Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [64]
John White may have his faults as a governor, but they do not proceed from a lack of kindness. Those who usurp his power seek only their own good, and they act from ignorance and ill will that will surely lead to war with the native peoples.
Because I have been mistreated by those I had reason to believe cared for me, it pains me to see Gov. White betrayed. I beg you: do what is necessary to restore just rule to your Virginia.
Come yourself and govern this colony that hungers for leadership and this heart of mine starving for lack of love’s food. Or we shall all be lost.
Yours, Catherine Archer
Truly, it cannot be tolerated when the governed decide to rule themselves and throw off their governor. It must be the savagery of that place that makes men descend from their civil upbringing to a beastly state in which the strong devour the weak. I should have made a statesman—not a painter—their governor. But no other man of merit and experience would consent to return there.
Shipping bans and Spanish pirates be damned! I will go to Virginia myself and teach them all what it means to obey. My iron hand once put down the Irish rebels and it shall be raised again over these wayward subjects. As for my duties of fortifying the coast, my deputy can perform them as well as I can.
For my Catherine calls me, and I will answer. No royal threat or command must hinder me from the embrace of my fair, my own, my sweet Virginia.
Chapter 25
I, Manteo, Am Tempted by Wanchese
When I returned to my home as Lord of Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc, I wore my English mantle. The trim glittered in the sun, making me look like a god. “See how great Manteo has become!” my people said.
“I am still Weyawinga’s son,” I replied. A hero must be humble and pay respect to his weroance and to his mother. I said the English had honored me in order to show their love for the Croatoan.
My village was changing. The children still ran in and out of the longhouses all day until they fell asleep. But now they played with English dolls and fought over them. The women decorated themselves with glass beads and bright cloth. Some warriors had knives and axes with iron blades. These differences led to envy and bad feeling. One of my kinsmen wore a piece of armor for which he had given a basket of mussel shells that he said contained pearls but were in fact empty. He was pleased with the trade, but I warned him that the English would not be friends with those who deceived them.
Death had also changed my village. Where Ralf-lane and his men had gone, a great sickness followed in their wake. A hundred Croatoans died. Many times that number in the villages of Ossomocomuck. The elderly and little children fared worst, and the women who cared for them. Now some of my kinsmen had no wives or children. They also thought I had died or been stolen by the wind gods when I went away on the English ships. But when I came back a lord, they believed my journey had caused them to be spared greater losses.
Dolls, beads, and death. These were not the gifts I wanted for my people. Was I to blame for the sickness because I brought Englishmen back with me? No, I realized they would have come anyway, bringing their goods, their weapons. And their sickness.
So far I had brought nothing valuable to my people. Not rain to make the maize ripen. Not grain and spices from distant lands or new plants to fill the fields in summer and feed us in winter. Would the people of my village one day be forced, like Tameoc’s band, to wander from place to place in search of food? What must I do to make them prosper again?
I visited all the Roanoke villages between Pomeioc and Dasemunkepeuc with the message that the white men desired friendship.