Читать книгу The Mythology of Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Siouan and Zuñi - James Mooney - Страница 42

Many romantic stories are told concerning the relations of the early white settlers with the Indians. Among the most interesting is that of Pocahontas, the daughter of the renowned Indian chief Powhatan, the erstwhile implacable enemy of the whites. Pocahontas, who as a child had often played with the young colonists, was visiting a certain chief named Japazaws, when an English captain named Argall bribed him with a copper kettle to betray her into his hands. Argall took her a captive to Jamestown. Here a white man by the name of John Rolfe married her, after she had received Christian baptism. This marriage brought about a peace between Powhatan and the English settlers in Virginia.

When Dale went back to England in 1616 he took with him some of the Indians. Pocahontas, who was now called 'the Lady Rebecca,' and her husband accompanied the party. Pocahontas was called a princess in England, and received much attention. But when about to return to the colony she died, leaving a little son.

The quaint version of Captain Nathaniel Powell, which retains all the known facts of Pocahontas' story, states that "During this time, the Lady Rebecca, alias Pocahontas, daughter to Powhatan, by the diligent care of Master John Rolfe her husband, and his friends, was taught to speak such English as might well be understood, well instructed in Christianity, and was become very formal and civil after our English manner; she had also by him a child which she loved most dearly, and the Treasurer and Company took order both for the maintenance of her and it, besides there were divers persons of great rank and quality had been kind to her; and before she arrived at London, Captain Smith, to deserve her former courtesies, made her qualities known to the Queen's most excellent Majesty and her Court, and wrote a little book to this effect to the Queen: An abstract whereof follows:

"'To the Most High and Virtuous Princess, Queen Anne of Great Britain

"'MOST ADMIRED QUEEN,

"'The love I bear my God, my King and Country, hath so oft emboldened me in the worst of extreme dangers, that now honesty doth constrain me to presume thus far beyond myself, to present your Majesty this short discourse: if ingratitude be a deadly poison to all honest virtues, I must be guilty of that crime if I should omit any means to be thankful.

"'So it is,

"'That some ten years ago being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan their chief King, I received from this great savage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit I ever saw in a savage, and his sister Pocahontas, the King's most dear and well-beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compassionate pitiful heart, of my desperate estate, gave me much cause to respect her; I being the first Christian this proud King and his grim attendants ever saw: and thus enthralled in their barbarous power, I cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in the power of these my mortal foes to prevent, notwithstanding all their threats. After some six weeks fatting among these savage courtiers, at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conveyed to Jamestown: where I found about eight and thirty miserable poor and sick creatures, to keep possession of all those large territories of Virginia; such was the weakness of this poor Commonwealth, as had the savages not fed us, we directly had starved. And this relief, most gracious Queen, was commonly brought us by this Lady Pocahontas.

"'Notwithstanding all these passages, when inconstant Fortune turned our peace to war, this tender virgin would still not spare to dare to visit us, and by her our jars have been oft appeased, and our wants still supplied. Were it the policy of her father thus to employ her, or the ordinance of God thus to make her His instrument, or her extraordinary affection to our nation, I know not; but of this I am sure: when her father, with the utmost of his policy and power, sought to surprise me, having but eighteen with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with watered eyes gave me intelligence, with her best advice to escape his fury; which had he known, he had surely slain her.

"'Jamestown with her wild train she as freely frequented as her father's habitation; and during the time of two or three years [1608-9] she, next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this Colony from death, famine and utter confusion; which if in those times it had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day.

"'Since then, this business having been turned and varied by many accidents from that I left it at: it is most certain, after a long and troublesome war after my departure, betwixt her father and our Colony, all which time she was not heard of;

"'About two years after she herself was taken prisoner, being so detained near two years longer, the Colony by that means was relieved, peace concluded; and at last rejecting her barbarous condition, she was married to an English gentleman, with whom at this present she is in England; the first Christian ever of that nation, the first Virginian ever spoke English, or had a child in marriage by an Englishman: a matter surely, if my meaning be truly considered and well understood, worthy a prince's understanding.

"'Thus, most gracious Lady, I have related to your Majesty, what at your best leisure our approved Histories will account you at large, and done in the time of your Majesty's life; and however this might be presented you from a more worthy pen, it cannot from a more honest heart, as yet I never begged anything of the state, or any: and it is my want of ability and her exceeding desert; your birth, means and authority; her birth, virtue, want and simplicity, doth make me thus bold, humbly to beseech your Majesty to take this knowledge of her, though it be from one so unworthy to be the reporter, as myself, her husband's estate not being able to make her fit to attend your Majesty. The most and least I can do is to tell you this, because none so oft has tried it as myself, and the rather being of so great a spirit, however her stature: if she should not be well received, seeing this kingdom may rightly have a kingdom by her means; her present love to us and Christianity might turn to such scorn and fury, as to divert all this good to the worst of evil: whereas finding so great a Queen should do her some honour more than she can imagine, for being so kind to your servants and subjects, would so ravish her with content, as endear her dearest blood to effect that, your Majesty and all the King's honest subjects most earnestly desire.

Captain Powell continues:

"The small time I staid in London, divers courtiers and others, my acquaintances, have gone with me to see her, that generally concluded, they did think God had had a great hand in her conversion, and they have seen many English Ladies worse favoured, proportioned, and behavioured; and as since I have heard, it pleased both the King and Queen's Majesty honourably to esteem her, accompanied with that honourable Lady the Lady de la Ware, and that honourable Lord her husband, and divers other persons of good qualities, both publicly at the masques and otherwise, to her great satisfaction and content, which doubtless she would have deserved, had she lived to arrive in Virginia.

"The Treasurer, Council and Company, having well furnished Captain 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 mercy, where she 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. Her little child Thomas Rolfe, therefore, was left at Plymouth with Sir Lewis Stukly, that desired the keeping of it."