In the autumn Captain Newport came from England with orders from the London Company to crown Powhatan. Along with the crown the company sent gifts, consisting of a bed, a basin, a pitcher, and a scarlet robe. Powhatan gave token of his appreciation of the gifts by sending in return to King James a pair of his moccasins and one of his raccoon-skin blankets, but refused to kneel in receiving the crown, so that Smith and Newport had to lean on his shoulders to force him down.
Navajo Sling.
A Pappoose Case.
The crowning of Powhatan was intended to win his favor, but the compliment did not make the shrewd old chief altogether friendly to the white strangers. For he noticed that their numbers were increasing, and he feared that their coming might in the end bring harm to himself and his people. He therefore planned to get rid of the Englishmen by refusing them corn, and in the following winter declined to supply them, asking in a hostile way when they were going home.
The settlers sadly missed his friendly aid, for the rats that had come over in the vessels had played havoc with their provisions, and they were greatly in need of corn, venison, and game, such as Powhatan had furnished the previous year.
But Smith, who knew so well how to manage the Indians, was equal to the occasion. He used smooth words if they served his purpose; if not, he used threats or even force. Bent upon gaining their good-will, or at least determined to secure corn, Smith sailed down the James, around Point Comfort, and up the York River with about forty men to Powhatan's home. The old chief pretended to be friendly, but Smith learned from an Indian informer that the wily savage was planning to murder him and his men. Little Pocahontas, also, came to Smith in the darkness of night and told him of the plot, thus proving herself, as on many other occasions, to be a true friend to the white men. Indeed, it has been said that by her timely aid the Jamestown settlement was saved from ruin.
When Smith fully grasped the situation he threatened the Indians with death, and then, finding himself surrounded by hundreds of hostile warriors, he boldly seized Powhatan's brother by the scalp-lock, put a pistol to his breast, and cried, "Corn or your life!" The Indians, awed by Smith's fearlessness, no longer held out, but brought him corn in abundance.
From the first Smith had been the natural leader of the colony, and in time was made president of the council. He found the men of his own race almost as difficult to manage as the Indians. They were so lazy that Smith was obliged to make a law by which he declared, "He that will not work shall not eat." The law proved to be a good one, and the idlers were soon busy making glass, felling trees, and preparing tar, pitch, and soap-ashes. But they hated rough labor, and were very apt to swear when it hurt their hands. To put an end to the swearing, Smith required each man to keep a record of his oaths, and for every offence ordered a can of cold water poured down the sleeve of the uplifted right arm of the culprit. By such discipline the settlement was soon put into excellent working order.
If Smith could have remained at the head of the colony, everything might have continued to go well. But one day, while out in a boat, he was wounded so severely by the explosion of some gunpowder that he was obliged to return to England for treatment. This accident happened in October, 1609. Five years later he returned to Virginia and explored the coast to the north, making a map of the region, and naming it New England. He not only wrote an account of his own life, but also several books on America. He died in 1632, at the age of fifty-three years. Without his leadership, the weak and puny colony at Jamestown must have perished before the end of its first year. But his resolution and courage held it together until it received from England the help needed to put it on a firm footing.
REVIEW OUTLINE
The London Company sends to America a colony in search of gold.
The emigrants set sail.
The long, roundabout voyage.
The colonists make a settlement at Jamestown In 1607.
Their dwellings and their church.
Fever, hunger, and Indians.
John Smith saves the settlement from ruin.
His early adventures.
He goes up the Chickahominy River in search of the Pacific.
The Indians capture Smith.
They spare-his life.
Life among the Indians of Virginia.
Smith is taken to Powhatan.
Little Pocahontas saves John Smith's life.
His explorations.
The crowning of Powhatan.
He plans to get rid of the white men.
He refuses them corn.
The friendly aid of Pocahontas.
"Corn or your life!"
Smith made president of the council.
His return to England.
CHAPTER V
Nathaniel Bacon and the Uprising of the People in Virginia in 1676
[1647-1676]
When Smith returned to England he left the colony without a leader. At once the Indians, who had been held in check by fear of Smith, began to rob and plunder the settlement, and at the same time famine and disease aided in the work of destruction. Dogs, horses, and even rats and mice were in demand for food, and while at its worst the famine compelled the suffering colonists to feed upon the bodies of their own dead.
Tobacco Plant.
At the close of that terrible winter, known ever since as the "Starving Time," barely sixty of the five hundred men whom Smith had left in the colony survived. The future promised nothing, and the wretched remnant of sufferers were about to leave Virginia for their fatherland when an English vessel hove in sight on the James. Greatly to their relief and joy Lord Delaware had arrived with a company of men and much-needed supplies. This was in June, 1610.
By reason of ill-health Lord Delaware soon returned to England, leaving Sir Thomas Dale in control of the colony. He was even more firm and vigorous than Smith had been in dealing with the worthless men who made the greater part of the colony. Some of the most unruly were flogged, some were branded with hot irons, and one man was sentenced to death by starvation.
Holding down the lawless by the arm of the law, Dale was also able to introduce reform. Before he took charge of affairs in Virginia there was a common storehouse from which everybody, whether idle or industrious, could get food. When the good-for-nothing settlers found out that they could thus live upon the products of others' labor, they would do nothing themselves, but held back, throwing all the work upon thirty or forty men. Dale, appreciating the evil of this system, gave to every man his own plot of land. Out of what he raised each was obliged to put into the common storehouse two and a half barrels of corn; the rest of his crop he could call his own. By this plan the idlers had to work or starve, and the thrifty were encouraged to work harder, because they knew they would receive the benefit of their labor.
Soon after the new system was put in practice the settlers discovered that great profits resulted from raising tobacco. The soil and climate of Virginia were especially favorable to its growth, and more money could be made in this way than in any other. But since tobacco quickly exhausted the soil, much new land was needed to take the place of the old, and large plantations were necessary. Every planter tried to select a plantation