that he would presently send him home, and that when he arrived at Jamestown he must send him two great guns and a grindstone. ”

“ In 1618, Powhatan died, and was succeeded, in his dominions and in his influence over all the neighbouring tribes, by Opechancanough, a bold and cunning chief, as remarkable for his jealousy and hatred of the new settlers, as for his qualifications to execute the designs suggested by his resentments. He renewed, however, the stipulations of Powhatan; and, for a considerable time, the general peace remained undisturbed. The colonists, unsuspicious of danger, observed neither the Indians nor their machinations. ”

“ The river was frozen half a mile from the shore, and when the barge could not come to land by reason of the ice and muddy shallows, they effected a landing by wading. Powhatan at their request sent them venison, turkeys, and bread; the next day he feasted them, and then inquired when they were going, ignoring his invitation to them to come. Hereupon followed a long game of fence between Powhatan and Captain Smith, each trying to overreach the other, and each indulging profusely in lies and pledges. Each professed the utmost love for the other. ”

“ Captain Argall sent an Indian messenger to Powhatan, informing him that "his delight and darling, his daughter Pocahontas," was a prisoner, and informing him that "if he would send home the Englishmen whom he had detained in slavery, with such arms and tools as the Indians had gotten and stolen, and also a great quantity of corn, that then he should have his daughter restored, otherwise not."
Powhatan was "very much grieved," having a strong [164] affection both for his daughter and for the English weapons which he possessed. ”