Bloodroot

Chapter 2 Jamestown-1

CHAPTER 2

JamestownI don’t truly know what I had expected to see. No one on our ship had been to this place before except some few of the sailors. There had been much talk about what we would find, and we all began to have a vision of an English city, much like Plymouth, built in the midst of a tropical garden. What we saw was a rude fort made of palisades and surrounded on most sides by a stinking marsh.

The passengers seemed dumbstruck at this sight and most stood in erect silence, looking as though they had been dazed by terrible news. The sailors soon shook us out of our stupor and started helping us embark onto the longboats to row us ashore. We landed on the beach almost at the fort’s gateway and assembled there to wait for our belongings and the remainder of the passengers. When all were safely ashore, we streamed into the fort, lugging whatever we had, and since I had nothing, I helped Richard with his two chests. We assembled in the center of the fort and waited in the heat for almost an hour for the Governor to make his appearance.

It was very hot in the fort and the smell, like rotted flesh, caused some of our company to become sick. A woman standing near Richard fell to the ground, unconscious. The people around her stepped quickly away, forming a cleared circle. There had been talk of plague in the ship and at the fort. Richard, being more enlightened than most of us, rushed to her side and called for water.

“She has only fainted from heat and thirst,” he shouted.

An officer pushed his way through the crowd and knelt beside the woman. Richard held her head up gently while the soldier sprinkled some of the water from his flask over her forehead, and in a few minutes she revived. The soldier offered her the flask of water, and she drank it so hungrily that I thought she might faint again.

Soon everyone began to complain of thirst and hunger. Others also fainted and were removed to a place away from the crowd. After a long while, we were given a biscuit made from the flour of ground pagatowr, the Indian corn, and each was allowed one cup of water from a common water barrel. The passengers found pagatowr bread coarse and uneatable and, at first, Richard and I found the food very nauseous, but I convinced him that we should eat it for our strength.

Richard had arranged a seat from his chest for the girl who had first fainted to sit on, and she sat staring as though she was in a trance. Richard talked with her in a low voice and discovered that her name was Anne Breton and that she was a servant to a gentlewoman, Mrs. Fitzsimmons, who had come to live with her husband in Virginia. Mrs. Fitzsimmons had asked her to report what the present governor had to say, if important. But as for her, she would be busy sorting out her belongings and inspecting suitable lodgings.

The crowd surged inward, and people stirred around us in quick eddy currents as though we were all fish in a pond disturbed by a small stone. A path was cleared near us. Captain John Smith, followed by two men in tattered garments, entered our group and walked past us to a raised platform near the church. He walked briskly, carrying himself like a soldier, and looking straight ahead, he mounted the temporary platform that had been made from a few planks and empty barrels.

He looked slowly over the three hundred or so people assembled around him, stopping occasionally to dwell on a particular face. A deep hush settled over the crowd. Their groans, their sighs were all silenced. Even the dust inside the fort seemed to stop still in the air.

One look at Captain Smith and there was no question of him being an able man. His strong beard and long mustache seemed more to burn like the bush of Moses. His eyes, fed with this same fire, shone as bright as jewels. He spoke, and his voice carried to all corners of the fort.

“Welcome, citizens,” he said. “Let us first get down upon our knees and give thanks to God for bringing you here in safety.”

We knelt down and followed the Captain in a prayer of gratitude. When it was over, we rose to our feet once again and gave our complete attention to Captain Smith.

“My countrymen, most of you have come through the many dangers of sea travel to land here and found a new country. Perhaps you were told that this is a land flowing with milk and honey, that gold lies in every path and roadway, that whatever a man wants he has merely to stretch out his hand and it will be given to him. My countrymen, nothing can be farther from the truth. There is no milk here because there are no cows, and the honey is the food of the savages. There is no gold here or in any parts of the country that I have explored. There is not even a simple pathway or roadway such as you have known in England, and if a man stretches out his hand in this country, a waiting savage will chop it off with his hatchet.

This is what awaits you, my friends, here in Virginia; a journey ten times—nay, a hundred times more hazardous than what you have known upon the sea.”

A low moan arose from the crowd.

“If you are to survive in this country, you will have to work until your hands become as the toughest leather, and until you drop from exhaustion. Do not expect to live in luxury for your toil. It will be enough that you can eat and find shelter for yourselves. That is the true condition of life in Virginia.

“All victuals will be kept in a common storehouse; that includes meats, grains, fruits—all that is eaten. There is a common well where all may get water. Each day after prayers you may draw your rations from the storehouse and at no time before or after. No man will be allowed to live off the labor of another. Every man will do his share of work for the common good, for no man will eat who does not work.”

At this point, a noise was heard in the crowd, a man shouting.

“Are you saying, sir, that I should have to sow corn and fell trees and slaughter animals?”

The voice was that of one of the gentlemen of our ship, and beside him stood another gentleman dressed as though he would be attending the court.

“Yes, sir, that is what I said.”

“Sir, if you expect me to do such things, then you are a fool.”

“And you, sir,” Captain Smith answered in a stronger voice, “Are a knave.”

The gentleman reached for his sword but before he could clear it, Captain Smith drew out his pistol and leveled it straight at the man. The people in front of the gentleman cleared away like smoke blown in the wind.

“Sheathe that sword, sir, or I will put a ball through you as easily as if you were a rabid dog.”

The gentleman looked utterly disbelieving. Then, seeing that Captain Smith was sincere, he started to tremble slightly and slowly replaced the sword back into its sheath. After that he turned and, with the other gentleman, pushed his way through the ring of people and out of the fort toward the ships.

“I have assigned a man to the passengers from each ship. He will instruct you as to what should be done in the way of lodging and what work there is to do.”

Captain Smith then jumped down from his platform and walked at the head of his escort back to the President’s house. One of the men of the fort came to the platform and read out the names of the ships and in what part of the fort they should assemble. Anne was not one of our ship’s company and so had to go with her own people, much to Richard’s disappointment. She promised, with hesitation, to let him visit after evening prayers.

We assembled with our people at one corner of the fort, under a piece of ordnance mounted on raised earth. Our fort man, a soldier, climbed up on the raised earth and, standing in front of the ordnance, said that all men, excepting gentlemen and those men with wives and families, would sleep out under the stars or under such shelters as they could provide.

“Are there gentlemen among you?” the soldier called out.

“Not unless this be a tavern,” a voice answered, followed by much laughter.

“Then all those with wives come with me. The remainder shall await my return.”

The soldier jumped down from the gun emplacement, and we watched with considerable envy as the men, with their wives, left our company and walked in a loose group toward the first street of houses. Richard and I sat down on his chests and waited.

“Look around you, Matthew. Surely this is the lost Eden that we have found. Think of it, Matthew, to become as innocent and as loving as little children again, yet to be aware as men.”

I glanced around the fort. The trees outside of the palisades were tall and so intensely green they seemed light blue in color. The river flowed peacefully. So many birds were singing that the very air was continually filled with music, and the wind blew cool and refreshing. Perhaps Richard was right.

He suddenly stood up.

“Look!” he said, pointing to a gate near us which opened to the woods.

A company of Indians were walking into the fort, escorted by a few of the fort’s soldiers. They were the first Indians that Richard or I, or any of the members of our company, had ever seen. I was amazed at their size. They seemed like giant men. They were a head taller than us, and all carried themselves as nobly as any English Lord.

They were unarmed and completely naked except for a loin covering made of animal skins. At the time they were the strangest men that I, or any of us, had ever seen. Their dark, muscular bodies glistened in the sunlight. The feathers that they wore in their hair gave them an almost haughty air. Behind these men came other men of lower estate, carrying baskets of corn and other victuals.

When all of the Indians had entered the fort, Captain Smith came out to greet them. They made signs of peace to one another, and Captain Smith spoke to them with gestures and a few words of Algonquin.

“Friends, you are welcome in peace.”

Then Captain Smith signaled to his men, and two soldiers brought out several baskets containing copper trinkets, hawk’s bells, and plates with the images of King James pressed into them. The Indian who was at the head of his company looked at the baskets with contempt, then ordered some of his men to take them. He turned to face Captain Smith and began moving his hands gracefully yet forcefully, conveying his message in a style of sign language that was familiar to both men.

“The great Powhatan, ruler of all the peoples of the Chesapeake, sends his greetings and wishes to know when the mighty Captain Newport, your father, returns from out of the great salt water.”

“Tell his majesty, Powhatan, that I do not know the day of my father’s return. My father is like a hawk on the wing, and when he returns it will be as the hawk, swift and without warning.”

“Captain Newport is a good and generous man and as brave and fearless as his son.”

With this, the Indians turned and left the fort. Captain Smith waited until the gates had closed behind them. Then he took off his hat and dashed it to the ground.

He turned to one of his Lieutenants and said, “That goddamn Newport! He has ruined it all for us by promising those damned savages arms for corn and forever ruining our bargaining power by overpaying those devils with copper. Now Powhatan is using him against me. Goddamn, that savage is a clever one. Where is that rogue Newport? Bet that damned fool has gone up the bay to do a little trading on his own. Send to Point Comfort and tell them there’s a shilling in it for the first man to spot the Sea Venture.”

The Lieutenant left the fort immediately with a file of soldiers in a longboat and started downriver. Captain Smith, seeing us standing nearby, signaled for us to follow him.

We waited outside the door of his house until our turn came to go in. Richard went before me and did not stay long. He looked a bit dejected when he came out, and I asked him the reason for it. He shrugged.