The Lives & Legacy of Extraordinary Women. Kate Dickinson Sweetser
the early fall her first wish was granted, for Captain Smith with some friends came to Pow-ha-tan's village to invite that chief to go with them to the white man's town of Jamestown to be crowned by the English people as king of the Pow-ha-tan tribe. The Captain had not forgotten the twelve-year old Indian princess and had brought her a necklace of coral beads and bracelets set with red stones, and in thanks she led ten other girls of her own age in an Indian dance before the Captain and his friends, a graceful dance about a fire in the forest to the accompaniment of gay Indian songs and the music of the Indian drum. By now Po-ca-hun-tas and Captain Smith had become great friends, and Pow-ha-tan, watching them with his shrewd eyes, decided that if he should ever need to ask a favor of the white settlers this little daughter of his might prove the best of messengers to send.
It was only a few weeks afterward that some of Pow-ha-tan's braves were made prisoners by the settlers through fear that a conspiracy was being planned against them. The old chief sent his daughter with Ra-bun-ta to Jamestown, and she begged the Captain to free the captive braves. Like Pow-ha-tan John Smith knew when to be gracious, and he at once gave orders for the release of the Indians. Then he entertained Po-ca-hun-tas as though she were a royal princess. She met the white girls and boys who lived at Jamestown and learned their games, teaching them in exchange the sports of the Algonquin children. One day when Captain Smith came into the market-place square he found his young guest leading a line of boys who were turning handsprings. A crowd had gathered to watch them go round and round the square in a great circle, the Indian princess at the head, turning better wheels than any of the boys. She had such a good time that she came again and again, sometimes on matters of business with Ra-bun-ta, sometimes with her brother Nun-ta-qua-us, and sometimes with her girl friends. With each visit her admiration for Captain John Smith increased.
Those were times when there was little real safety for either Indians or white men. The settlers were far too often greedy and selfish, taking land as they pleased, regardless of the fact that it had belonged to other men for generations, and breaking their agreements with the Indians as though a promise given to a redskin was of no value. What the settlers wanted they tried to get by hook or crook, and so the Indians soon came to distrust, and then to fear and hate them. Certain discontented men in Jamestown also were planning to rid the colony of its strong governor Captain Smith, and conspired with restless Indians to capture and kill him when he was unprepared. Some of these Indians were of the Algonquin tribe, and one day Po-ca-hun-tas, stealing silently through the woods, came upon a meeting of them and overheard their plans.
This was in midwinter of the year 1609. Provisions had run low in Jamestown and the settlers were almost starving. Captain Smith, trusting to the old friendship of Pow-ha-tan, left the colony and journeyed through the forest to Wero-woco-moco. There he met Pow-ha-tan and made a treaty with him, by which he was to receive a supply of corn to carry back to the settlement with him. The chief said it would take him several days to collect the provisions, and so the Captain pitched his camp in the woods by the York River to wait until the promised corn was sent out to him. But meantime certain braves had come to Pow-ha-tan and shown him how easy it would be to deal the pale-faces a serious blow by killing their leader and letting the people suffer for supplies. Pow-ha-tan listened, considered how much harm the white men had already done his Algonquins, and at last nodded his head. None of those seated at the council-fire knew that the sharp-eared Po-ca-hun-tas was hiding close behind one of the deerskin curtains that hung at her bedroom door.
The braves ceased their conference and scattered for the night. Then the girl stole out from her room and glided down the passageway to the door. There was no moon and she could cross the open space about the houses without observation. She slipped into the forest, and with scarcely a crackle of twigs to mark her progress over the dead leaves she made her way in and out through the trees, following the trail to the camp on the river with the sure instinct born and bred in her.
Now and then she would stop and listen or glance up through the bare branches at the star-strewn sky. Then she would turn and steal on again, fleet-footed as a deer. So she covered several miles and came near the river. She stopped to listen and then stepped on again. Soon she caught the light of a camp-fire shining through the trees.
She stood behind the trunk of a giant oak and looked at the little camp before her. At the fire sat a man, his gun resting across his arms. Near him lay a dozen other men, wrapped in blankets and apparently asleep. She knew the man on watch was Captain Smith.
She took a step forward and a dry twig crackled ever so little under her tread. The Captain turned like the wind, his gun raised in defense. "Wake up!" he cried. "Watch! I heard a noise!"
The girl took another step, holding up her hands. "It is I, Po-ca-hun-tas," she said. "I come alone to speak with you."
The Captain lowered his gun. "Come, Po-ca-hun-tas," he answered. "You are always welcome."
She stepped into the clearing, and the men, glad to find only one girl where they had feared to see a line of savage Indians, sank back on the ground.
"What would you say to me, Po-ca-hun-tas?" asked the Captain, extending his hand in welcome to her. "I hope you have come to tell me that the corn and the good cheer will soon be here."
She took his hand and stood very close to him. "Be guarded, oh, my father," she answered. "The corn and the good cheer will come just as they have been promised to you, but even now my father, chief of the Pow-ha-tans, is gathering all his power to fall upon you and your men here and kill you. If you would live, get you away from these woods at once."
"Is it so?" said the Captain. "Then, men, we must be up and off before the twigs crack again. How can I thank you, Po-ca-hun-tas, for this warning?" He thought of the Indian's love of presents and put his hand in the pocket of his coat, but there was nothing there. Then his eyes fell on the small compass which hung from a chain at his neck. It was very valuable to him, but he wanted to show the girl his appreciation of the greatness of her service. He took it from his neck and held it out to her. "My daughter," said he, "three times you have come to me in Jamestown to warn me of dangers that waited for me, and now again you have saved my life, coming alone, and at risk of your own young life through the lonely woods and in this gloomy night to warn me. Take this present, I pray you, from me, and let it always speak to you of the love for you of Captain Smith."
All Indians looked upon the compass, or "path-teller" as they called it, as an instrument of magic, and as Po-ca-hun-tas saw this present gleaming in the Captain's hand she would have liked to own it. But she shook her head.
"No, no, Cau-co-rouse," said she, using the Indian word for "Great Captain." "I must not take it. If it should be seen by my tribesmen, or even by my father, the chief, I should be as but dead to them, for they would know that I had warned you whom they have sworn to kill, and so they would kill me too. Stay not to parley, my father, but be gone at once."
"It is well we should," agreed the Captain, and he gave orders to his men to prepare for the march at once.
"Good-bye," said Po-ca-hun-tas, giving him her hand again, after the fashion of the white people.
"Good-bye, my daughter," he answered. "May we soon meet again when there will be no danger in the meeting."
Po-ca-hun-tas slipped away into the forest as silently as she had come, and threaded her way safely home to her own "long house." No one knew she had been out of bed. When the Algonquin braves, in war paint, reached the bank of the York River they found only the embers of a camp-fire to show that the white men had waited for them there.
Pocahontas
From the only authentic portrait
Captain Smith got safely back to Jamestown, but he found many of his own people discontented, and soon afterward, tired out by the continual difficulties that beset him in Virginia, he gave up his position there and sailed back to England. Po-ca-hun-tas heard the news and decided that she had better keep away from Jamestown now that the settlers were hostile to her father and her great protector was gone. Troubles were increasing between the Indians and the white men, and neither trusted the others any more.
When