The next day Captain Newport came ashore.The two monarchs exchanged presents.Newport gave Powhatan a white boy thirteen years old, named Thomas Savage.This boy remained with the Indians and served the colony many years as an interpreter.Powhatan gave Newport in return a bag of beans and an Indian named Namontack for his servant.
Three or four days they remained, feasting, dancing, and trading with the Indians.
In trade the wily savage was more than a match for Newport.He affected great dignity; it was unworthy such great werowances to dicker; it was not agreeable to his greatness in a peddling manner to trade for trifles; let the great Newport lay down his commodities all together, and Powhatan would take what he wished, and recompense him with a proper return.Smith, who knew the Indians and their ostentation, told Newport that the intention was to cheat him, but his interference was resented.The result justified Smith's suspicion.Newport received but four bushels of corn when he should have had twenty hogsheads.Smith then tried his hand at a trade.
With a few blue beads, which he represented as of a rare substance, the color of the skies, and worn by the greatest kings in the world, he so inflamed the desire of Powhatan that he was half mad to possess such strange jewels, and gave for them 200 to 300 bushels of corn, "and yet," says Smith, "parted good friends."At this time Powhatan, knowing that they desired to invade or explore Monacan, the country above the Falls, proposed an expedition, with men and boats, and "this faire tale had almost made Captain Newport undertake by this means to discover the South Sea," a project which the adventurers had always in mind.On this expedition they sojourned also with the King of Pamaunke.
Captain Newport returned to England on the 10th of April.Mr.
Scrivener and Captain Smith were now in fact the sustainers of the colony.They made short expeditions of exploration.Powhatan and other chiefs still professed friendship and sent presents, but the Indians grew more and more offensive, lurking about and stealing all they could lay hands on.Several of them were caught and confined in the fort, and, guarded, were conducted to the morning and evening prayers.By threats and slight torture, the captives were made to confess the hostile intentions of Powhatan and the other chiefs, which was to steal their weapons and then overpower the colony.
Rigorous measures were needed to keep the Indians in check, but the command from England not to offend the savages was so strict that Smith dared not chastise them as they deserved.The history of the colony all this spring of 1608 is one of labor and discontent, of constant annoyance from the Indians, and expectations of attacks.On the 20th of April, while they were hewing trees and setting corn, an alarm was given which sent them all to their arms.Fright was turned into joy by the sight of the Phoenix, with Captain Nelson and his company, who had been for three months detained in the West Indies, and given up for lost.
Being thus re-enforced, Smith and Scrivener desired to explore the country above the Falls, and got ready an expedition.But this, Martin, who was only intent upon loading the return ship with "his phantastical gold," opposed, and Nelson did not think he had authority to allow it, unless they would bind themselves to pay the hire of the ships.The project was therefore abandoned.The Indians continued their depredations.Messages daily passed between the fort and the Indians, and treachery was always expected.About this time the boy Thomas Savage was returned, with his chest and clothing.
The colony had now several of the Indians detained in the fort.At this point in the "True Relation " occurs the first mention of Pocahontas.Smith says: "Powhatan, understanding we detained certain Salvages, sent his daughter, a child of tenne years old, which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion much exceeded any of his people, but for wit and spirit, the only nonpareil of his country.' She was accompanied by his trusty messenger Rawhunt, a crafty and deformed savage, who assured Smith how much Powhatan loved and respected him and, that he should not doubt his kindness, had sen his child, whom he most esteemed, to see him, and a deer, and bread besides for a present; "desiring us that the boy might come again, which he loved exceedingly, his little daughter he had taught this lesson also: not taking notice at all of the Indians that had been prisoners three days, till that morning that she saw their fathers and friends come quietly and in good terms to entreat their liberty."Opechancanough (the King of "Pamauk") also sent asking the release of two that were his friends; and others, apparently with confidence in the whites, came begging for the release of the prisoners."In the afternoon they being gone, we guarded them [the prisoners] as before to the church, and after prayer gave them to Pocahuntas, the King's daughter, in regard to her father's kindness in sending her: after having well fed them, as all the time of their imprisonment, we gave them their bows, arrows, or what else they had, and with much content sent them packing; Pocahuntas, also, we requited with such trifles as contented her, to tell that we had used the Paspaheyans very kindly in so releasing them."This account would show that Pocahontas was a child of uncommon dignity and self-control for her age.In his letter to Queen Anne, written in 1616, he speaks of her as aged twelve or thirteen at the time of his captivity, several months before this visit to the fort.
