Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1881 — A Relic of Pocahontas. [ARTICLE]

A Relic of Pocahontas.

The editor 1 of this paper, who has made the study of the Indian character a life-work, has in his possession a letter written by the well-known Pocahontas to her father, and publishes it below for the benefit of his readers. Although we have, as we said, made the subject of the Indian character a life-study, it has, of course, been at a distance. When it was necessary to take some risk in visiting them personally, at a time when they were feeling a little wild and skittish, we have taken the risk vicariously in order to know the truth: “ Werowocomoco, Sunday, 1607. ‘ ‘ Dear Paw : You ask me to come to you before another moon. I will try to do so. When Powhatan speaks, his daughter tumbles to the racket. ‘ ‘ You say that I am too soft on the pale face Smith. I hope not. He is a great man. I see that in the future my people must yield to the white man. “Our people now are pretty plenty, and the pale-face seldom, but the day will come when the red men will be scattered like the leaves of the forest and the Smith family will run the entire ranch. “ Our medicine man tells me that after a time the tribe of Powhatan will disappear from the face of the eaidh, while the Smiths will extend their business all over the country, till you can’t throw a club at a yaller dog without hitting one of the Smith family. My policy, therefore, is to become solid with the majority. A Smith may some day be chief cook and bottlewasher of this country. We may want to get some measure through the council. See? Then I will go in all my wild beauty and tell the high muck-a-muck that years ago, under the umbrageous shadow of a big elm, I pleaded with my hardhearted parent to prevent him from mashing the cocoanut of the original Smith, and everything will be O. K. You probably catch my meaning. As to loving the gander-shanked paleface, I hope you will give yourself no unnecessary loss of sleep over that. He is as homely, anyhow, as a cow-shed, struck with a club, and has two wives in Europe and three pairs of twins. Fear not, noble dad. Your little Pocahontas has the necessax-y instinct to paddle hex’ own canoe, and don’t you ever forget it. Remember me to Brindle Dog and his squaw, the Sore-Eyed Sage Hen, aud send me two plugs of tobacco and a new dolman, with beads down the back. At present I am ashamed to come home, as my wardrobe consists of a pair of clamshell bracelets aud an old parasol. Ta, ta. Pocahontas. —Bill Fye's Boomerang.