The Indian Massacre in Virginia: Jamestown
The English had become careless and unsuspecting. Believing the natives to be their friends, they admitted them freely to their houses, sometimes supplied them with arms, employed them in hunting and fishing for their families, and in all respects treated them as faithful allies. As habits of industry and steady labor gained ground, the colonists relaxed their martial discipline. The plough was a more useful implement than the musket, and the sword had given place to the hoe and the pickaxe. Seduced by the present tranquillity, and by the fertile soil found in belts of land upon all the rivers running into the bay, they had extended their settlements until they were now nearly eighty in number and spread in scattered plantations over a space of several hundred miles. They were lulled into complete security by the demeanor of the natives, and those who were most zealous for religion were beginning to hope that the seeds of the truth were taking root in many untutored minds, and would, after a season, produce fruits of joy and peace. Some were not thus sanguine; and among those who looked with most suspicion upon the Indians we mark the name of Jonas Stockam, a minister, who has left on record an open acknowledgment of his distrust. His strong common sense, his knowledge of human nature, and his observations upon the natives around him, all confirmed his belief that they were yet highly dangerous, and that until their priests and "ancients" were destroyed no hope of their conversion need be entertained. But his warnings, and slight proofs of enmity in the savages, were alike disregarded. The colonists remained immersed in unruffled security.
In the mean time Opecancanough was preparing the actors in his infernal drama. Either in person or by his emissaries, he visited all the tribes composing the confederacy over which Powhatan had held dominion. He roused them to revenge; represented their wrongs; wrought their passions to intensity by mingled promises of blood and of rapine; pointed to the defenceless state of the colonists, and established a complete organization for the work of death..The savages of Virginia were now embodied for their fatal purpose, and awaited but the signal from their leader to fall upon the unsuspecting colonists.
On Friday, the 22d day of March (1622), the tragedy began. So perfect was the confidence of the settlers that they loaned the savages their boats to cross the rivers for their deadly purpose; many of them even came in to take the morning meal with the whites, and brought deer, turkeys, fish, and fruits, which they offered for sale in the usual manner. But at mid-day the scene of blood was opened. Instantly, and as if by magic, the savages appeared at every point, and fell upon their victims with the weapons which first presented themselves. Neither age nor sex was spared. The tender infant was snatched from the mother to be butchered before her eyes; wives were left weltering in blood in the presence of their husbands; men helpless from age, or wholly without defence, were stricken down ere they could see the foe who assailed them. In one morning three hundred and forty-nine settlers were slain upon the several plantations. The murderers were lashed into frenzied excitement by their own passions; and, not content with the work of death, they mutilated the corpses in a manner so revolting that the original recorders of this massacre shrink from the task of describing them.
It is remarkable that wherever resistance was made to these fiends it was entirely successful. Too cruel to be brave, they fled from the first vigorous onset; and had the colonists received one hour's warning, no life would have been lost that was not dearly atoned for. An old soldier who had served under John Smith, although surrounded by Indians and severely wounded, clove the skull of one assailant with a single stroke of an axe, and the rest instantly took to flight. A Mr. Baldwin, whose wife was lying before his eyes, profusely bleeding from many wounds, by one well-directed discharge drove a crowd of murderers from his house. Several small parties of settlers obtained a few muskets from a ship that happened to be lying in the stream near their plantations, and with these they routed the savages in every direction and dispersed them in great alarm.
Jamestown was saved through information given by a young Indian convert. Preparations for defence were hastily made, and the savages did not venture an assault.
The immediate effects of this blow upon the colony were most disastrous. Horror and consternation pervaded every mind; nearly one-fourth of their whole number had, in a single hour, been stricken down. The rest were hastily drawn together around Jamestown. Distant plantations were abandoned, and in a short time eighty settlements were reduced to six. Some few bold spirits (and among them a woman) refused to obey the order, and remained in their country-seats, among their servants, mounting cannon at weak points, and preparing to meet the treacherous foe with becoming courage. But they were compelled by law to abandon their strongholds and to unite their resources in the common fund.