: The Land We Live In The Story of Our Country by Mann Henry - United States History Children's History

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iards, were led away. The remainder of the two hundred were put to death. Menendez next intercepted Ribault and the remnant of his men, and by similar treachery accomplished their destruction, refusing an offer of one hundred thousand ducats to spare their lives. Menendez wrote to King Phillip that the Huguenots "were put to the sword, judging this to be expedient for the service of God our Lord, and of your majesty."

Thus ended the first attempt of members of the reformed religion to settle within the limits of what is now the United States. But the blood of the victims did not cry in vain to Heaven for vengeance. A Frenchman, himself a Roman Catholic, the Chevalier Dominic de Gourges, determined to punish the Spaniards for their cruelty. He sold his property to obtain money to fit out an expedition to Florida. Arriving in Florida in the spring of 1568, he was joined by the natives in an attack on two forts occupied by the Spaniards below Fort Caroline. The forts were captured and their inmates put to the sword, except a few whom de Gourges hung to trees with the inscription: "Not as Spaniards and mariners, but as traitors, robbers and murderers."

Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh--English Expedition to North Carolina--Failure of Attempts to Settle There--Virginia Dare--The Lost Colony--The Foundation of Jamestown--Captain John Smith--His Life Saved by Pocahontas--Rolfe Marries the Indian Princess--A Key to Early Colonial History--Women Imported to Virginia.

The lives of the hapless Huguenots who perished at the hands of Menendez were, perhaps, not altogether wasted, for it is believed that a refugee from the Port Royal colony, wrecked on the coast of England, gave Queen Elizabeth interesting information about the temperate and fruitful regions north of the Spanish territories and prepared her mind to favor the projects of Sir Walter Raleigh. That bold and talented adventurer, whose name will live forever in American annals, and whose monument is North Carolina's beautiful State capital, is said in the familiar story to have attracted the notice of Queen Elizabeth by spreading his scarlet cloak over a miry place for the queen to walk upon. He made rapid progress in the good graces of his sovereign, who was quick to discern the men who could be useful to her and to her kingdom. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half brother to Sir Walter, had perished on an expedition to found an English colony in America. A storm engulfed his vessel, the Squirrel, and he went down with all his crew. Queen Elizabeth graciously granted to Sir Walter a patent as lord proprietor of the country from Delaware Bay to the mouth of the Santee River, and substantially including the present States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and a large portion of South Carolina, with an indefinite extension to the west.

Raleigh sent out an expedition of two ships under the command of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. They landed upon the coast of North Carolina at mid-summer, in the year 1584. The scenery and climate were charming, the natives hospitable and everything seemed to promise well for future settlement. The adventurers reported to Raleigh, who decided to plant a colony in the region visited by his vessels. Queen Elizabeth herself is said to have given the name of Virginia to her dominion, to commemorate her unmarried condition. Untaught by the experience of American colonists from the days of Columbus, the English settlers in North Carolina had the usual quarrel with the natives, and were saved from the usual fate only by the timely arrival of Sir Francis Drake on his return to England from a cruise against the Spaniards. The colonists sought refuge on Drake's vessels and were carried back to their native country.

Subsequent attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to establish colonies in North Carolina also failed, but these efforts were productive of at least one important benefit in introducing to the attention of the English and also of the Irish, the potato, which, although previously brought to Ireland by a slave-trader named Hawkins, and to England by Sir Francis Drake, attracted but little notice before it was imported by John White, Raleigh's Governor of Roanoke. At Roanoke was born, August 18, 1587, the first white child of English parentage on the North American continent, Virginia Dare, the daughter of William and Eleanor Dare, and granddaughter of Governor White.

In the little wooden chapel, two or three weeks after the event, the colonists assembled one bright day to attend the baptism and christening of the little stranger. The font was the family's silver wash ewer, and the sponsor was Governor White himself, the baby's grandfather. Thereafter she was known as Virginia Dare, a sweet and appropriate name for this pretty little wild flower that bloomed all alone on that desolate coast. About the time that Virginia was cutting her first teeth there came very distressing times to the colony. There was great need of supplies, and it was determined to send to England for them. Governor White went himself, and never saw his little granddaughter again.

It was three years before the Governor returned to Roanoke Island. He was kept in England by the Spanish invasion, and after the winds and the waves had shattered the dreaded Armada, it was some time before Raleigh could get together the men and supplies that were needed by the far-off colony. At last the ship was ready and White took his departure, but he had not sailed far when his vessel was overtaken by a Spanish cruiser and captured. White himself escaped in a boat, and after many days reached England again. Then he had to wait for another ship, and the weary old man saw day after day go by before he left the chalk cliffs of England behind him. After long, anxious months he approached the new land. It was near sunset and he expected to see the smoke rising from the chimneys and the settlers hurrying in from the fields to eat their evening meal, or crowding down to greet the long-looked for arrivals. But no such cheering sight met his gaze. There stood the cabins, but they were deserted; not a single human soul was visible. They landed and walked up the grass-grown paths. Vines and climbers festooned the doorways. A dreary stillness reigned everywhere. The colony had disappeared, and tradition has it to this day that the settlers were absorbed in the Indian tribes and that little Virginia Dare may have become a white Pocahontas.

Raleigh lost his best friend when Queen Elizabeth died, and her successor, James, gave into other hands the task of establishing English power in America. The London Company, with a patent from the king, sent a fleet of three vessels to Virginia, which ascended the James River, and fifty miles from its mouth laid the foundation of Jamestown, May 13, 1607.

It was a lovely day in summer, presenting a bright southern contrast to the bitter winter weather which welcomed the Pilgrims thirteen years later to Plymouth Rock, when the Englishmen began the erection of a fort on the peninsula or island in the river, where they proposed to establish the capital of their colony. They chose for their president Edward Maria Wingfield, ignoring Captain John Smith, a gallant and resourceful soldier of fortune who would have been invaluable as a leader against any foe. The fort had not been completed when the Indians gathered in large numbers and made a desperate attack on the colony. Twelve of the colonists were killed and wounded before the savages were driven off by the use of artillery. In the following winter Captain John Smith explored the waters in the vicinity of Jamestown in search of a passage to the Pacific. This may seem ridiculous in the light of present knowledge, but it is to be remembered that two years later, in 1609, the great navigator, Henry Hudson, ascended the river which bears his name, in the expectation of discovering a northwest passage to the Orient. Even the most enlightened nations of Europe were slow to give up the idea that a connection by water existed through the American continent, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

To return to Captain John Smith. It appears that in the course of his explorations he was captured by Indians, and taken before Chief Powhatan at his forest home. As Smith tells the story, the chief wore a mantle of raccoon skins and a head-dress of eagle's feathers. The warriors, about two hundred in number, were ranged on each side of Powhatan, and the Indian women were assembled behind the warriors to witness the unwonted scene. Two daughters of the chief, or, as the English called him, the "emperor," had seats near his "throne." Smith was well received, one woman bringing him water to wash his hands, and another a bunch of feathers to dry them with. Then he was fed, and the council deliberated as to his fate. They resolved that he should die. Two large stones were placed in front of Powhatan and Smith was pinioned, dragged to the stones, and his head placed upon them, while the warriors who were to carry out the sentence brandished their clubs for the fatal blow. One of the daughters of Powhatan, named Matoa, or Pocahontas, sixteen or eighteen years old, sprang from her father's side, clasped Smith in her arms, and laid her head upon his. Powhatan, savage as he was, and full of anger against the English, melted at the sight. He ordered that the prisoner should be released, and sent him with a message of friendship to Jamestown.

Pocahontas continued to be a friend to the white man. Learning, two years later, of an Indian plot to exterminate the intruders, she sped stealthily from her father's home to the English settlement, warned Captain Smith of the impending peril, and was back in Powhatan's cabin before morning. The English were not ungrateful for her goodness, even although it appears she was unable to prevent her father from giving expression at times to his hatred of the colonists. On one occasion, when the settlers were suffering from scarcity of food, and Powhatan would not permit his people to carry corn to Jamestown, an Englishman named Samuel Argall went on a foraging expedition near the home of Powhatan, and enticed Pocahontas on board his vessel. He held the young woman as a prisoner, and offered to release her for a large ransom in corn. Powhatan refused to have anything to do with Argall, but sent word to Jamestown saying that if his daughter should be returned to him he would treat the English as friends. Pocahontas was detained at Jamestown for several months, being treated with respect, and having the free run of the colony. She appears to have been a romping, good-natured young woman, comely for an Indian, passing her time as happily as possible, without moping for her kinspeople, and not at all the typical heroine of song and story. It was wicked to detain her, but she seemed to enjoy her captivity and frolicked about the place in a way that must have shocked those who regarded her as of royal birth. Evidently Pocahontas liked the English from the first, and preferred their company at Jamestown to her childhood home in the Virginia forests. A young Englishman, named John Rolfe, fell in love with her. Wives from England were scarce, and this fact may have made Pocahontas more attractive in his eyes. When some one objected that she was a pagan--"Is it not my duty," he replied, "to lead the blind to the light?" Pocahontas learned to love Rolfe in return, and love made easy her path to conversion to Christianity. She was baptized by the name of Rebecca, and was the first Christian convert in Virginia. Powhatan consented to his daughter's marriage--he had probably concluded by this that she was bound to be English anyhow--and the ceremony was performed in the chapel at Jamestown, on a delightful spring day in April, 1613. Pocahontas, we are told, was dressed in a simple tunic of white muslin from the looms of Dacca. Her arms were bare even to her shoulders, and hanging loosely to her feet was a robe of rich stuff presented by the Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, and fancifully embroidered by Pocahontas and her maidens. A gaudy fillet encircled her head, and held the plumage of birds and a veil of gauze, while her wrists and ankles were adorned with the simple jewelry of the native workshops. When the ceremony was ended, the eucharist was administered, with bread from the wheat fields around Jamestown, and wine from the grapes of the adjacent woodland. Her brothers and sisters and forest maidens were present; also the Governor and Council, and five English women--all that there were in the colony--who afterward returned to England. Rolfe and his spouse "lived civilly and lovingly together" until Governor Dale went back to England in 1616, when they and the Englishwomen in Virginia accompanied the Governor. The "Lady Rebecca" received great attentions at court and from all below it. She was entertained by the Lord Bishop of London, and at court she was treated with the respect due to the daughter of a monarch. The silly King James was angry because one of his subjects dared marry a lady of royal blood! And Captain Smith, for fear of displeasing the royal bigot, would not allow her to call him "father," as she desired to do, and her loving heart was grieved. The king, in his absurd dreams of the divinity of the royal prerogative, imagined Rolfe or his descendants might claim the crown of Virginia on behalf of his royal wife, and he asked the Privy Council if the husband had not committed treason! Pocahontas remained in England about a year; and when, with her husband and son she was about to return to Virginia, with her father's chief councillor, she was seized with small-pox at Gravesend, and died in June, 1617. Her remains lie within the parish church-yard at Gravesend. Her son, Thomas Rolfe, afterward became a distinguished man in Virginia, and his descendants are found among the most honorable citizens of that commonwealth.

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