Chapter VIII

And what now of Smith in England? Neither in Plymouth nor in London did he succeed in getting backers to send him to New England although the Pilgrims studied his maps and books. He wanted to go along with them but he was considered too expensive and too headstrong a companion for such stern settlers. Again he poured out his enthusiasm into another book, for only his pen could keep busy, but that, like his tongue, was no lagger. The man himself remained unemployed and unimportant, for his betters had no idea of letting worth be as recognized as birth. What had he got for exploring and advising for New England?

He began to brood about what Virginia owed him for his risks and services. Land had been the only wages of the London Company and he was not in Virginia to stake his claims. In May 1621 he appealed to the company court and reminded them that he had risked money and peril of his life for the good of the Plantation. He had built up Jamestown, and had given five years of his life at great risk to establish Virginia, and he had spent five hundred pounds of his scant estate in the effort. Surely now he deserved remuneration either from the local treasury or from the general Virginia profit in England--but he got none. The London Company's affairs were not in good shape in either place and the massacre of 1622 made them worse. Incensed at this latest blow to his colony, Smith rashly volunteered to rush to their aid with a small army.

In all of his far-flung adventures there was nothing so satisfying to him as this colony which he had founded. Raleigh had named Virginia, while he had named New England, but Virginia was his first love, and he much preferred her sporting planters and adventurers to the pious and thrifty townsmen of New England. If there was a woman in his life, it was Virginia--not Pocahontas nor any other. Virginia had never got out of his blood. He dreamed of cementing the two coasts on one map, but this, like his every proposition, was turned down.

Rebuffed, he brought out a revised edition of his _New England's Trials_, and expressed his love of the American outpost eloquently, "I may call them my children for they have been my wife, hawks, my hounds, my dice and in total my best content, as indifferent to my heart as my left hand to my right." As a patroness for his handsome book _The General Historie_ in 1624, the Duchess of Richmond came to his aid.

Smith had important male backers of his literary works now, if not of explorations. When he wrote the _Seaman's Grammar_ in 1629, Sir Samuel Saltonstall was the backer. Among his friends was a collector and scientist whose house was called "Tradescant's Ark." If he had not been close to Smith how could his collection include Powhatan's discarded robe, Indian combs, rattles, bows and arrows, feathered crowns and tobacco pipes? Smith even willed him a fourth of his library.

Smith's _True Travels_ appeared in 1629, and the incredible tale of his adventures read well to Londoners who were disturbed with financial depression and with the plague besides.

In order to escape the plague Smith spent much time in the country near Essex in the hospitable home of Sir Humphrey Mildmay. Mildmay dubbed his wife "the old woman," and he often escaped his family with the boisterous and masculine Smith to roam his fields, to hunt, fish, dice and drink. His six children delighted in their tarrying visitor, but Smith often eluded the happy and hearty family to write history in his own room. The huge home had wings, and it was set in a shady grove from which he could see London, thirty miles away, on clear days. He did not tarry there indefinitely being sometimes impatient for London itself where he also had a room in Saltonstall's house.

Yes, he had patronizing friends, but he was alone in his frustrated hopes. He had been so far and done so much as a leader of men whether they admitted it or not, and as such he was a being apart. He had been so as an adolescent who had lost his father by death, his mother by marriage, who had quit school and master as well as home. As an adult he had left country, colony and yet another colony, and when he wanted them back they had not wanted him. Finally, he was lonely because he had risen above his class in society without ever feeling secure among his betters in spite of their hospitality to an entertaining explorer and literary notable. Smith was ever without a home of his own, if never without a hope.

As time went on while the hands of benevolent ladies helped him over hurdles, men were usually the ones beside him, if not back of him. He could visit for months at a time as at the Mildmay's or for years as at Saltonstall's.

It was at the latter house that he died suddenly at the age of fifty-one. He had made arrangements for a dignified burial, knowing that others would not make it what it should be--before history inevitably brought him into his own. Where Shakespeare willed arms, he, Smith, the hero of legends as well as the author of them, willed books--of which he had written many and read more. An epitaph in brass extolled his feats: the victory over the three Turks; and the claim, that he had "dispersed the heathen like smoke" and made their land "a habitation for a Christian nation." Because he was buried there, St. Sepulchre's would become a shrine even as St. George's has.

* * * * *

Regardless of the fact that Pocahontas married John Rolfe, the public unites her name rather with that of Smith. The three make up an integral triangle. Each lived briefly, but intensely, Pocahontas passing first in the springtime of her life. Rolfe had wanted to take care of her, giving her protection, and glory in both of their countries, and proud descendants. He was more than just her husband. The poet Stephen Vincent Benet puts it:

"You may think of him as Pocahontas' husband,
He was rather more than that and his seed still lives,
And we would do well to fence the small plot of garden,
Where, in hose and doublet, he planted the Indian weed."[1]

For all of his practical ability, fate allowed him neither to take care of her nor of himself. He met violent death at the hands of her people, dying in her country just as she had gone first in his, for neither was able to survive an alien way of life.

Although Smith adventured valiantly for God, and Rolfe persuaded himself that he had married the Indian maid to save her soul more than her heart, Pocahontas, the purer spirit, transcends both.

The spirit of Pocahontas broods yet on her own side of the great salt waters. Her dust rests out of place at St. George's Church on the Thames, even if it is named the "Chapel of Unity" for all faiths, because of her peaceable heart.

"Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a paw-paw in May ..." mused the poet Carl Sandburg. "Did she wonder? Does she remember ... in the dust, in the cool tombs?"[2] She lives, believed the poet Vachel Lindsay, in the waving corn, and in her spiritual descendants, the American people. She lives still in the blood of some Americans, but for longer in her poignant tale, whose true red hue has not paled through the years.

_Historical Background_

The story of the rescue of America's prime folk-hero, John Smith, by Pocahontas, America's most appealing heroine, fills such a patriotic need that it would have been fabricated had it been untrue. It passed for sure history for two hundred and thirty-six years, except for the feeble denial of Thomas Fuller in his _Worthies of England_.[1] Smith held his own word to be the first and last about history and himself. Yet now the howling squabble over his merits, never hushed in his time, flairs again after three centuries.

In 1860 Charles Deane of Massachusetts asked why Smith had concealed the story for sixteen years.[2] Henry Adams, while he bowed to Pocahontas as the most romantic figure in American history, and as the visiting celebrity of 1616 in England, stepped up to Deane's standard,[3] as did William Cullen Bryant and Sydney Howard Gay,[4] and the Southern scholar, Alexander Brown.[5]

But William Wirt Henry,[6] Mrs. Mary Newton Stanard,[7] and Lyon G. Tyler[8] remained fast friends of the cherished tale. Edward Arber, the most careful editor of Smith's work, accepts it.[9] John Fiske points out that the printed text of the _True Relation_ was incomplete for Smith had written much which his editor in London omitted as "fit to be printed."[10] Allan Nevins, in _The Gateway to History_, suggests that Smith may have told the story in 1608.[11] Mrs. Stanard[12] and William Wirt Henry[13] also stress this fact. Edward Channing assails the story[14] but Charles M. Andrews accepts it.[15] Many more writers contend that Smith may have deliberately kept the story dark in order that possible new colonists might not be frightened. The tale was not denied when it was told to Smith's contemporaries in 1624.

Many public school teachers have taken the middle ground that the story is almost indispensable and is probably true. Bradford Smith, whose biography of Captain John Smith is notable among a score on the subject, declares that there is not a scrap of evidence to disprove the narrative, and many reasons to establish it.[16] Without the story it would be hard to explain why Powhatan spared Smith since, according to Smith, two Indians had been killed.[17] It was customary for a chief's daughter to be allowed the life of a favorite captive. Juan Ortiz had been saved twice in this manner near Tampa, Florida, nearly a century before.

While Smith is considered a boastful liar by Alexander Brown and others, he still has not only reluctant admirers but fervent defenders among historians. Matthew Page Andrews admitted: "Than Smith there has been no more daring adventurer in English history."[18] Say Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins in _The Heritage of America_, a source history for Virginia's high schools: "He was a figure worthy of the English race which found in him the first great American representative.... Smith was worth all the others put together."[19]

The public has been inclined to couple the Indian maiden's name with that of John Smith, more than with that of John Rolfe. But this present author's point that Pocahontas did not know that Smith was still alive when she married Rolfe, and that she was still in love with Smith, is unusual. However, it is not original. It has been taken in some plays and short stories. William Wirt Henry's address before the Virginia Historical Society in 1882 and Samuel Purchas's _Pilgrimage_[20] suggest that Smith could have married her had he so desired. This book is presented as a probable story rather than as documented history.

THE POCAHONTAS-JOHN SMITH STORY is most stoutly defended not by historians, nor even patriotic societies, but by poets, dramatists, and idealistic youth, who think that it is theirs, and by descendants, who know that it is theirs. The line is utterly Virginian be it in blood or ink from the Pocahontas, who like Will Rogers's ancestors "met the boat" to the Pocahontas who wrote the book. And so I sign here

POCAHONTAS WIGHT EDMUNDS.

_Halifax, Virginia_,
_April, 1956._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Thomas Fuller, _The History of the Worthies of England_ (John
Nichols, ed.; London, 1811), I, 189.

[2] Charles Deane (ed.), "Edward Maria Wingfield, 'A Discourse of
Virginia,'" _Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian
Society_, IV (1860), 92-95n.

[3] Henry Adams, "Captaine John Smith, Sometime Governour in Virginia
and Admirall of New England," _Chapters of Erie and Other Essays_ by
Henry Adams and Charles F. Adams, Jr. (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Company,
1871), pp. 192-224.

[4] William Cullen Bryant and Sydney Howard Gay, _A Popular History of
the United States_ (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1885-1886),
I, 282-283.

[5] Alexander Brown, _The Genesis of the United States_ (Boston and
New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890), II, 1006-1010; _The First
Republic in America_ (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1898), pp. 56-57, 469n.

[6] William Wirt Henry, "The Settlement at Jamestown With Particular
Reference to the Late Attacks Upon Captain John Smith, Pocahontas and
John Rolfe," _Proceedings of the Virginia Historical Society at the
Annual Meeting, February 24, 1882_ (Richmond: 1882).

[7] Mary Newton Stanard, _The Story of Virginia's First Century_
(Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1928), p. 47.

[8] Lyon G. Tyler, _Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606-1625_ (New
York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1907), p. 28.

[9] Edward Arber (ed.), _Travels and Works of Captain John Smith_
(Edinburgh: J. Grant, 1910), I, xiv-xv.

[10] John Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her Neighbours_ (Boston and New
York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1897), I, 103-108.

[11] Allan Nevins, _The Gateway to History_ (New York: D.
Appleton-Century Co., 1938), pp. 139, 150.

[12] Stanard, _op. cit._, p. 48.

[13] Henry, _loc. cit._

[14] Edward Channing, _History of the United States_ (New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1925), I, 174.

[15] Charles M. Andrews, _The Colonial Period of American History_
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), I, 142n.

[16] Bradford Smith, _Captain John Smith, His Life and Legend_
(Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1953), p. 118.

[17] John Smith, "The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and
the Summer Isles, 1624," _Travels and Works of Captain John Smith_
(Edward Arber, ed.; Edinburgh: J. Grant, 1910), II, 395.

[18] Matthew Page Andrews, _Virginia, the Old Dominion_ (New York:
Doubleday, Doran, and Company, Inc., 1937), p. 42.

[19] Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins, (eds.), _The Heritage of
America_ (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1939), p. 23.

[20] Samuel Purchas, _Purchas His Pilgrimage_ (London: 1614), pp.
764-765.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Henry, "Captain John Smith, Sometime Governour in
Virginia and Admirall of New England," _Chapters of Erie and
Other Essays_ by Henry Adams and Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1871, pp. 192-224.

Andrews, Charles M., _The Colonial Period of American History_,
4 Vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934-1938.

Andrews, Matthew Page, _Virginia, the Old Dominion_. New York:
Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1937.

Arber, Edward (ed.), _Travels and Works of Captain John Smith_.
2 Vols. Edinburgh: J. Grant, 1910.

Benet, Stephen Vincent, _Western Star_. New York and Toronto:
Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1943.

Brown, Alexander, _The First Republic in America_. Boston and
New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898.

Brown, Alexander, _The Genesis of the United States_. 2 Vols.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890.

Brown, Alexander, _English Politics in Early Virginia History_.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1907.

Bryant, William Cullen, and Gay, Sydney Howard, _A Popular
History of the United States_. 4 Vols. New York: Scribner,
Armstrong and Company, 1885-1886.

Channing, Edward, _History of the United States_. 6 Vols. New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1921-1926.

Commager, Henry Steele, and Nevins, Allan (eds.), _The Heritage
of America_. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1939.

Davis, J. E., _Round About Jamestown_. Hampton, Va., 1907.

Deane, Charles (ed.), "Edward Maria Wingfield, A Discourse of
Virginia." _Transactions and Collections of the American
Antiquarian Society._ IV, 1860, 69-103.

Early, R. H., _Byways of Virginia History_. Richmond, Va.:
Everett Waddey, 1907.

Fiske, John, _Old Virginia and Her Neighbours_. 2 Vols. Boston
and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897.

Forman, Henry Chandler, _Jamestown and St. Mary's: Buried
Cities of Romance_. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press,
1938.

Fuller, Thomas, _The History of the Worthies of England_ (John
Nichols, ed.). 4 Vols. London: 1811.

Garnett, David, _Pocahontas_. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Co., 1933.

Goodwin, Rutherfoord, _A Brief History and Guidebook to
Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown_. Richmond, Va.: Cottrell
and Cook, Inc., 1930.

Gwathmey, John Hastings, _The Love Affairs of Captain John
Smith_. Richmond, Va.: Dietz, 1935.

Hatch, Charles A., _The Oldest Legislative Assembly in America
and its First State House_. National Park Service, Series:
History, No. 2.

Henry, William Wirt, "The Settlement at Jamestown, with
Particular Reference to the Late Attacks Upon Captain John
Smith, Pocahontas and John Rolfe." _Proceedings of the Virginia
Historical Society at the Annual Meeting, February 24, 1882._
Richmond, 1882.

Kester, Vaughan, _John O' Jamestown_. Indianapolis: Bobbs
Merrill, 1913.

Leighton, Margaret, _The Sword and the Compass_. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1951.

Marshall, Edison, _Great Smith_. New York: Farrar and Rinehart,
1943.

Nevins, Allan, _The Gateway to History_. New York: D.
Appleton-Century Company, 1938.

Page, Thos. Nelson, _Address_. Richmond, Va.: Whittet and
Shepperson, Printers, 1919.

Purchas, Samuel, _Purchas His Pilgrimage_. London, 1614.

Robertson, Wyndham, _Pocahontas and Her Descendants_. Richmond,
Va.: J. W. Randolph and English, 1887.

Rolfe, John, _A True Relation of the State of Virginia_. New
Haven: Yale Press, 1951.

Sandburg, Carl, _Complete Poems_. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1950. _Cornhuskers._ Henry Holt and Company, 1918.

Schlesinger, Arthur, _A History of American Life_. 12 Vols. New
York: The Macmillan and Company, 1927-1944.

Smith, Bradford, _Captain John Smith, His Life and Legend_.
Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1953.

Stanard, Mary Newton, _The Story of Virginia's First Century_.
Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1928.

Tyler, Lyon G., _Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606-1625_. New
York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1907.

Wayland, John W., _History of Virginia for Boys and Girls_. New
York: Macmillan and Company, 1938.

Wertenbaker, Thomas J., _The First Americans_. New York:
Macmillan and Company, 1927.

Willis, Carrie, and Saunders, Lucy S., _The Story of Virginia_.
New York, N. Y.: Newson, 1950.

_Comments on Biographies_

By MRS. EDMUNDS AND THE LATE H. J. ECKENRODE

Of Rutherford B. Hayes, first volume of Dodd, Mead and Company's _American Political Leaders_. New York, 1930:

"If the series maintains the standard of this first volume it
will be a landmark in American letters and scholarship. An
excellent book, interesting and convincing, sane and balanced."
JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS, Editor of _Dictionary of American Biography_.

"A fascinating biography, scholarly, brilliant, entertaining
and illuminating."
CLAUDE BOWERS, Noted Historian and Ambassador.

"She contributed several of the early chapters which are
sprightly and engrossing."
VIRGINIUS DABNEY, Editor and Author.

Of E. H. Harriman, _The Little Giant of Wall Street_, Greenberg. New York, 1933:

"Mrs. Edmunds and Dr. Eckenrode have the gift of breathing life
into those they treat and I particularly like their force of
style."
ALLAN NEVINS, Noted Historian.

"Excellent capitalist lore":
Review in the _World Telegram_.

Of Mrs. Edmunds, _Legends of the North Carolina Coast_, Garrett and Massie. Richmond, Va., 1941:

"Mrs. Edmunds's style is good."
DUBOSE HEYWARD, Author of _Porgy_.

"Charming book ... written with poetic fervor, brief and
evocative."
_New York Herald-Tribune Book Review._

"Written with craftsmanship and genuine artistry."
_The Atlanta Journal._

"Written with lyrical beauty and a fine sense of selection."
_Greensboro News._

"Interesting new book...."
DOUGLAS FREEMAN, Editor and Author.

Of Mrs. Edmunds, _Tales of the Virginia Coast_, Dietz Press. Richmond, Va., 1950:

"A fine and useful piece of writing."
LAURA KREY, Author of: _And Tell of Time_.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from
the original.

Obvious typographical errors in the original have been corrected as
follows:

Page 15: "sportmens'" changed to "sportsmen's"
Page 18: "cooly" changed to "coolly"
Page 37: "fastidously" changed to "fastidiously"
Page 68: "(Boston: J. R. Osgood & Company, 18713" changed to
"(Boston: J. R. Osgood & Company, 1871)"
Page 70: "Refgrence" changed to "Reference"

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

Footnote anchors exist on page 64, but no footnotes exist in the
original.

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

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