Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We landed, dragging the canoes into a covert of overhanging bushes and fastening them there; then struck through the pines toward the rising ground, and presently came to a large village, with many long huts, and a great central lodge where dwelt the emperors when they came to Uttamussac. It was vacant now, Opechancanough being no man knew where.
Meanwhile, Pocahontas had died, in 1617, aged about twenty-two, just when leaving England for a visit home. His elder brother O-pi-tchi-pan became head sachem of the Powatan league. He was not of high character like the great chief's. Now Opechancanough soon sprang to the front, as champion of the nation.
Sir William had ruled over Virginia at intervals for many years. It was he who took old Opechancanough prisoner after the massacre of 1643. In 1676 he was again governor of the colony.
He coldly surveyed the people who had crowded into the room to watch him die. He managed to raise himself a little. "Send in to me the governor," he demanded angrily. Governor Berkeley entered. "It is time," rebuked old Opechancanough. "For had it been my fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I should not have exposed him as a show to my people."
John Smith Stevens participated in the Indian war in 1644, and saw Opechancanough, at this time almost a hundred years of age, captured and brought to Jamestown, where he requested his captors to hold open his eyes, that he might see and upbraid Sir William Berkeley for making a public exhibition of him. A short hour afterward the aged chieftain was treacherously wounded by his guard.
At length Opechancanough, the chief, pleased to find that he had a brave man for captive, bade them cease, and food was brought forth for Smith and his captors. While they were in this village two interesting examples of the simplicity of Indian thought took place. Smith wrote a message to Jamestown, the settlement of the whites, sending it by one of the Indians, and receiving an answer.
"You were wont to speak plainly, Nantauquas," I answered him. "I am not fond of riddles." Again he waited, as though he found speech difficult. I stared at him in amazement, he was so changed in so short a time. He spoke at last: "When the dance is over, and the fires are low, and the sunrise is at hand, then will Opechancanough come to you to bid you farewell.
A few months before his arrival, the Assembly had authorized settlement both on the north side of the York and in the Rappahannock area, if it could be done in great enough force. Opechancanough was to be offered fifty barrels of corn a year for the area between the York and the Piankatank, although the English proposed to take the area whether Opechancanough accepted the offer or not.
It was a black, black deed, but so Opechancanough had planned. Treachery was his only strength. This spring a guerilla warfare was waged by both sides. Blood-hounds were trained to trail the Indians. Mastiffs were trained to pull them down. But the colonists needed crops; without planted fields they would starve. The governor proposed a peace, that both parties might plant their corn.
Opechancanough is at hand; he comes through the forest with his two hundred warriors that are as tall as Susquehannocks, and as brave as the children of Wahunsonacock. He comes to the temples to pray to Kiwassa for a great hunting. Will you, when you lie at his feet, that he ask you, 'Where is the friend of my friend, of my war chief, of the Panther who is one with me again?"
Word Of The Day