Pocahontas (17 page)

"On these stones," my father says, his voice deep and stern, "those who have done great wrong are executed."

From the shadowed side of the longhouse, where I stand with Naukaquawis, I can see how moved Little Red-Haired Warrior is by my father's words. He stares at those stones and bites down on his lip.

"Now," my father continues, "your revenge will be my revenge. You have died as Tassantassuk. You have been reborn as a member of my own family."

He points with his lips toward the place where my brother and I stand in the shadows. Until now, Little Red-Haired Warrior has not seen us. My brother walks out slowly, with the dignity befitting a son of the Mamanatowic. But we have been
waiting a long time, and I cannot help myself. I leave my brother behind and run right up to Little Red-Haired Warrior. His eyes widen as he sees me. I am sure he is impressed with how fine I look adorned with my paint and the glitter of
matchqueon
ad over my head and shoulders and bare chest and my best apron, with its embroidery of
rawrenock.
I kneel and throw my arms around his neck.

"You are my older brother," I say to him. "I will always be your child."

The men who held him close to the stones of justice raise Little Red-Haired Warrior to his feet. I take hold of his arm, noticing that my brother—who has not been as quick as I was to claim our new uncle—has done the same on the other side. My brother looks over at me and shakes his head. I stick out my tongue at him. I have gotten to our new uncle first, and so I will always be the first of his relatives among our people.

My father clears his throat, and we turn to look at him.

"Now it is done," my father says. "Now you will always be our friend and our relative. You will leave Paspahegh and come to live close to us. You will now be werowance of Capahowsick I will give you venison and corn and whatever you need to eat. You will send me two great thunder weapons and a grindstone."

My father pauses as he looks first at my brother and then at me. "Cabden Jonsammit, Little Red-Haired Warrior. You shad be as dear to me as my son Naukaquawis. You shad make beds and beads and copper for my daughter Pocahontas. It shad be that way."

He reaches out his hand and Rawhunt holds forth a tobacco pouch. My father takes out a great handful of tobacco. He holds it up to the sky, to the four winds, to the earth, and then tosses it into the fire. His promises are sacred now. As long
as Little Red-Haired Warrior and his people live by those words, they will be our friends.

I am happy this day, as I stand there and I squeeze the hand of my new brother. Little Red-Haired Warrior looks down at me and then, gently, squeezes my hand back. His grim face changes as, for the first time, he smiles. My heart becomes so full that it feels like the river when it overflows as the tide rises.

We shall live together in peace,
I think.
We shall live together in peace.

In some ways, things turned out as Pocahontas had hoped. A period of relative peace followed the incident at Werowocomoco. Pocahontas became a regular visitor to Jamestown and a favorite of many of the first colonists, especially John Smith.

It is likely that Powhatan believed that John Smith had become, like one of his subject werowances, a true ally who would be loyal to the Mamanatowic. However, that was not so. Smith's agenda was more ambitious. Even if he was a white man with a better understanding of the Indians than most, it seems clear he never really saw things through Indian eyes. During the remaining twenty-one months of Smith's stay in Virginia, relations between Jamestown and the Powhatan nations were sometimes good and sometimes at the brink of war. Through it all Pocahontas appears to have remained an influential voice for peace.

Ironically, Smith's fellow colonists were as much a danger to him as the Indians were. On his return to Jamestown, after being taken captive and released by Powhatan, Captain Smith was arrested and charged with causing the deaths of the men who were killed on that ill-fated expedition up the river. Once again, he managed to win acquittal and escape execution, but the infighting of the Jamestown colonists was far from over,
even though Smith eventually became president of the quarreling, often lazy settlers.

What might have happened had Captain John Smith remained in Virginia will never be known. In September 1609, in what may have been an accident or a deliberate act on the part of someone who wished to harm him, Smith was terribly injured. While returning to Jamestown in a canoe, he fed asleep and the bag of gunpowder on his waist was somehow ignited. Then, as Smith records in
The Proceedings of the English Colony in Virginia,
while he lay in bed recuperating from serious burns, an assassin made an overt attempt to kid him with a "mercilesse Pistoll." Even when wounded, Smith was formidable enough to frighten off the would-be killer, whose "hart did fad him." On October 4, 1609, realizing that the odds were against him, Captain John Smith set sad for England, never to return to Virginia.

Pocahontas, who appears to have cared for John Smith as one loves a favorite uncle, was told that Captain Smith had died. It seems certain that she grieved his death, for when she finally encountered him again in England years later, she felt so shocked (and perhaps betrayed) that at first she could not speak to him.

Pocahontas's story did not end with Smith's departure. She eventually became the catalyst for the longest period of amity between the English and the Powhatan nations. That period, 1614 to 1622, has been called the Peace of Pocahontas. She converted to Christianity in 1614, married the English colonist John Rolfe, and gave birth to a son, Thomas, in 1615. In 1616, the little family sailed to England. Their mission was to gain support for the Virginia Colony, including a school for Powhatan children. As they were preparing to sad back to Virginia, Pocahontas, who had been id, became very sick. At
Gravesend, England, within sight of the sea that divided her from her homeland, she breathed her last. Her final words to her husband, recorded in a letter written in 1617 by John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys, were "All must die. 'Tis enough that the child liveth."

The English spoken and written by John Smith and the other colonists was the same English used by William Shakespeare. (In fact, one of Shakespeare's plays,
The Tempest,
was drawn from a Virginia colonist's account of being shipwrecked in Bermuda.) The "gentleman planters" who came to Jamestown prided themselves on their knowledge of literature and their ability to write beautifully. So it is that in the midst of describing his first visit to Powhatan, John Smith includes two lines of poetry translated into English from the Latin of the ancient Roman poet Lucretius.

All of the John Smith chapters are drawn from his writing, though I have sometimes modernized the spelling, changed the punctuation, or paraphrased. Every event that happens in these chapters can be found in his writings or in the accounts of others then in Jamestown, including Smith's adversary Master Edward Maria Wingfield.

Smith wrote several different accounts of the first year in Jamestown, including
A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia
(1608) and
The Generall Historie of Virginia, the Somer Isles, and New England
(1623). I have used all of them as sources. Although Smith wrote most of his accounts in third person, referring to himself
as "Smith," or "Captain Smith," I have chosen to put all of his chapters in the first-person voice of
A True Relation.
I also open each chapter with a relevant quote from a writer of his time.

As well as they wrote, some of the colonists' writing is a little difficult for us to understand today. Some of the words we use now had different meanings four hundred years ago.
Planter,
for example, means "colonist," while
discover
means "to explore." There are also some words that have totally vanished from modern English, such as
watchet
and
woosel.
Here is a selected glossary.

adays
(adv.): by day
Admiral
(n.): flagship, or the commander of the flagship
admire
(v.): wonder about
ado
(n.): excitement
adventure
(v.): to explore
adventurer
(n.): explorer or investor
alarum
(n.): warning or cry of alarm
ambuscado
(n.): ambush
barricado
(n.): fortification
barrico
(n.): keg or barrel
bastinado
(n.): cudgel
bent
(v.): aimed
bloody flux
(n.): dysentery
bought
(n.): river bend
bravery
(n.): fine attire
break with
(v.): tell or divulge to
bruit
(n.): loud noise or clamor
burthen
(n.): burden
cape merchant
(n.): storehouse manager
card or cart
(n.): chart or map
cautelous
(adv.): cautious
champion
(n.): open, flat country
check
(n.): a reprimand
chicqueenes
(n.): English spelling of the Italian word "zecchini," which were Venetian coins made of gold
chirugeon
(n.): surgeon or doctor
conceit
(v.): to think or imagine; or a plan
conceit
(n.): a plan
contrive
(v.): to design
corn
(n.): originally, wheat, or any grain used for human food
discover
(v.): to explore
doth
(v.): does
doubt
(v.): to fear
dryfats
(n.): storage
environ
(v.): surround
exception
(n.): criticism
falchion
(n.): sword
famous
(adj.): fair or beautiful, excellent
flight shot
(n.): an arrow shot
for that
: because
garboil
(n.): contention or argument
goodly
(adj.): excellent
green wound
(n.): flesh wound
grudging
(v.): complaining
hap
(n.): a happening, an occurrence
happy
(adj.): lucky
height
(n.): latitude on a map or chart
hie
(v.): to hasten or hurry
hollow
(n.): a howl
howbeit
: although
humorist
(n.): an impulsive person, ruled by his humors or moods
impale
(v.): to fence in, to stockade
in fine
: in the end, eventually
jealous
(adj.): suspicious; also jealous in modern sense
lay by the heels
: to imprison or put in irons
lugged
(v.): burdened or encumbered
maintain
(v.): to defend
mariner
(n.): an experienced seaman, above a common sailor
marish
(n.): marsh
match
(n.): the fuse of a musket
meadow
(n.): a low marsh
methinks
(v.): I think, I believe
middest
(adj.) midst, midmost, middle
misdoubt
(v.): to disbeileve
murrey
(adj.): purplish-red color
natural
(n.): native person
offer
(v.): attempt, try to
pace
(n.): a passage through woods between bogs
pallisado
(n.): a defensive wad or palisade
patent
(n.): a charter or legal document issued by the king of England granting permission to establish a settlement in the New World
pennywhittle
(n.): a small knife
piece
(n.): gun
plant
(v.): to estabdsh a settlement or colony
planter
(n.): a colonist or settler
popham side
(n.): north or north bank of a river (From the fact that "Virginia," as the English called the East Coast, was divided between two British joint-stock companies. These were the Plymouth Company to the north, the area now known as New England, headed
by Lord Popham, and the London Company to the south, headed by Lord Salisbury.)
presently
(adv.): quickly
pretend
(v.): to intend
prevent
(v.): anticipate
privates
(n.): favorites or close friends
privities
(n.): one's private parts
pumpion
(n.): pumpkin
putchamin
(n.): persimmon
relade
(v.): reload
resolution
(n.): decision
Salisbury
side
(n.): south or south bank of a river
salvage
(n.): native person, savage
season
(v.): to grow accustomed to; used to describe the "seasoning" of the colonists, the period when many died as they tried to adapt to Virginia throughout the seasons
scape
(n.): escape
shamefast
(adj.): modest
so that
: as long as
sound
(n.): swoon
stay
(v.): to delay, to defer
still
(adv.): always
subtle
(adj.): cunning, sneaky
target
(n.): a light, round shield
taxed
(v.): urged or ordered
temporize
(v.): to negotiate, "wheel and deal"
touchwood
(n.): tinder
treat
(v.): to negotiate
trencher
(n.): a platter of wood or metal
trial
(n.): investigation
trucking
(n.): trading
Tuftaffaty
(adj.): finely dressed
tug
(v.): to lug off or carry
victual
(n.): food
want
(n.): lack
watchet
(adj.): sky-blue color
wheat
(n.): Indian corn or any food grain
woosel
(n.): blackbird

The language spoken by Pocahontas and her people is today referred to as Powhatan. It is an Algonquin language closely related to other Indian languages of the East Coast such as Lenape, Wampanoag, Mohegan, and Abenaki. Sadly, much of the Powhatan language has been lost, and it has not been in regular use for two centuries. Word lists were made by such people as John Smith and other colonists during the seventeenth century. A number of those words have, in slightly different form, entered the English language and are not recognized by most people as derived from Powhatan words. These include
arakun,
which became "raccoon";
apone
or
ponepope,
which became "corn pone";
muscascus,
which became "muskrat"; and, it seems, even
waugh,
which became "wow."