The infant son of Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe, was placed under the care of Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice Admiral of Devon; and here again the story of the Indian girl touches that of Sir Walter Raleigh.[82] It was this Stukely who afterwards basely betrayed his friend, Sir Walter, and by this treachery covered himself with infamy. The son of Pocahontas did not long breathe the atmosphere polluted by this traitor. He was removed to London and educated by his uncle, Henry Rolfe.
Thomas Rolfe's immediate descendants married into the families of Bolling, Randolph, Gay, Eldridge, and Murray. No trace of the Indian in feature or character survives in those highly esteemed Virginia families. The haughty, vindictive spirit of the cruel Powhatan may have burnt itself out in the veins of John Randolph of Roanoke, who left no descendants.
Pocahontas will always be interesting to the student of colonial history. The story of her life was a strange one, and stranger the story to its end. Her father and her kindred were consigned to the tomb with the rites and lamentations of the savage, and with wild heathenish invocations to the Devil of their imaginations. She, alone of all her tribe, simply as a consequence of one noble act, received Christian burial, in hallowed Christian soil, and is embalmed forever in grateful Christian hearts.
The time is at hand when the curtain must be rung down upon the scenes I have tried to present. I was constrained to follow the fortunes of John Smith and Pocahontas, for do what we will we cannot eliminate them from an all-important place in the early history of Virginia. Others were just as deserving, but the historians of their day failed to leave us material regarding them. Like my great favourite, the modest, brave George Percy, who lived long at Jamestown, they quietly slipped back into the shadows from which they only emerged to suffer and toil awhile for the common good.
I find it hard to leave my story. A glorious chapter in the history of Jamestown awaits a stronger pen than mine. At Jamestown, "in 1619, a year before the _Mayflower_ skirted the coast of Massachusetts, the Virginians inaugurated representative government on the American continent--'an example never lost but ever cherished as the dearest birthright of freemen.' There, on June 21, 1621, the Virginians extorted the concession that 'no orders of court shall bind the said Colony unless they be ratified by the General Assemblies.' In 1624 they there asserted the right of self-taxation and control of the public purse, protesting that 'the Governor shall not lay any imposition upon the Colony, their land or commodities otherwise than by the authority of the General Assembly, and employed as the said Assembly shall appoint.' Though loyal to the King, in 1635, at Jamestown, Governor Harvey was 'thrust out,' for encroaching upon the rights of the people. Nay, after the downfall of monarchy they confronted Cromwell himself (who sent his threatening ships to Jamestown) and only yielded to his usurpation upon an honourable capitulation, acknowledging their submission as 'a voluntary act not forced or constrained by conquest,' and guaranteeing them 'such freedom and privileges as belong to the free-born people of England.' After the Restoration they broke out in open rebellion against the oppressions of government and anticipated by a century the final and victorious struggle for the liberties of America. On the untimely death of their leader--the well-born, the gallant, the accomplished, the eloquent Bacon--their revolt was quenched in blood; but even so, without any surrender of their chartered rights."[83]