MA EDITORIALS & By THOS. E. WATSON The Story of the South and West (Copyright by Thos. E. Watson, 1911.) CHAPTER IX. AY I devote another chapter to the Red Men? They deserve it. A more fascinating subject would be difficult to find. Thomas Jefferson came under the spell of it, as did Fenimore Cooper. John Esten Cooke, Sam Houston and hundreds of other Caucasian statesmen and authors. Was there ever a robust American schoolboy who did not long for a bow-and-arrow? We used to run the three words into one, you remember, and speak of the "bow'narrer." Was there ever a full-sexed lad who did not "thrill" over stories of Indian fights? Lord! how much genuine pleasure we used to get out of the dime-novels that told us of the blood-curdling adventures of the white hunters and trappers of the West. We became intimately acquainted with "Prairie Pete," "Pawnee Bill," Kit Carson, Dan-. iel Boone, and Big-Foot Wallace. We followed "The Pathfinder," and prieved with "The Last of the Mohicans." Our sympathies were strongly with these Children of the Forest, who kept the original white settlers from starving; and whose kindness was repaid by such cruel ingratitude. We felt intensely ashamed of the barbarous treatment of such Indian chiefs as Massasoit, King Philip, Red Jacket, Logan, Osceola, and Corn Tassel. We couldn't help admiring Tecumseh and Big Warrior and Pontiac. They were great men, great soldiers; and they were fighting for wife and child and native land. Deep down in our hearts, we believe that our dealings with this native race has been one long record of broken faith, ruthless disregard of natural rights, and murder prompted by sordid motives. The Indians have seldom violated a treaty; our Government has seldom observed one. The perfidious and shameless rape that was committed on Columbia, when we robbed her of the Panama Canal Zone, is an excellent illustration of how we have wronged the Red Tribes. More than 200 years ago, Mr. Jefferson published his Notes on Virginia, a work of which the world took little notice then, and of which slight notice is taken now. Nevertheless, it is much more valuable than those collected "Letters" which fill so many volumes. In the "Notes," he devotes much space to the Virginia Indians; and after de scribing their customs, characteris tics, and form of government, he gives a list of the tribes which were not extinct at the time he was writing the book. (1786.) Of the Mattaponies, he said that only three or four men were left, and that even these had "more negro than Indian blood in them." He adds this surprising detail: "They have lost their language.' They had sold off their land until they had only 50 acres left. "The Pamunkies are reduced to about 10 or 12 men, tolerably pure from mixture with other colors. The older ones among them preserve their language, in a small degree, which are the last vestiges on earth, so far as we know, of the Powhatan language." He proceeds to describe their location as being about 300 acres of land, on Pamunkey river, very fertile, and so encompassed by water that a gate shuts in the whole." This means, of course, that they owned a bend in the river, which was so narrow, at the land outlet, that a gate could close the gap-the river almost running back into it self. (There are 800 acres in the bend, instead of 300.) With pleasure you will learn that the Pamunkies still exist; and that their home is on the same river-bend which Mr. Jefferson described, in 1786. They now number about 125 men, women and children, of pure Indian blood. They live in comfortable, modern cottages; the women and children make beautiful crops, on the same soil that their ancestors were cultivating when our forefathers first landed. hunters and fishermen on the Atlantic coast. They hire negroes for what work their women cannot do; and they never allow a negro to remain on the reservation at night. They reject with scorn the proposal of black men to intermarry into the tribe; and they rarely permit one of their women to wed a white man. Their laws are few and simple; publie profanity is forbidden; and slander is severely punished. They have lost their language, and speak English. There is a school-house, where a white teacher gives every boy and girl an Eng lish education. (Poor things! I wonder why they don't have some Solomon Samson teach 'em Latin and Greek, and physiology and geometry and astronomy and algebra and other useful, practical, indispensable knowledge.) My dear friends, the Socialists, will yell for joy when I state the fact that the Pamunkies still adhere to the communal ownership of land. Their fathers before them had it, they have it, and their children will have it. Apparently, the system works as satisfactorily today as it did in the time of Powhatan and Pocahontas. Each man's farm is alloted to him by the head men of the tribe; but the produce grown on it, is his own property. Only the land is held in common; personalty, of all kinds, belongs to the individual. Each male, 18 years old, and upwards, pays a dollar a year, toward defraying the cost of government. Twenty-five dollars a year is all it costs. Let us hope none of our town and city grafters will ever intrude The men of the tribe are the best upon that idyllic situation! Until recently, the chief held his office by inheritance; but, for some reason, the tribe changed this, and he is now elected by ballot. Two Two candidates are put up, numbered "1" and "2." Number 1 is voted for with grains of corn; number 2, with beans. The highest vote decides. They have not yet learned how to stuff the ballot-box, or to physic the returns. The land is held under a state grant; but the State very seldom has to meddle with the tribe. They keep the peace, maintain good order, and bother nobody. Annually, they present to the Governor of Virginia a brace of duck, a wild turkey, or a deer. This is done regularly and ceremoniously-much as the yearly banner, or peppercorn, is presented to the King of England by some Duke whose title reaches back to feudal times, and feudal fiefs. Because slave traders stole some of their children, to sell to Southern planters, the Pamunkies took sides with the North during the Civil War; and, as scouts, must have been of great service to the Union army. It is said that there has been many a bloody fight, at the gate across the outlet, when lawless white men sought to enter the reservation. With desperate courage, the Indians resisted the would-be robbers; and, in each instance, the Red Men drove the marauders away. By the bye, it is a historic fact that the typical savage of North America, the Pequods, the Iroquois, the IIuron the Comanche, the Sioux, the Creek and the Seminole was a splendid fighting man. Generally, they whipped the whites, when con ditions and numbers were anywhere near equal. Their language lost, their ancient style of dress abandoned, their tepees supplemented by the white man's cottage, the Pamunkies yet preserve their traditions. At least one of them, they celebrate every year-the rescue of Captain John Smith by Pocahontas. As the Passion play of the Danube illustrates the crucifixion of Christ, so the pantomine on the Pamunkey exhibits the old emperor, Powhatan; the warriors with their clubs; the captive prone upon the ground, with his head on the stone, and the Indian maiden who is the angel of deliverance. If I could tell you when this annual commemoration of the SmithPocahontas story was first begun, you would have a clearer conception of its value to history. Unfortunately, it is not in my power to give you the information. This may be as good place as any, to discuss the story itself, for everyone is familiar with it, and few have rejected it. At the time chapters 8 and 9 of this series were written, the narrative of Captain John Smith was not in my possess ion. The historians seem to be unanimously of the opinion that the incident happened; but the very reasoning which John Fiske and John Esten Cooke used in support of the tradition, aroused my doubts. This being so the original narrative of Smith himself became indispensable. Judge of my utter astonishment at learning from this highest and best evidence that Smith's life was in no peril when he went before Powhatan; that he was received as an honored, welcome guest; that the old Emperor was exceedingly kind to him; that he was assured he would be liberated in four days; that he was sumptuously feasted; that the wives of Powhatan washed his hands in the royal basin and wiped them on the royal feathers! According to Captain John Smith he and the Emperor were, from the very first, as chummy as possible, and regaled each other by exchanging knowledge and experience. Pocahontas is not mentioned at all. It is not a case of omitting an incident; it is a case of contradiction. If Smith's narrative of 1608 isn't a tissue of falsehoods there was no occasion for Pocahontas to save him from death. Some years previous to the landing of the Jamestown colony, a party of white men had gone into the Pamunkey region-from a ship, necessarily—and had killed a chief and carried off twenty odd Indians. Now, when Captain John Smith and his men rowed up the Chickahominy, the Indians feared another raid. Because of this, they killed one of the men Smith left in the boat; and captured Smith himself. They treated him well, and he himself states that the only attempt on his life was made by the father of one of the warriors whom he had shot in the swamp. The guards pre vented the grief-stricken vengeful old man from killing the Captain. As Smith was careful to relate this incident, how can any one believe that he would have failed to picture the more dramatic scene alleged to have occurred in Powhatan's "palace?" As soon chief in that region-was told, by those who had seen the leader of the kidnapping band, that Smith was not the man, he was treated with generous hospitality. So urgently was he pressed to eat more and more of their rich and varied food, that he became suspicious. Thought they wanted to fatten him up so that he would be good eating for them. Opecancannough took Captain Smith to his brother, Powhatan, who was then at Werowocomoco. After having been cordially greeted, and handsomely entertained, the valiant. Captain was given an escort to Jamestown. Not only does Captain Smith express lively appreciation of the manner in which Powhatan received him, lavished attentions upon him, and sent him away laden with food; not only is nothing whatever said of Pocahontas and the alleged narrow escape from death; not only does Smith positively assert that his captors (even before their suspicions that he was the kidnapper had been removed) protected his life from the Indian who wanted to revenge the killing of his son; but the narrative of one of these original colonists (F. Studley), written in 1608 is equally inconsistent with the alleged rescue of Smith by the Indian princess. Studley's narrative mentions such incidents as that the preacher got very sick; and that they stopped for water in the Canary Islands. He refers to Captain Smith's venture on the Chickahominy, but says nothing of Pocahontas. The story first appears, so far as I can discover, in the narrative of as Opecancannough- Anas Todkill, which was written in 1612. It was Todkill, apparently, who invented the story that Captain Smith was "saved" twice, on that one trip. He was saved the first time by exhibiting a mariner's compass, supplemented by a lecture on astronomy. How it was that Smith and these Indians could so readily hold lengthy conversations, is nowhere explained. Having delivered his hero from death, while he was in the power of Opecancannough, the worthy Anas thought it necessary to save him again, when he came into the power of Powhatan. Why the compass had lost its talismanic virtue, we are not told. By 1612, Anas Todkill knew Pocahontas well as the old Emperor's favorite child; by 1612, the worthy Anas had learned the Indian custom of giving a prisoner to any woman that wanted him. Throughout his narrative, Anas invents lengthy speeches-Smith to the Indians, and the Indians to Smithwhich he pretends to have heard and to have reproduced, word for word, years after they were made. Being of that inventive turn, Anas may have created the Smith-Pocahontas fable. At all events, the narrative of Captain Smith, if true, absolutely explodes the story. Read carefully what he himself wrote at the time. I have put his words in modern spelling but have not changed a syllable. "But within a quarter of an hour I heard a loud cry, and a halloaing of Indians, but no warning peace. Supposing them surprised, and that the Indians had betrayed us, pres ently I seized him and bound his arm fast to my hand in a garter, with my pistol ready bent to be revenged on him; he advised me to fly, and seemed ignorant of what was done. But as we went discoursing, I was struck with an arrow on the right thigh, but without harm; upon this occasion I espied two Indians drawing their bows, which I prevented in discharging a French pistol. By that I had charged again, three or four more did the like; for the first fell down and fled; at my discharge, they did the like. My hinde (Indian) I made my barricade, who offered not to strike. Twenty or thirty arrows were shot at me but short. Three or four times I had discharged my pistol ere the king of Pamaunck called Opeckankenough with 200 men, environed me, each drawing their bow; which done they laid themselves upon the ground, but without shooting. My hinde treated betwixt me and them of conditions of peace; he discovered me to be the Captain; my request was to retire to the boat; they demanded my arms, the rest they said were slain, only me they they would reserve. The Indian importuned me not to shoot. In retiring being in the midst of a low quagmire, and minding them more than my steps, I stepped fast into the quagmire, and also the Indian in drawing me forth. Thus surprised, I resolved to try their mercies; my arms I cast from me, till which none durst approach me. Being seized on me, they drew me out and led me to the king. I presented him with a compass dial, de |