“As long as I live.” When
Pocahontas spoke those words to John Smith, she had only a little time left.
When she and her husband John Rolfe and their two-year-old son, Thomas, set
sail for Virginia in March 1617, Pocahontas became ill. The nature of her
illness is not known, but she was so sick that she begged to be taken ashore.
She died at Gravesend, and her funeral was March 21, 1617, at St. George’s
Church, in the little town of St. George’s, Gravesend, Kent. The church was
destroyed by a fire in 1727, and the location of Pocahontas’s grave is unknown.
Here is her husband’s account of her death, in JAMESTOWN:
THE NOVEL:
“It
was sudden—so unlooked for.” Rolfe gazed long and thoughtfully into his cup of
sack as the others waited in silence. “I still can’t believe she has gone.” He
paused, struggling for control of his grief. “She took sick after we came back
from Brentford, and it being such wet, chilly weather in London, she could not
get warm, somehow. Even when she sat by the fire all day, she was cold. We gave
her hot milk possets to drink, and a doctor came and bled her, but it did no
good at all. It came time for us to sail.” He glanced at Argall. “Samuel had
the ship provisioned and ready, and Pocahontas was still not well, but she said
she would go. She was so brave.”
He
looked at his three rapt listeners as if seeking confirmation of that fact, and
then he went on, “She knew the Company was anxious for the ship to be off, with
the supplies and all, and with Samuel and me to take up our duties here, and
she would not hear of our delaying on her account. So we set sail on the
twentieth of March. But by the time we had got to Gravesend, Pocahontas had to
take to her bed. Breath came hard for her, and she was cold—so cold.” He shook
his head. “We tried to keep her warm with hot bricks and a little warming
stove, but they did no good. At last she begged me to take her ashore, so she
might get warm before she died.” Rolfe cleared his throat. “And she asked if
there was any way we could bury her on English soil.” He put his head in his
hands and was silent for a moment.
“She
need not have worried. I was not about to bury her at sea,” Samuel Argall said
softly. “Even if she hadn’t asked, John, you know I’d have put in at Gravesend
for her.”
“We
carried her to the rector’s house near the church there,” Rolfe went on. “He
prayed with her, and she was very glad of that. She said she hoped to meet
Jesus, and she thanked us all—” Here he broke down and sobbed. . . .
“She died some while before noon, and we
buried her that same day. March the twenty-first, it was. We buried her in the
chancel at St. George’s Church.” Leaning back, Rolfe took a drink from his
silver cup. “I shall have to go and tell Powhatan. I dread that.”
See
more from the novel at
http://www.amazon.com/Jamestown-Novel-story-Americas-beginnings-ebook/dp/B00IC8U6BA/ref=la_B001KCUZPC_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409331558&sr=1-5
No comments:
Post a Comment