Strange Stories of Colonial Days

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

These pictures of Colonial life and adventure make up a panorama which extends from Powhatan and John Smith, in the days of the Jamestown colony, to Pontiac’s attempt upon Detroit in the period which preceded the Revolution. Here one may read stories which are strange indeed, of King Philip’s War in New England, of a Dutch hero’s exploit on the shores of Long Island Sound, of conflicts with the fierce Iroquois in the North, of a young New Englander’s successful treasure-hunt, and of famous or infamous pirates of Colonial times. They carry the reader from a boy’s defence of Fort George in Nova Scotia to battle against the Natchez at an advance post of the Louisiana colony. For the most part these thrilling tales are in the form of fiction, but it is fiction based upon historical incidents. The imaginative stories, and others which are historical narratives, will, it is believed, illustrate many unfamiliar dramas in Colonial life, and will help to give a clearer view of the men and boys who fought and endured to clear the way for us upon this continent.

STRANGE STORIES OF
COLONIAL DAYS

The first European visitors to the shores of North America met with a most friendly reception from the natives. Powhatan, the Indian Emperor of Virginia, who ruled in savage state over twenty-six Indian nations, on more than one occasion kept the Virginia colonists from starvation by sending them corn when they were almost famished. To retain his good-will a crown was sent over from England, and the Indian monarch was crowned with as much ceremony as possible. A present from King James of a basin and ewer, a bed, and some clothes was also brought to Jamestown, but Powhatan refused to go there to receive it.

“I also am a King, and gifts should be brought to me,” said the proud monarch of the Virginia woods. They were accordingly taken to him by the colonists.

The coronation was “a sad trouble,” wrote Captain John Smith, but it had its laughable side also, as we shall see. Custom required that the Indian ruler should kneel. Only by bearing their whole weight upon his shoulders could the English upon whom this duty devolved bring the chief from an up-right position into one suitable to the occasion. By main force he was made to kneel.

The firing of a pistol as a signal for a volley from the boats in honor of the event startled his copper-colored Majesty. Supposing himself betrayed, Powhatan at once struck a defensive attitude, but was soon reassured. The absurdity of the whole affair reached its climax when Powhatan gave to the representatives of his royal brother in England his old moccasins, the deer-skin he used as a blanket, and a few bushels of corn in the ear.

On the New England coast the anger of the natives had been aroused by the conduct of visiting sailors, who would persuade them to come on board their ships, and then carry them off and sell them into slavery.

One of these natives, named Epanow, “an Indian of goodly stature, strong, and well proportioned,” after being exhibited in London as a curiosity, came into the service of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, Governor of Plymouth....