Jamestown
In historians' accounts of the first months at Jamestown, too much, perhaps, has been made of faction and quarrel. All this was there. Men set down in a wilderness, amid Virginian heat, men, mostly young, of the active rather than the reflective type, men uncompanioned by women and children, men beset with dangers and sufferings that were soon to tag heavily their courage and patience--such men naturally quarreled and made up, quarreled again and again made up, darkly suspected each the other, as they darkly suspected the forest and the Indian; then, need of friendship dominating, embraced each the other, felt the fascination of the forest, and trusted the Indian. However much they suspected rebellion, treacheries, and desertions, they practiced fidelities, though to varying degrees, and there was in each man's breast more or less of courage and good intent. They were prone to call one another villain, but actual villainy--save as jealousy, suspicion, and hatred are villainy--seems rarely to have been present. Even one who was judged a villain and shot for his villainy seems hardly to have deserved such fate. Jamestown peninsula turned out to be feverous; fantastic hopes were matched by strange fears; there were homesickness, incompatibilities, unfamiliar food and water and air, class differences in small space, some petty tyrannies, and very certain dangers. The worst summer heat was not yet, and the fort was building. Trees must be felled, cabins raised, a field cleared for planting, fishing and hunting carried on. And some lading, some first fruits, must go back in the ships. No gold or rubies being as yet found, they would send instead cedar and sassafras--hard work enough, there at Jamestown, in the Virginian low-country, with May warm as northern midsummer, and all the air charged with vapor from the heated river, with exhalations from the rank forest, from the many marshes.
| The first night of our landing, about
midnight, there came some Savages sayling close to our
quarter; presently there was an alarm given; upon that the
savages ran away . . . . Not long after there came two Savages
that seemed to be Commanders, bravely dressed, with Crownes of
coloured haire upon their heads, which came as Messengers from
the Werowance of Paspihe, telling us that their Werowance was
comming and would be merry with us with a fat Deere. The
eighteenth day the Werowance of Paspihe came himselfe to our
quarter, with one hundred Savages armed which guarded him in
very warlike manner with Bowes and Arrowes. Some misunderstanding arose. The Werowance, [seeing] us take to our armes, went suddenly away with all his company in great anger. The nineteenth day Percy with several others going into the woods back of the peninsula met with a narrow path traced through the forest. Pursuing it, they came to an Indian village. We Stayed there a while and had of them strawberries and other thinges . .. . One of the Savages brought us on the way to the Woodside where there was a Garden of Tobacco and other fruits and herbes; he gathered Tobacco and distributed to every one of us, so wee departed. Percy's Discourse |
It is evident that neither race yet knew if it was to be war or
peace. What the white man thought and came to think of the Native
American has been set down often enough; there is scantier testimony
as to what was the Native American's opinion of the white man. Here
imagination must be called upon.
Newport's instructions from the London Council included exploration
before he should leave the colonists and bring the three ships back
to England. Now, with the pinnace and a score of men, among whom was
John Smith, he went sixty miles up the river to where the flow is
broken by a world of boulders and islets, to the hills crowned today
by Richmond, capital of Virginia. The first adventurers called these
rapid and whirling waters the Falls of the Farre West. To their
notion they must lie at least half-way across the breadth of
America. Misled by Indian stories, they believed and wrote that five
or six days' march from the Falls of the Farre West, even through
the thick forest, would bring them to the South Sea. The Falls of
the Farre West, where at Richmond the James goes with a roaring
sound around tree-crowned islet--it is strange to think that they
once marked our frontier! How that frontier has been pushed westward
is a romance indeed. And still, today, it is but a five or six days'
journey to that South Sea sought by those early Virginians. The only
condition for us is that we shall board a train. Tomorrow, with the
airship, the South Sea may come nearer yet!
The Indians of this part of the earth were of the great Algonquin
family, and the tribes with which the colonists had now to do were
drawn, probably by a polity based on blood ties, into a loose
confederation within the larger mass. Newport was "told that the
name of the river was Powhatan, the name of the chief
Powhatan, and the name of the people
Powhatans." But it seemed that the chief Powhatan was not at
this village but at another and a larger place named Werowocomoco,
on a second great river in the back country to the north and east of
Jamestown. Newport and his men were "well entreated" by the Indians.
"But yet," says Percy, "the Savages murmured at our planting in the
Countrie."
The party did not tarry up the river. Back came their boat through
the bright weather, between the verdurous banks, all green and
flower-tinted save where might be seen the brown of Indian clearings
with bark-covered huts and thin, up-curling blue smoke. Before them
once more rose Jamestown, palisaded now, and riding before it the
three ships. And here there barked an English dog, and here were
Englishmen to welcome Englishmen. Both parties had news to tell, but
the town had most. On the 26th of May, Indians had made an attack
four hundred of them with the Werowance of Paspihe. One Englishman
had been killed, a number wounded. Four of the Council had each man
his wound.
|
Palisade A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or
wall of variable height, used as a defensive structure. Source: Wikipedia |
Newport must now lift anchor and sail away to England. He left at
Jamestown a fort "having three Bulwarkes at every corner like a
halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in
them," a street or two of reed-thatched cabins, a church to match, a
storehouse, a market-place and drill ground, and about all a stout
palisade with a gate upon the river side. He left corn sown and
springing high, and some food in the storehouse. And he left a
hundred Englishmen who had now tasted of the country fare and might
reasonably fear no worse chance than had yet befallen. Newport
promised to return in twenty weeks with full supplies.
John Smith says that his enemies, chief amongst whom was Wingfield,
would have sent him with Newport to England, there to stand trial
for attempted mutiny, whereupon he demanded a trial in Virginia, and
got it and was fully cleared. He now takes his place in the Council,
beforetime denied him. He has good words only for Robert Hunt, the
chaplain, who, he says, went from one to the other with the best of
counsel. Were they not all here in the wilderness together, with the
savages hovering about them like the Philistines about the Jews of
old? How should the English live, unless among themselves they lived
in amity? So for the moment factions were reconciled, and all went
to church to partake of the Holy Communion.
Newport sailed, having in the holds of his ships sassafras and
valuable woods but no gold to meet the London Council's hopes, nor
any certain news of the South Sea. In due time he reached England,
and in due time he turned and came again to Virginia. But long was
the sailing to and fro between the daughter country and the mother
country and the lading and unlading at either shore. It was seven
months before Newport came again.
While he sails, and while England-in-America watches for him
longingly, look for a moment at the attitude of Spain, falling old
in the procession of world-powers, but yet with grip and cunning
left. Spain misliked that English New World venture. She wished to
keep these seas for her own; only, with waning energies, she could
not always enforce what she conceived to be her right. By now there
was seen to be much clay indeed in the image. Philip the Second was
dead; and Philip the Third, an indolent king, lived in the Escurial.
Pedro de Zuniga is the Spanish Ambassador to the English Court. He
has orders from Philip to keep him informed, and this he does, and
from time to time suggests remedies. He writes of Newport and the
First Supply. "Sire. .. . Captain Newport makes haste to return with
some people--and there have combined merchants and other persons who
desire to establish themselves there; because it appears to them the
most suitable place that they have discovered for privateering and
making attacks upon the merchant fleets of Your Majesty. Your
Majesty will command to see whether they will be allowed to remain
there . . . . They are in a great state of excitement about that
place, and very much afraid lest Your Majesty should drive them out
of it .. . . And there are so many . . . who speak already of
sending people to that country, that it is advisable not to be too
slow; because they will soon be found there with large numbers of
people." (Brown's Genesis of the United States, vol. 1, pp.
116-118.) In Spain the Council of State takes action upon Zuniga's
communications and closes a report to the King with these words:
"The actual taking possession will be to drive out of Virginia all
who are there now, before they are reenforced, and .. . . it will be
well to issue orders that the small fleet stationed to the windward,
which for so many years has been in state of preparation, should be
instantly made ready and forthwith proceed to drive out all who are
now in Virginia, since their small numbers will make this an easy
task, and this will suffice to prevent them from again coming to
that place." Upon this is made a Royal note: "Let such measures be
taken in this business as may now and hereafter appear proper."
It would seem that there was cause indeed for watching down the
river by that small, small town that was all of the United States!
But there follows a Spanish memorandum. "The driving out . . . by
the fleet stationed to the windward will be postponed for a long
time because delay will be caused by getting it ready." (Op. cit.,
vol. 1, p. 127.) Delay followed delay, and old Spain--conquistador
Spain --grew older, and the speech on Jamestown Island is still
English.
Christopher Newport was gone; no ships--the last refuges, the last
possibilities for hometurning, should the earth grow too hard and
the sky too black--rode upon the river before the fort. Here was the
summer heat. A heavy breath rose from immemorial marshes, from the
ancient floor of the forest. When clouds gathered and storms burst,
they amazed the heart with their fearful thunderings and lightnings.
The colonists had no well, but drank from the river, and at neither
high nor low tide found the water wholesome. While the ships were
here they had help of ship stores, but now they must subsist upon
the grain that they had in the storehouse, now scant and poor
enough. They might fish and hunt, but against such resources stood
fever and inexperience and weakness, and in the woods the lurking
savages. The heat grew greater, the water worse, the food less.
Sickness began. Work became toil. Men pined from homesickness, then,
coming together, quarreled with a weak violence, then dropped away
again into corners and sat listlessly with hanging heads.
| The sixth of August there died John
Asbie of the bloodie Flixe. The ninth day died George Flowre
of the swelling. The tenth day died William Bruster gentleman,
of a wound given by the Savages .... The fourteenth day Jerome
Alikock, Ancient, died of a wound, the same day Francis
Mid-winter, Edward Moris, Corporall, died suddenly. The
fifteenth day their died Edward Browne and Stephen Galthrope.
The sixteenth day their died Thomas Gower gentleman. The
seventeenth day their died Thomas Mounslie. The eighteenth day
theer died Robert Pennington and John Martine gentlemen. The
nineteenth day died Drue Piggase gentleman. The two and twentieth day of August there died Captain Bartholomew Gosnold one of our Councell, he was honourably buried having all the Ordnance in the Fort shot off, with many vollies of small shot .... The foure and twentieth day died Edward Harrington and George Walker and were buried the same day. The six and twentieth day died Kenelme Throgmortine. The seven and twentieth day died William Roods. The eight and twentieth day died Thomas Stoodie, Cape Merchant. The fourth day of September died Thomas Jacob,Sergeant. The fifth day there died Benjamin Beast . . . . Percy's Discourse. |
Extreme misery makes men blind, unjust, and weak of judgment. Here
was gross wretchedness, and the colonists proceeded to blame A and B
and C, lost all together in the wilderness. It was this councilor or
that councilor, this ambitious one or that one, this or that almost
certainly ascertained traitor! Wanting to steal the pinnace, the one
craft left by Newport, wanting to steal away in the pinnace and
leave the mass--small enough mass now!--without boat or raft or
straw to cling to, made the favorite accusation. Upon this count,
early in September, Wingfield was deposed from the presidency.
Ratcliffe succeeded him, but presently Ratcliffe fared no better.
One councilor fared worse, for George Kendall, accused of plotting
mutiny and pinnace stealing, was given trial, found guilty, and
shot.
| The eighteenth day [of September] died
one Ellis Kinistone . . .. The same day at night died one
Richard Simmons. The nineteenth day there died one Thomas
Mouton . . .
Percy's Discourse. |
What went on, in Virginia, in the Indian mind, can only be conjectured. As little as the white mind could it foresee the trend of events or the ultimate outcome of present policy. There was exhibited a see-saw policy, or perhaps no policy at all, only the emotional fit as it came hot or cold. The friendly act trod upon the hostile, the hostile upon the friendly. Through the miserable summer the hostile was uppermost; then with the autumn appeared the friendly mood, fortunate enough for "the most feeble wretches" at Jamestown. Indians came laden with maize and venison. The heat was a thing of the past; cool and bracing weather appeared; and with it great flocks of wild fowl, "swans, geese, ducks and cranes." Famine vanished, sickness decreased. The dead were dead. Of the hundred and four persons left by Newport less than fifty had survived. But these may be thought of as indeed seasoned.
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