Strange Stories of Colonial Days
Page 6
V
THE CROWN OF AN AMERICAN QUEEN
In the Days of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia
In the age when America was but a name and Virginia only a hamlet, therewas a dusky queen who wore a silver crown by order of his most sacredMajesty King Charles II., King of England, Scotland, France, Ireland,and Virginia.
There are few distinct Indian personalities. Powhatan, Pocahontas,Opechancanough, Totopotomoi and his wife, the Queen of the Pamunkeys,are savage heroes who sentinel the seventeenth century; they allbelonged to the Pamunkey tribe of the great Powhatan Confederacy, themost powerful Indian combination that ever existed.
When the boisterous and heroic Nathaniel Bacon[A] was in the flush ofhis wonderful success, and had brought his followers to Jamestown, hedemanded of the Governor redress for Indian depredations and outrages.When the Assembly in council was sitting, the Queen of the Pamunkeyscame in, leading her son by the hand. She came to tell of grievancesalso. She wore a dress of black and white wampum peake and a mantle ofdeer-skin, "cut in a frenge" six inches from the outer edge. It fellloosely from her shoulders to her feet. On her head was a crown of"purple bead of shell, drilled." She was a beautiful woman, oldchronicles tell us, and she walked in with a proud but aggrievedcountenance.
[A] Nathaniel Bacon, patriot, born in England, 1642; settled in Gloucester County, Virginia, 1670; led an independent force against hostile Indians in 1675-76 in spite of Governor Berkeley's opposition; as the head of the republican movement he came into open conflict with Berkeley and the royalists; he captured and burned Jamestown in September, 1676; died the following October; known as a rebel, but the principles for which he fought were in the main those of independence and patriotism.
She sat down in the midst of the Assembly, listening eagerly to thearguments for the suppression and, if need be, the extinction of herrace. And she remembered Totopotomoi bleeding for these people who wouldnot recognize her rights. She arose and made a speech in her own tongue,eloquent with gesticulation; the refrain of it was a mad wail:"Totopotomoi chepiak!" (_i.e._, Totopotomoi dead).
Colonel Hill, the younger, touched a fellow-member on the shoulder, andwhispered: "What she says is true. Totopotomoi fought with my father,and fell with his warriors."
But the Assembly would not listen to the poor suffering Queen. Theywanted to fight more battles, and the Queen of the Pamunkeys mustfurnish her quota.
"How many men will you furnish?" asked Nathaniel Bacon. "How many willyou give to fight and subdue the treacherous tribes which threaten ourpeace?"
The Queen was silent. She remembered her husband and his slain braves.She had fears for her son, and she would not speak.
"How many?" asked Bacon.
The poor Queen had her head turned away and bowed.
"How many?" demanded the famous rebel again.
Then she slowly turned her lovely face, and softly whispered, "Six."
Her answer infuriated Bacon, who considered the number contemptible."How many more?" he asked.
The Queen gave him a glance of indignant hate, and haughtily answered,"Twelve." Then she gathered her robes about her, and majestically leftthe room.
Once more we see the Queen of the Pamunkeys, and now in fear andadversity. Bacon in his campaign destroyed the Pamunkey settlement--thesame tribe which had so nobly assisted the English.
The poor Queen, terrified, fled far into the forest, accompanied by"onely a little Indian boy." Her old nurse followed her, but wascaptured. Bacon ordered the old woman to guide him to a certain point,but she, full of revenge, led him in an opposite direction, whereuponthe rebel ordered her to be knocked in the head.
The Queen wandered about almost crazy, and at last determined to returnand throw herself upon Bacon's mercy; but as she was rushing towards herdesolated wigwam she came upon the body of her murdered nurse, which soaffrighted her that she ran back into the wilderness, where she remained"fourteen daies without food, and would have perished but that shegnawed on the legg of a terrapin which the little Indian boy broughther."
So only a few vivid sketches of this Queen are preserved to us inhistory but they have gained for her a place as a martyr. In recognitionof her own and her husband's deeds, Charles II. bestowed upon her asilver crown, with the lion of England, the lilies of France, and theharp of Ireland engraved thereon.
Savages are not averse to the baubles of civilization, and the crownwhich their Queen wore was a blessed treasure to her tribe for a hundredyears after the Queen was dead.
The Pamunkey tribe, or a pitiful remnant of them, still dwell inVirginia, on the river which bears their name. They have a chief, andtheir own government. Annually they send tribute of fish and game andIndian handiwork to the Governor of Virginia. They are weakeningphysically, and pray for new blood from the Western reservation.
Once the tribe started for the West, carrying their best treasure, thesilver crown. They came to the plantation of Mr. Morson, at Falmouth,and there bad weather and sickness made them halt. Mr. Morson attendedto their physical wants, and allowed them to pitch their tents upon hisland until their distress abated.
"What do we owe you?" asked the chief, when they had decided to returnto their former Virginia reservation.
"Nothing," said Mr. Morson. Perhaps he remembered Totopotomoi and hissorrowing Queen.
"Then we will give you what we value most," and the chief presented toMr. Morson the crown of the Queen of the Pamunkeys. For threegenerations it remained in the Morson family, and then it was purchasedby the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
The crown is really a frontlet, and the Queen of the Pamunkeys wore itupon her brow, surmounted by a red velvet cap, long since destroyed bymoths, and bound to her head by two silver chains.