In all times, among the most savage tribes and in
civilized society, women have been moved to heavenly pity by the sight of
a prisoner, and risked life to save him--the impulse was as natural to a
Highland lass as to an African maid. Pocahontas went further than
efforts to make peace between the superior race and her own. When the
whites forced the Indians to contribute from their scanty stores to the
support of the invaders, and burned their dwellings and shot them on
sight if they refused, the Indian maid sympathized with the exposed
whites and warned them of stratagems against them; captured herself by a
base violation of the laws of hospitality, she was easily reconciled to
her situation, adopted the habits of the foreigners, married one of her
captors, and in peace and in war cast in her lot with the strangers.
History has not preserved for us the Indian view of her conduct.
This savage was the Tomocomo spoken of above, who had been sent by
Powhatan to take a census of the people of England, and report what they
and their state were. At Plymouth he got a long stick and began to make
notches in it for the people he saw. But he was quickly weary of that
task. He told Smith that Powhatan bade him seek him out, and get him to
show him his God, and the King, Queen, and Prince, of whom Smith had told
so much.
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