The Beginner's American History Part 4

41. Captain Smith goes in search of the Pacific; he is captured by Indians.--After that first long, hot summer was over, some of the settlers wished to explore the country and see if they could not find a short way through to the Pacific Ocean. Captain Smith led the expedition. The Indians attacked them, killed three of the men, and took the captain prisoner. To amuse the Indians, Smith showed them his pocket compa.s.s. When the savages saw that the needle always pointed toward the north they were greatly astonished, and instead of killing their prisoner they decided to take him to their chief.

This chief was named Powhatan.[4] He was a tall, grim-looking old man, and he hated the settlers at Jamestown, because he believed that they had come to steal the land from the Indians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POCKET COMPa.s.s.]

[Footnote 4: Powhatan (Pow-ha-tan').]

42. Smith's life is saved by Pocahontas;[5] her marriage to John Rolfe.[6]--Smith was dragged into the chief's wigwam; his head was laid on a large, flat stone, and a tall savage with a big club stood ready to dash out his brains. Just as Powhatan was about to cry "strike!" his daughter Pocahontas, a girl of twelve or thirteen, ran up, and, putting her arms round the prisoner's head, she laid her own head on his--now let the Indian with his uplifted club strike if he dare.[7]

Instead of being angry with his daughter, Powhatan promised her that he would spare Smith's life. When an Indian made such a promise as that he kept it, so the captain knew that his head was safe. Powhatan released his prisoner and soon sent him back to Jamestown, and Pocahontas, followed by a number of Indians, carried to the settlers presents of corn and venison.

Some years after this the Indian maiden married John Rolfe, an Englishman who had come to Virginia. They went to London, and Pocahontas died not far from that city. She left a son; from that son came some noted Virginians. One of them was John Randolph. He was a famous man in his day, and he always spoke with pride of the Indian princess, as he called her.

[Footnote 5: Pocahontas (Po-ka-hon'tas).]

[Footnote 6: Rolfe (Rolf).]

[Footnote 7: On Pocahontas, see List of Books at the end of this book.]

43. Captain Smith is made governor of Jamestown; the gold-diggers; "Corn, or your life."--More emigrants came over from England, and Captain Smith was now made governor of Jamestown. Some of the emigrants found some glittering earth which they thought was gold.

Soon nearly every one was hard at work digging it. Smith laughed at them; but they insisted on loading a s.h.i.+p with the worthless stuff and sending it to London. That was the last that was heard of it.

The people had wasted their time digging this s.h.i.+ning dirt when they should have been hoeing their gardens. Soon they began to be in great want of food. The captain started off with a party of men to buy corn of the Indians. The Indians contrived a cunning plot to kill the whole party. Smith luckily found it out; seizing the chief by the hair, he pressed the muzzle of a pistol against his heart and gave him his choice,--"Corn, or your life!" He got the corn, and plenty of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CORN, OR YOUR LIFE!"]

44. "He who will not work shall not eat."--Captain Smith then set part of the men to planting corn, so that they might raise what they needed. The rest of the settlers he took with him into the woods to chop down trees and saw them into boards to send to England. Many tried to escape from this labor; but Smith said, Men who are able to dig for gold are able to chop; then he made this rule: "He who will not work shall not eat." Rather than lose his dinner, the laziest man now took his axe and set off for the woods.

45. Captain Smith's cold-water cure.--But though the choppers worked, they grumbled. They liked to see the chips fly and to hear the great trees "thunder as they fell," but the axe-handles raised blisters on their fingers. These blisters made the men swear, so that often one would hear an oath for every stroke of the axe. Smith said the swearing must be stopped. He had each man's oaths set down in a book.

When the day's work was done, every offender was called up; his oaths were counted; then he was told to hold up his right hand, and a can of cold water was poured down his sleeve for each oath. This new style of water cure did wonders; in a short time not an oath was heard: it was just chop, chop, chop, and the madder the men got, the more the chips would fly.

46. Captain Smith meets with an accident and goes back to England; his return to America; his death.--Captain Smith had not been governor very long when he met with a terrible accident. He was out in a boat, and a bag of gunpowder he had with him exploded. He was so badly hurt that he had to go back to England to get proper treatment for his wounds.

He returned to America a number of years later, explored the coast north of Virginia, and gave it the name of New England, but he never went back to Jamestown again. He died in London, and was buried in a famous old church in that city.[8]

[Footnote 8: The church of St. Sepulchre: it is not very far from St. Paul's Cathedral.]

47. What Captain Smith did for Virginia.--Captain John Smith was in Virginia less than three years, yet in that short time he did a great deal. First, he saved the settlers from starving, by making the Indians sell them corn. Next, by his courage, he saved them from the attacks of the savages. Lastly, he taught them how to work. Had it not been for him the people of Jamestown would probably have lost all heart and gone back to England. He insisted on their staying, and so, through him, the English got their first real foothold in America. But this was not all; he wrote two books on Virginia, describing the soil, the trees, the animals, and the Indians. He also made some excellent maps of Virginia and of New England. These books and maps taught the English people many things about this country, and helped those who wished to emigrate. For these reasons Captain Smith has rightfully been called the "Father of Virginia."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SETTLER'S LOG CABIN.]

48. Negro slaves sent to Virginia; tobacco.--About ten years after Captain Smith left Jamestown, the commander of a Dutch s.h.i.+p brought a number of negro slaves to Virginia (1619), and sold them to the settlers. That was the beginning of slavery in this country. Later, when other English settlements had been made, they bought slaves, and so, after a time, every settlement north as well as south owned more or less negroes. The people of Virginia employed most of their slaves in raising tobacco. They sold this in England, and, as it generally brought a good price, many of the planters[9] became quite rich.

[Footnote 9: Planter: a person who owns a plantation or large farm at the South; it is cultivated by laborers living on it; once these laborers were generally negro slaves.]

49. Bacon's war against Governor Berkeley;[10] Jamestown burned.--Long after Captain Smith was in his grave, Sir William Berkeley was made governor of Virginia by the king of England. He treated the people very badly. At last a young planter named Bacon raised a small army and marched against the governor, who was in Jamestown. The governor, finding that he had few friends to fight for him, made haste to get out of the place. Bacon then entered it with his men; but as he knew that, if necessary, the king would send soldiers from England to aid the governor in getting it back, he set fire to the place and burned it. It was never built up again, and so only a crumbling church-tower and a few gravestones can now be seen where Jamestown once stood. Those ruins mark the first English town settled in America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BURNING OF JAMESTOWN.]

[Footnote 10: Berkeley (Berk'li).]

50. What happened later in Virginia; the Revolution; Was.h.i.+ngton; four presidents.--But though Jamestown was destroyed, Virginia kept growing in strength and wealth. What was better still, the country grew in the number of its great men. The king of England continued to rule America until, in 1776, the people of Virginia demanded that independence should be declared. The great war of the Revolution overthrew the king's power and made us free. The military leader of that war was a Virginia planter named George Was.h.i.+ngton.

After we had gained the victory and peace was made, we chose presidents to govern the country. Four out of six of our first presidents, beginning with Was.h.i.+ngton, came from Virginia. For this reason that state has sometimes been called the "Mother of Presidents."

51. Summary.--In 1607 Captain John Smith, with others, made the first lasting settlement built up by Englishmen in America. Through Captain Smith's energy and courage, Jamestown, Virginia, took firm root. Virginia was the first state to demand the independence of America, and Was.h.i.+ngton, who was a Virginian, led the war of the Revolution by which that independence was gained.

What can you tell about Captain John Smith before he went to Virginia?

What happened to him on his way to Virginia? What is said about the landing of the settlers in Virginia? What did they want to do? What did Captain Smith want to do? What about Captain Smith's trial? What is said about the church in Jamestown? What happened to the settlers?

What did some of them try to do? Who stopped them? Tell what you can about the Indians. What kind of houses did they live in? Did they have guns? Did they have iron hatchets and knives? Did they have horses and wagons? What kind of boats did they have? What happened to Captain Smith when he went in search of the Pacific? What did Pocahontas do? What is said about her afterward? What about the gold-diggers? How did Captain Smith get corn? What did he make the settlers do? What is said about Captain Smith's cold-water cure? Why did Captain Smith go back to England? What three things did he do for Virginia? What about his books and maps? What is said of negro slaves? What about tobacco? What about Governor Berkeley and Mr.

Bacon? What happened to Jamestown? What did the war of the Revolution do? Who was its great military leader? Why is Virginia sometimes called the "Mother of Presidents"?

CAPTAIN HENRY HUDSON (Voyages from 1607 to 1611).

52. Captain Hudson tries to find a northwest pa.s.sage to China and the Indies.--When Captain John Smith sailed for Virginia, he left a friend, named Henry Hudson, in London, who had the name of being one of the best sea-captains in England.

While Smith was in Jamestown, a company of London merchants sent out Captain Hudson to try to discover a pa.s.sage to China and the Indies.

When he left England, he sailed to the northwest, hoping that he could find a way open to the Pacific across the North Pole or not far below it.

If he found such a pa.s.sage, he knew that it would be much shorter than a voyage round the globe further south; because, as any one can see, it is not nearly so far round the top of an apple, near the stem, as it is round the middle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing how Captain Hudson hoped to reach Asia by sailing northwest from England.]

Hudson could not find the pa.s.sage he was looking for; but he saw mountains of ice, and he went nearer to the North Pole than any one had ever done before.

53. The Dutch hire Captain Hudson; he sails for America.--The Dutch people in Holland had heard of Hudson's voyage, and a company of merchants of that country hired the brave sailor to see if he could find a pa.s.sage to Asia by sailing to the northeast.

He set out from the port of Amsterdam,[1] in 1609, in a vessel named the _Half Moon_. After he had gone quite a long distance, the sailors got so tired of seeing nothing but fog and ice that they refused to go any further.

Then Captain Hudson turned his s.h.i.+p about and sailed for the coast of North America. He did that because his friend, Captain Smith of Virginia, had sent him a letter, with a map, which made him think that he could find such a pa.s.sage as he wanted north of Chesapeake Bay.

[Footnote 1: See map in paragraph 62.]