John Smith & Pocahontas P3

Last week we learned that John Smith was held captive for several weeks by natives in Chief Powhatan’s village until the chief ordered his execution. Indian warriors placed his head on a large stone, as Smith reported, “with their clubs, to beat out my brains.” At that moment, 10-year-old Pocahontas intervened. She took Smith’s “head in her arms and laid her own head upon his to save him from death.” She pleaded for his life, which her father granted.

Powhatan declared they were now friends, and that Smith could go back to Jamestown. Smith reported that he did so, but fearfully, “still expecting, as he had done all the long time of his imprisonment, every hour to be put to one death or other…. But Almighty God, by His Divine Providence, had mollified (or softened) the hearts of those stern barbarians with compassion.

CONTENT SOURCE: "The American Story, the beginnings" by David Barton and Tim Barton