Her story is both a pleasant and a sad one. It needs none of the
additional romance that has been thrown about it to render it
more interesting. An Indian girl, free as her native forests,
made friends with the race that, all unnecessarily, became
hostile to her own. Brighter, perhaps, than most of the girls of
her tribe, she recognized and desired to avail herself of the
refinements of civilization, and so gave up her barbaric
surroundings, cast in her lot with the white race, and sought to
make peace and friendship between neighbors take the place of
quarrel and of war.
The white race has nothing to be proud of in its conquest of the
people who once owned and occupied the vast area of the North
American continent. The story is neither an agreeable nor a
chivalrous one. But out of the gloom which surrounds it, there
come some figures that relieve the darkness, the treachery, and
the crime that make it so sad. And not the least impressive of
these is this bright and gentle little daughter of
Wa-bun-so-na-cook, chief of the Pow-ha-tans, Ma-ta-oka, friend of
the white strangers, whom we of this later day know by the
nickname her loving old father gave her--Po-ca-hun-tas, the
Algonquin.
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