Chesapeake (20 page)

There had been other adventures, but Smith could not recall them now. ‘I remember I had to correct his writing. Careless about details. And I must confess I was always suspicious of him. Devious, I called him once. Not clear, like a decent Englishman. A Papist, eh? I knew he was hiding something.’

In succeeding months Smith spoke often of Steed and cited his subversive Catholicism as an example of why King Charles should not confer favors on the Catholic Lords Baltimore. ‘The idea of granting them a colony in Virginia! Shameful! Papists will take over the continent. Devious, they are. Steed’s grandfather, you know, had to be hanged and quartered by Good Queen Bess. All devious.’

Before the year was out he was dead, lamenting the dark changes
engineered by the two kings, James and Charles. One of his last judgments was that things had been much better handled by Elizabeth.

Pentaquod had foreseen that when the white man came to the Choptank, all traditions of Indian life would be in jeopardy, and he had willingly come out of retirement to help his tribe make the transition. What he had not foreseen were the curious ways in which the impact would manifest itself.

He had not expected any white man to be as congenial as the one who settled on Devon Island, nor to have in common with him those problems encountered by all men: trouble with women, the constant fight for food, difficulty in rearing children, safeguarding whatever gains had been made. On three different occasions Indian messengers from across the bay had come to the Choptanks, hoping to lead them in rebellion against the whites: on a specified day Pentaquod would murder all of them on Devon, then storm across the bay to slaughter and burn along the James and the Rappahannock. Each time he had replied, ‘Steed is a friend more to be trusted than most of our own.’ Not only had he refused to kill Steed, he had sent extra Choptanks to guard the island against Potomac efforts. So when hideous massacres scarred the western shore, nothing happened on the eastern. Relationships with Steed were better than could have been expected.

On the other hand, he had been mortally hurt when the quiet Englishman rejected Tciblento; Pentaquod had known why and he suspected that his daughter did, too. Indians were inferior, and any contact between the races must be kept to the level of work and trade. The old man was appalled at the eagerness with which his people grabbed for whatever geegaws white traders dangled before them. Here was the danger, Pentaquod saw: that the values of his people might be destroyed. For the present they were content to keep on fishing and hunting beaver and digging sassafras and tending their corn, but the day would come when the old pursuits would be abandoned, and on that day the Choptanks would begin to diminish.

He was meticulous in not interfering with the prerogatives of the young werowance. He had come back to serve as senior counsel, and in spite of great pressures to resume the leadership, he restricted himself to that role. He did so from deep conviction: the younger men must learn how to work with whites if they hoped to bring their people through these perilous times. Therefore, when Captain Smith first appeared at Patamoke, Pentaquod had kept to the background so that the werowance might have experience in estimating the newcomers’ intentions, and in all dealings with Steed, Pentaquod effaced himself. When the deeds to
Devon Island had to be signed, it was the werowance who made the first mark.

The old man did retain his three turkey feathers, and as he moved among the Choptanks they knew that he was their leader, and it was to him that they looked whenever crisis neared. Now they came to him, perplexed.

‘Each day new fires rage,’ they protested. ‘They consume all the trees between the rivers where we used to hide.’

So Pentaquod got into his canoe and paddled downriver to talk with Steed. ‘Is it necessary to burn the ancient trees?’

‘It is.’

‘With such desolation?’ And he pointed to deer fleeing the flames and a bewildered beaver clinging to his lodge as fire approached.

‘We must have more fields for tobacco,’ Steed explained.

‘We grow all the tobacco we can smoke,’ Pentaquod said, pointing to the trivial clearings in which the women of his tribe had cultivated the weed.

‘Enough for you, but not enough for London.’

‘Must we burn our forests for London?’ the old man asked.

Steed found it difficult to clarify the intricacies of transocean trading, to explain that it was not only obligatory but morally imperative to burn forests in Virginia so that tobacco might be burned in London. Pentaquod could not understand.

Three times he returned to protest this abuse of the Choptank forests, and on the last visit Simon Janney grew impatient. Knowing no Choptank words, he would not allow the old man to waste precious time. Shoving him aside, he growled, ‘Be gone, old man! We’ve work to do.’

Pentaquod returned to his canoe, defeated. Heavily he plied his paddle, and when he reached the village he informed the werowance that soon something must be done to halt these hungry fires. The two leaders talked a long time, neither willing to face up to the inevitable: fight or flee. And when a silent impasse had been reached, two young members of the tribe ran in with harsh news: ‘Pentaquod! They have set fires which will burn your refuge!’

Together the two leaders paddled down past the marsh and up the small river to the forked creek where Pentaquod once lived, and as they approached they saw vast fires creeping in from many sides, erasing the field Navitan had cultivated for yams, burning away the spot where Tciblento had been born, destroying the trees in which his sons had kept their bear cubs. As the two Indians watched, the crackling grew stronger, until it seemed as if the creek itself might boil, and then all was gone: the trees, the small wharf, the memories of Tciblento playing by the house. Transfixed, Pentaquod refused to believe that men would destroy everything for tobacco leaves, but they had.

‘We must go back,’ Pentaquod told the werowance, and that night they made their decision: it was impossible to live side-by-side with the white man, so messengers bearing firm orders were dispatched in secrecy, and next morning when Steed and Janney prepared to set new fires they found no Indians to help them. Steed assumed that they must have slept the night at Devon with their friends, but when he sailed his small boat home he found that not only were the field crew missing, but the island Indians as well, including their wives. ‘Canoes came for them last night,’ Martha reported. ‘Took everything with them. I doubt they’ll be coming back.’

‘Impossible! Where’d they go?’

‘To their village, I judge.’

Without waiting to collect Janney, he sailed as speedily as he could to Patamoke, and there his Indians were, sitting disconsolately before the long hut. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, but none would speak. When he repeated his question, one of the wives gestured toward the door of the hut. ‘Did they make you leave us?’ Steed shouted.

His loud voice alerted the werowance, who appeared at the doorway, hesitant and unwilling to face the white man. In a moment Pentaquod appeared, leaning on the shoulder of Tciblento. Together the three Indians approached Steed, and on the face of each showed the respect they held for this honest Englishman. It was a moment that would never be forgotten by any participant, for this was the day when parting became inevitable.

‘What are you doing to me?’ Steed asked the werowance.

The young man remained silent. Pentaquod nudged him, but still he was afraid to speak. It was the old man who responded: ‘What have you done to us? Burned our pines. Cut down our tallest oaks. Driven deer from their homes and beaver from their lodges. Singed the feathers of birds and torn down the places where our children played. Steed, you have destroyed the paradise we shared with you.’

Steed fell back before this torrent of accusation, then said persuasively, ‘Pentaquod, dear and trusted friend, you do not understand. If we burn the fields, we grow more tobacco. If we grow more tobacco, Captain Hackett’s ship will come more often. And when it does, you and your people can have guns for hunting.’

‘Before you came we earned our meat without guns.’

‘But you can have mirrors, too, and compasses like the one Captain Smith gave you. Remember?’

‘I have always known where north was,’ the old man said.

Then, in tones of bitter sadness, he informed Steed that henceforth no Choptanks would work for him, and no pleas from the Englishman reversed this harsh decision. In the midst of the great sweep to clear the fields, Steed’s entire labor force was retracted; not even one woman was
permitted to help Martha and her three children. When Janney learned of the decision he proposed that they sail to Jamestown, conscript an army and burn the village unless the Indians returned to work, but Steed ridiculed such folly.

Instead he and Janney stayed overnight at Patamoke, and in the morning sought a formal consultation with the werowance and Pentaquod. It was granted, and once more the white-haired old man appeared leaning upon his beautiful daughter. The realization that old ties were about to be shattered saddened the former leader, and he spoke gently to his friend. ‘What is it, Steed?’

‘Pentaquod, ally of many years, why do you harm us?’

‘There is no way that you and we can share this river.’

‘But we can! Your children and mine play together, speak the same tongue, love the same animals.’

‘No, Steed. In all things we grow apart. The time for separation is upon us.’

‘No need. When Captain Hackett’s ship comes you can have all the things we have.’

‘We do not want your things. They bring us only trouble.’

When this was translated for Janney he wanted Steed to tell the old fool that if the Indians refused to work, they’d find out what real trouble was—even war. Such words Steed refused to translate, but Tciblento had learned enough English to advise her father as to what the other Englishman had said.

‘War?’ Pentaquod repeated. ‘You speak of war? Do you know what happened across the bay when war came? Countless dead and hatred forever. Have you subdued the Potomacs or driven the Piscataways from your rivers, Janney? Steed and I have striven to see that such war does not scar our friendship, nor will it while I live.’

Steed ignored this line of argument and did not translate for Janney, who sat glaring at the old man. What Steed focused on was labor. ‘Pentaquod, if you send your men to work for us, we’ll pay them … well.’

‘And what will they buy with the roanoke?’

‘What they wish.’ And he spread his hands to indicate the largesse of Europe.

Pentaquod brushed aside this irrelevant logic and reminded Steed: ‘When you and your wife needed our help to build a home on your island, we worked for you. And when you wanted to clear fields to grow food, we helped again. I even told my people to instruct you in all skills you needed. Did not my own daughter Tciblento offer to instruct your wives?’

Steed looked at the Indian girl, dressed in deerskin ornamented with fringes of mink and a necklace of beaver teeth, and for the first time realized what an amazingly beautiful woman she had become. His vision
was cleared, perhaps, by the realization that after this fateful day there would be no more meetings. He became aware that he was blushing and that his eyes held on to hers for a shameful period, but he was incapable of looking away. Then he shook his head as if to awaken, and conceded, ‘Tciblento was most helpful.’

Sadly the old man announced, ‘Steed, on this day we leave our village. You will see us no more.’

‘No!’ Steed pleaded.

‘During many moons I have told my people that you and we could share the river, but I was wrong. You will always want to burn more, destroy more. We shall leave you to your fires.’

Janney asked, ‘What’s he threatening now?’

‘They’re leaving,’ Steed said.

‘Good!’ Janney said with sudden approval. ‘Help them along. Kick them out.’

‘What do you mean?’ Steed asked, but before the tough little countryman could explain, Pentaquod took Steed aside to ask a question which had perplexed him for years. ‘Dear friend,’ he said, ‘many summers ago when the Great Canoe came into the bay, our people watched it carefully. They saw the white sails, but they also saw that the men had skins that glistened. What was this, Steed?’

The Englishman pondered the question but could find no reasonable explanation, so Pentaquod repeated the problem, indicating himself on the deck of the ancient ship, with sun glinting from his body. ‘Oh!’ Steed exclaimed. ‘It must have been a Spanish ship. Armor!’ And he explained how a man encased in armor would glisten in sunlight, and then Pentaquod broached the matter that truly disturbed him. ‘In later days, when I am gone, the Choptanks will return to this village. Will you watch over Tciblento?’

Steed did not reply. Tears so filled the old man’s eyes that no further words were necessary. They embraced, returned to the long hut, and separated for the last time. Tciblento stood on the riverbank as they started their sail homeward, a radiant woman, not waving goodbye, not tearful, just standing there in fading light aware that never again in this life would she see the fair Englishman.

When the bateau reached the marsh Janney said excitedly, ‘We’re lucky to be rid of the lazy swine.’

‘But what are we going to do for help?’

‘Ships bring many an indentured lad to Jamestown.’

‘Can we afford them?’

‘Secret is, buy them cheap, work them to the bone. And when their seven years are up, kiss them goodbye.’ He sucked on a tooth, then
added, ‘But better times are coming. They’ve begun to bring whole shiploads of slaves from Africa. Captain Hackett offers them for sale.’

‘Same question. Can we afford them?’

‘Look, Steed. You can’t afford not to have them. You buy a slave once, he’s yours for life. He and his children. Best bargain ever offered.’

But it was not as simple as Janney had proposed. Slaves did not arrive by shipload, and those that did straggle in as part of a cargo were kept in Virginia; they were too valuable to be wasted on uncertain fields across the bay. So as the Indians departed, their place was taken by white men from the dregs of London, but the bulk of the work was done by Steed and his wife. Theirs was the only plantation on the Eastern Shore, a daring, lonely outpost where the proprietors worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day, the unremitting toil always required if a home or a nation was to be built.