The Story of American History Part 3

=32. How Pocahontas saved Captain John's Life.=--At last Captain John was sent to the great chief Powhatan, and by him was held captive during several weeks. These Indians, too, he amused with his compa.s.s and his writing; but after a while they grew tired of him, and Powhatan concluded to kill him.

So one day they gathered around the victim; he was stretched on the ground, his head was placed on a stone, and all was ready. A savage was just raising his club for the fatal blow, when forth rushed the bright young Pocahontas, the pet daughter of the old chief. Throwing her arms around Smith's neck, she turned her face to her father and begged him to spare the captive's life. "Kill _me_," she cried; "kill _me_; you shall not kill _him_!" It seems that Smith had been improving his time in making whistles and rattles and strings of beads and sh.e.l.ls for the Indian girl, and so had won her affection; and she in return saved his life! Indian chiefs do not often indulge in pity; but for the sake of his beloved daughter Powhatan released Smith and soon after let him go back to Jamestown. Such is the story of his romantic rescue as Captain John told it years afterwards. While there is nothing improbable about it, yet some people believe that he invented the story to magnify his own importance.

=33. The Romantic Story of Pocahontas.=--Pocahontas was at this time only about twelve years of age. Ever afterward she continued to be very friendly to the colonists, and often visited them at Jamestown, sometimes bringing baskets of corn to the hungry white men. Once the faithful girl came stealthily by night long miles through the dark forests to inform Smith of an Indian plot to murder all the whites.

As Pocahontas grew up, one of the young Englishmen, John Rolfe, became much attached to her. He said he had had a marvelous vision telling him that he ought to make her a Christian and marry her. That was nothing so very wonderful, for then as now tender-hearted youths often dreamed at night of what they were thinking of by day. In 1613, in the rude little church at Jamestown, Pocahontas gave up her Indian religion, accepted the Christian faith, and was baptized. She took the name Rebecca. The next year she was married to Rolfe. This romantic marriage was very fortunate for the colony, for it made her father, Powhatan, a warm friend to the feeble settlers, who at this time were in sore need of help.

=34. The Indian Princess receives a Warm Welcome in London.=--Three years afterwards the fair Indian girl, "Lady Rebecca," went with her husband to England, where of course she attracted a great deal of attention. The people came in crowds to see her. They cheered as she rode through the streets of London.

Pocahontas became a great favorite with the n.o.bility, and was even received at court by the queen. But, for all that, she soon became homesick. Even amid the splendid novelties of London life, she longed to be once more among the n.o.ble forests and the lovely wild flowers of her old Virginia home. It was in the year 1617 that she prepared, with many pleasing antic.i.p.ations, to return to the scenes of her childhood. But she suddenly sickened and, after a brief illness, died. She was only twenty-two years old. She left an infant son who came eventually to Virginia, and there grew to a worthy manhood. Many excellent families of Virginia are today proud to claim him as their ancestor.

=35. The Troubles of the Colonists increase.=--When Captain Smith, after his romantic rescue, returned to the colonists, he found them in a pitiful condition. During his absence the prospect had become in every way gloomy. Hunger and sickness had reduced their number from over a hundred men to only forty, and these were planning to go back to England.

At this distressing time another vessel arrived from England bringing one hundred and twenty immigrants. This event brightened the darkly drooping spirits of the colonists. But the suns.h.i.+ne did not last long.

These new-comers, like the old, were mostly idlers and "vagabond gentlemen," as the settlers called them. "We did not come here to work,"

they said. "Then you shall not eat," said the brusque leader. He was as good as his word. They soon found they must work or starve.

=36. The Greed of the Colonists for Gold.=--One trouble that annoyed Captain Smith very much was this: the English people kept urging the colonists to send home gold. Those that arrived later, like those that came before, had no idea of working for a living, but only the hope of shoveling up gold to carry away.

They were so ignorant of minerals that, finding in the soil small yellow scales of s.h.i.+ning mica, they sent home bushels and bushels of it, believing it to be gold. Another group of men supposed the little glittering crystals of iron ore were really gold, and they spent weeks in collecting the worthless stuff to send to England. No wonder Captain Smith, although the leader of the colony, had hard work to manage and feed men who would far rather dig "fool's gold" than raise corn.

=37. The Starving Time in Virginia.=--All this happened while Smith was using the utmost wisdom and skill to guide the colony for the best. On one unhappy day a bag of gunpowder exploded near him, burning him so badly that he had to return to England for surgical treatment. This was in September, 1609. After he had gone, the colonists fell into still greater trouble, and the "starving time" followed. The people were compelled to eat dogs, rats, snakes, and toads; many died of starvation; four hundred and ninety men were reduced to sixty; but, by the fortunate arrival of more vessels, help finally came.

Within the next few years the colony was set upon its feet, and the foundations laid of a prosperous commonwealth. An energetic governor, Sir Thomas Dale, made the idlers till the ground and promptly hanged the criminals. The soil was found the best in the world for growing tobacco.

Hundreds of skilled farmers came over to Virginia to make their fortunes by the cultivation of this fragrant weed.

=38. Further Explorations along the Coast.=--Having at length recovered from his wound, Smith scorned to remain idle, and became anxious to undertake another maritime enterprise. There was at that time a great deal of excitement in England about _North_ Virginia, then so called. In 1614 he sailed again with two vessels on a voyage of discovery in that region.

He touched first the sh.o.r.es of Maine, the nooks and corners of which he explored; he then sailed along the ocean fringe from Pen.o.bscot Bay to Cape Cod. He examined the coast carefully, entered the bays and rivers, and named a number of prominent islands and capes. He sailed around Cape Ann. To the three islands off the end of the cape he gave the queer name of Three Turks' Heads. He prepared very carefully a map of the whole country, as far as he had seen it, and he called it NEW ENGLAND.

On his return to England Smith presented his map to the king's son, Prince Charles, who confirmed the name that had been given to it. Next year he started out again. His object was to found a colony in New England, a region of which he had great hopes. But his vessel was captured by a French man-of-war, and he was taken to France. With a return of good fortune this hero of surprising deeds escaped, and finally got back safely to England.

=39. His Last Days; the "Father of Virginia."=--Our bold explorer now gave up all plans of founding another colony in America. But he lived to know and rejoice in the success of the Pilgrims and the Puritans in Ma.s.sachusetts. He wrote several books describing his travels and his wonderful adventures.

He had shown himself vigorous, quick-witted, far-seeing. He had been the ruling spirit and the preserver of the Virginia colony. In fact, he has often and justly been called the "Father of Virginia." His strong hand had also opened wide the door of New England.

We must think of Captain John Smith as the hero of the first struggle of English civilization with the wilderness of America. Wherever he was, his genius and resolute will had made him a leader. There was never a braver man. After a life full of romantic adventures and daring exploits, he died in London in 1631 at the age of fifty-two.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STORY OF THE PILGRIMS.

=40. The Old-Time Idea about Kings.=--We shall do well to remember that in England, about three hundred years ago, the sovereign's will commonly had the force of law. Many people really thought there was such sacredness about a royal ruler that whatever he commanded must be right, whatever he forbade must be wrong. Indeed, there was a proverb, "The king can do no wrong." He had his own kind of church and his own mode of wors.h.i.+p. Everybody must attend that sort of church and practise that form of wors.h.i.+p, or be punished.

=41. St.u.r.dy Englishmen dare to disobey the King.=--But there were, after all, many honest, st.u.r.dy people in England who did not accept this notion about the king. They did not like his style of religion, and they would not pretend to like it. Besides, they felt that they had a right to meet quietly by themselves, publicly in their own churches, or privately in their own homes, and wors.h.i.+p in their own way.

But these people were regarded with suspicion. Presently a number of them were seized and thrown into loathsome jails; not a few were heavily fined or made to suffer bodily harm; some died on the gallows; and all this because, in spiritual affairs, they had dared to disobey the monarch.

=42. The Pilgrims seek a Home in Holland; the First Attempt a Failure.=--Those who were brave enough to oppose the king's despotism in religious matters were at first styled Separatists, because they separated from the "established church." Afterwards some of them came to be called familiarly Pilgrims, because they wandered from place to place on the way "to heaven, their dearest country," as they said. They longed to go where they could be free to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as they pleased.

At last a company of them hired a vessel to take them just across the North Sea to Holland. They chose Holland, because in that country all people were allowed to wors.h.i.+p as they thought best.

But just before the hour at which they had intended to embark, watchful officers found them, seized most of their money and goods, dragged them back, and put them in prison. It was indeed a pretty hard lot, punished if they stayed in the country, and punished if they tried to get away!

=43. The Second Attempt Successful.=--The next year the Pilgrims again tried to leave their native land. This time they succeeded. Taking their wives and little ones, these resolute men, led by their pastor, the good John Robinson, went as strangers and pilgrims to Holland. From time to time the same refuge was sought by other persecuted people, till many hundreds had settled in the old city of Leyden. Here they first exercised that freedom of faith which had been denied them in the land of their birth, and now they first experienced the delight of holding their religious meetings without fear.

They were so industrious and honest that their Dutch neighbors took very kindly to them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PILGRIM COLONIST.]

But when they had lived in Holland about twelve years, they decided to remain no longer. Their children were learning the Dutch language, and they themselves were slowly becoming foreigners. They were not pleased with such results, for they still regarded themselves as Englishmen, still loved the English people, the English ways of living, and the glorious memories of their mother country.

About this time people were beginning to go to the New World beyond the ocean, and these Pilgrims made up their minds to leave Holland and seek a dwelling place in far-off America.

There were then about a thousand of them living in Holland. Nearly a hundred of the young and strong were selected to go in advance and make a beginning in the New World. They managed to charter for this purpose two small vessels, the Speedwell and the Mayflower. In July, 1620, the Speedwell sailed from Delftshaven; the Mayflower was chartered to sail from an English port.

A very pathetic parting it was for these poor exiles upon the sh.o.r.e of Holland, clasping their friends' hands for the last time, and looking upon the dear faces they were to see no more. With their beloved minister, Elder John Robinson, they knelt upon the sand while he prayed earnestly for G.o.d's blessing upon their perilous undertaking. The Pilgrims stopped at Plymouth, England, on the way, and as the Speedwell seemed to be unseaworthy, they all, with others of the same faith who joined the company there, went on board the Mayflower. In this one vessel, after many delays, the one hundred and two people that finally made up the Pilgrim company sailed from Plymouth in September, 1620, on their long and dangerous voyage.

=44. The Pilgrims' Voyage across the Stormy Atlantic.=--Crowded upon their little craft, this devoted company of men, women, and children had a dreary and anxious voyage of nine weeks. During severe weather the seas sometimes ran so high that for days the Mayflower was driven at the mercy of wind and waves, while all of the company, except the sailors, were compelled to remain, s.h.i.+vering and seasick, below the deck. In the foul air were bred the germs of quick consumption, the disease which carried off so many of this "Pilgrim band" during their first winter on the wild New England sh.o.r.e.

=45. An Incident of the Voyage.=--During one of these storms a lively young man named Howland fell overboard and would have been lost had he not seized a rope which was trailing in the sea. Bradford quaintly says in his journal that the young fellow "was sundry fathoms under water,"

but that he held on until "he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water," and with the aid of a boat-hook was at last safely landed on deck. Howland was none the worse for his cold bath. He lived to sign the compact at Cape Cod, and became a most useful citizen of the new commonwealth, and the ancestor of many families.

=46. Arrival on the Bleak New England Coast.=--How often, in the last days of that dismal voyage, did the Pilgrims gaze far into the west, always hopeful, but no doubt sometimes dreading the future! As the weeks pa.s.sed by, the weather became very cold, and they had scanty means for warming their cabin. When they neared the coast a driving storm compelled them to change their course, so that instead of going up the Hudson River as they had intended, they were forced into Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, as it is now called, and along the icy sh.o.r.es of Cape Cod.

All the coast was white with snow, and the future looked cheerless and dark. There were no light-houses to warn them of dangerous shoals, no life-saving men patrolling the beach to help s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners. No one stood on the barren sandy sh.o.r.e to welcome them; they felt that they were indeed strangers in a strange land.

=47. They sign a Compact in the Mayflower's Cabin.=--Inside the curved point of Cape Cod, in a small bay which is now the harbor of Provincetown, the Mayflower first dropped anchor. While there, John Carver and William Bradford wrote a formal agreement for the government of the company, and all of the forty-one men signed it.

This compact was drawn up and signed on a chest belonging to Elder Brewster, which afterwards served as a table in his family. During the first winter, when food was very scarce and the Pilgrims were obliged to live almost entirely upon clams, the good Elder never failed to ask a blessing upon their scanty meals, and to thank G.o.d, "who had yet given them of the treasures hid in the sand."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PILGRIM ELDER ASKING A BLESSING.]

By the compact it was agreed that all were to have equal rights. They pledged themselves to help and to defend each other, and to obey such laws as they might make for the good of the colony. They then chose John Carver for their first governor.

=48. They explore the Cape Cod Sh.o.r.e under the Lead of Captain Miles Standish.=--A small party soon landed and tramped along for miles looking for a suitable place to make a home. They could nowhere find good drinking water. For three or four weeks the Mayflower with its precious cargo sailed along the inner coast, trying to find a safe and inviting harbor. Small parties often went ash.o.r.e to explore the country.

One day a company of sixteen, led by Captain Standish, went ash.o.r.e to spend a number of days exploring a little way inland. This Captain Standish, although one of the company, was not really a Pilgrim in his way of living, nor in his religious views. His business was that of a soldier, an employment more common then than now. He had met some of the Pilgrims in Holland and was much pleased with their simple habits and honest ways. When they were preparing to sail to the New World, he thought it likely that they would need a soldier to show them how to fight. So he came with them, and they soon were glad to have just such a man. It was indeed well he did come, for he was often the most useful member of the whole colony.

While the Mayflower lay at anchor in Provincetown harbor, and the explorers were searching for a landing-place, a baby boy--the first New England child of English parentage--was born on board of the vessel.

They gave him the quaint name of Peregrine. At Plymouth you may still see the cradle in which little Peregrine White was rocked.

=49. Their Travels along the Sh.o.r.e of Cape Cod Bay, and what they find.=--They discovered the remains of a hut which seemed to have been recently occupied. So they surmised that Indians were living somewhere in the vicinity. They came upon some piles of roasted acorns, and the next day they caught a glimpse of a few savages and a deer. Soon afterwards they saw a dog and more Indians. "The wild men ran away and whistled the doggie after them." One day they discovered two or three mounds of earth. One of these contained rude mats and an earthen dish.

They dug into other mounds and unearthed the skeletons of a grown person and a child, a box containing Indian bows and arrows and spears with flint points.