We come somewhat nearer to this matter in the Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia," published from the manuscript by the Hakluyt Society in 1849, in which it is intimated that seven of these deserted colonists were afterwards rescued.Strachey is a first-rate authority for what he saw.He arrived in Virginia in 1610 and remained there two years, as secretary of the colony, and was a man of importance.His "Historie" was probably written between 1612 and 1616.In the first portion of it, which is descriptive of the territory of Virginia, is this important passage: "At Peccarecamek and Ochanahoen, by the relation of Machumps, the people have houses built with stone walls, and one story above another, so taught them by those English who escaped the slaughter of Roanoke.At what time this our colony, under the conduct of Captain Newport, landed within the Chesapeake Bay, where the people breed up tame turkies about their houses, and take apes in the mountains, and where, at Ritanoe, the Weroance Eyanaco, preserved seven of the English alive--four men, two boys, and one young maid (who escaped [that is from Roanoke] and fled up the river of Chanoke), to beat his copper, of which he hath certain mines at the said Ritanoe, as also at Pamawauk are said to be store of salt stones."This, it will be observed, is on the testimony of Machumps.This pleasing story is not mentioned in Captain Newport's "Discoveries "(May, 1607).Machumps, who was the brother of Winganuske, one of the many wives of Powhatan, had been in England.He was evidently a lively Indian.Strachey had heard him repeat the "Indian grace," a sort of incantation before meat, at the table of Sir Thomas Dale.If he did not differ from his red brothers he had a powerful imagination, and was ready to please the whites with any sort of a marvelous tale.Newport himself does not appear to have seen any of the "apes taken in the mountains." If this story is to be accepted as true we have to think of Virginia Dare as growing up to be a woman of twenty years, perhaps as other white maidens have been, Indianized and the wife of a native.But the story rests only upon a romancing Indian.It is possible that Strachey knew more of the matter than he relates, for in his history he speaks again of those betrayed people, "of whose end you shall hereafter read in this decade." But the possessed information is lost, for it is not found in the remainder of this "decade" of his writing, which is imperfect.Another reference in Strachey is more obscure than the first.He is speaking of the merciful intention of King James towards the Virginia savages, and that he does not intend to root out the natives as the Spaniards did in Hispaniola, but by degrees to change their barbarous nature, and inform them of the true God and the way to Salvation, and that his Majesty will even spare Powhatan himself.But, he says, it is the intention to make "the common people likewise to understand, how that his Majesty has been acquainted that the men, women, and children of the first plantation of Roanoke were by practice of Powhatan (he himself persuaded thereunto by his priests) miserably slaughtered, without any offense given him either by the first planted (who twenty and odd years had peaceably lived intermixed with those savages, and were out of his territory) or by those who are now come to inhabit some parts of his distant lands," etc.
Strachey of course means the second plantation and not the first, which, according to the weight of authority, consisted of only fifteen men and no women.
In George Percy's Discourse concerning Captain Newport's exploration of the River James in 1607 (printed in Purchas's " Pilgrims ") is this sentence: "At Port Cotage, in our voyage up the river, we saw a savage boy, about the age of ten years, which had a head of hair of a perfect yellow, and reasonably white skin, which is a miracle amongst all savages." Mr.Neill, in his "History of the Virginia Company,"says that this boy" was no doubt the offspring of the colonists left at Roanoke by White, of whom four men, two boys, and one young maid had been preserved from slaughter by an Indian Chief." Under the circumstances, "no doubt" is a very strong expression for a historian to use.
This belief in the sometime survival of the Roanoke colonists, and their amalgamation with the Indians, lingered long in colonial gossip.Lawson, in his History, published in London in 1718, mentions a tradition among the Hatteras Indians, "that several of their ancestors were white people and could talk from a book; the truth of which is confirmed by gray eyes being among these Indians and no others."But the myth of Virginia Dare stands no chance beside that of Pocahontas.
V
FIRST PLANTING OF THE COLONY
The way was now prepared for the advent of Captain John Smith in Virginia.It is true that we cannot give him his own title of its discoverer, but the plantation had been practically abandoned, all the colonies had ended in disaster, all the governors and captains had lacked the gift of perseverance or had been early drawn into other adventures, wholly disposed, in the language of Captain John White, "to seek after purchase and spoils," and but for the energy and persistence of Captain Smith the expedition of 1606 might have had no better fate.It needed a man of tenacious will to hold a colony together in one spot long enough to give it root.Captain Smith was that man, and if we find him glorying in his exploits, and repeating upon single big Indians the personal prowess that distinguished him in Transylvania and in the mythical Nalbrits, we have only to transfer our sympathy from the Turks to the Sasquesahanocks if the sense of his heroism becomes oppressive.