The Indian Massacre in Virginia

No sooner had Captain Smith departed from the Jamestown colony than all order and subordination ceased. His energy and good sense had alone held the reckless colonists in check, and they quickly consumed all their provisions, and provoked the hostility of the Indians, who refused to furnish them with supplies. Famine succeeded. Within six months, vice, anarchy, and starvation reduced the colony from four hundred and ninety to sixty persons, and these so feeble and miserable that had not relief come all must soon have perished. This period was long remembered under the name of the starving time.

Soon after, Sir Thomas Gates arrived, but without supplies, and as the only escape from starvation he took the surviving colonists on his ships and set sail for Newfoundland. Fortunately, when they reached the mouth of the river they met Lord Delaware, who had been sent out as governor of the colony, with supplies and emigrants. The colonists were induced to return, and order and contentment were soon regained under the wise management of the new governor. Shortly afterwards seven hundred more men arrived, and the land, which had been held in common, was divided among the colonists, much to the advancement of agriculture. In 1613 occurred the marriage of John Rolfe, a young Englishman, with Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, an event which improved the relations between the colonists and the Indians. Pocahontas was taken to England in 1616, and died in 1617, leaving one son, from whom are descended some of the most respectable families in Virginia. In 1613, Captain Argall sailed from Virginia for the purpose of protecting the English fishermen on the coast of Maine. He broke up a settlement which the French had made on Mt. Desert Island, near the Penobscot, reduced the French settlement at Port Royal, in Acadia, and entered the harbor of New York, where he compelled the Dutch traders to acknowledge the sovereignty of England. The effect of the last two operations, however, continued only till the disappearance of his ship. In 1615 the colonists went eagerly into tobacco-culture, which soon became a mania; the culture of corn and other grain being so neglected as to threaten renewed scarcity. In 1617 it is said that the yards, the market square, and the very streets of Jamestown were full of the plants of this new article of commerce, to which the soil and climate of Virginia proved well adapted. In 1617, Captain Argall was made governor, and at once established a system of strict military rule which, in time, became almost a reign of terror. He was removed in 1619, and Sir George Yeardly sent out, under whose administration the colony flourished. In 1619 a representative body was organized, and met in Jamestown, where it adopted a colonial constitution. This was the first legislative action in America, and the first step towards American liberty. In the succeeding year (1620) a Dutch man-of-war sailed up the James and landed twenty negroes, who were quickly sold to the colonists. A happier introduction than this of African slavery was effected the same year, in the sending over of ninety young women, who were also sold to the colonists - as wives; the price paid for each being one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco. Sixty others were soon after sent, and the price rose to one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco.

But the Virginian colonists were now to pass through a danger as threatening as that of the "starving time." The death of Powhatan had removed their best friend among the Indians. The rapid increase of the colonists, and the spread of their settlements, alarmed the savages, who, in 1622, formed a conspiracy to destroy the whole colony. The story of this thrilling event we extract from Howison's "History of Virginia."]

SINCE the marriage of Pocahontas with John Rolfe, the Indians had preserved the most peaceful relations with the settlers, and hopes were entertained that permanent friendship would be established between them. The dominion of Powhatan had descended to his brother Opitchapan, a feeble and decrepit chieftain, who was neither dreaded by the whites nor respected by his own subjects. But there was one mind among the natives which now exercised all the sway of superior genius and courage. Opecancanough has heretofore been mentioned. It is doubtful whether he was in any manner related to Powhatan, though he is often spoken of as his brother. Among the Indians and some of the whites prevailed a belief that he came from a tribe far in the southwest, perhaps from the interior of Mexico. But in talents and influence he was now the ruling power among the savages. Profound in dissimulation, cruel by nature and habit, patient of suffering, skilled in every species of treachery, and possessed of a ready eloquence, always at his command, he soon gained over the minds of his inferiors an ascendency as resistless as it was dangerous.