Page:Historic Girls.djvu/237

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MA-TA-OKA OF POW-HA-TAN.
219

dom and fun than was usually the lot of Indian girls, who were, as a rule, the patient and uncomplaining little drudges of every Indian home and village.

So, when Captain Smith left Wero-woco-moco, he left one firm friend behind him,—the pretty little Indian girl, Ma-ta-oka,—who long remembered the white man and his presents, and determined, after her own wilful fashion, to go into the white man's village and see all their wonders for herself.

In less than a year she saw the captain again, For when, in the fall of 1608, he came to her father's village to invite the old chief to Jamestown to be crowned by the English as "king" of the Pow-ha-tans, this bright little girl of twelve gathered together the other little girls of the village, and, almost upon the very spot where, many years after, Cornwallis was to surrender the armies of England to the "rebel" republic, she with her companions entertained the English captain with a gay Indian dance full of noise and frolic.

Soon after this second interview, Ma-ta-oka's wish to see the white man's village was gratified. For in that same autumn of 1608 she came with Ra-bun-ta to Jamestown. She sought out the captain who was then "president" of the colony, and "entreated the libertie" of certain of her tribesmen who had been "detained,"—in other words, treacherously