_THE INDIAN TRADER_

Henry Fleet was one of the expedition of twenty-six men aboard the _Tiger_ who under Captain Spelman in March, 1623, went to trade for beaver skins and corn with the Anacostan and other Indian tribes near the head of the Potomac.

Fleet was with Spelman when he went ashore. After Spelman was killed and his head tossed over the river bank, Fleet was taken prisoner and carried to the village of the Anacostans. This is believed to have been located not far from the present monument of Washington, in Washington, D. C.

Fleet was about twenty-five years old and had but recently arrived in Virginia. His father was William Fleet of the London Virginia Company, which may have been the reason that Henry came to the New World. Henry was adventurous, quick-witted and intelligent. He made good use of his stay in the wilderness of the Northern Neck by studying his new environment. Later he wrote down some of these observations:

"It aboundeth in all manner of fish. The Indians in one night will commonly catch thirty sturgeons in a place where the river is not above three fathom broad. And as for deer, buffaloes, bears, turkeys, the woods do swarm with them, and the soil is exceedingly fertile." He also wrote that he had seen "plenty of black fox, which of all others is the richest fur." This animal was a large marten, so fierce that it was the match for any forest animal up to the size of a deer.

Henry was kept in captivity for four years, when his friends managed to ransom him. Small vessels were then trading with the Indians of the Potomac and news of him was probably carried to Jamestown in this way.

During the year 1627 the London Merchants were surprised by the arrival of Henry Fleet from Virginia. Startling tales of his adventures spread abroad. It was said that he had lived with the Indians so long that he had forgotten his own language, that he had often seen the South Sea; that he had seen Indians "besprinkle their paintings with powder of gold."

These stories impressed William Cloberry, a merchant adventurer, and chief man in the Guinea trade. Cloberry believed that Fleet could be useful to him as a trader among the Indians.

On September 6, 1627, the ship _Paramour_ of London, one hundred tons burden, was licensed to clear with Henry Fleet as master. William Cloberry and Company were the owners.

Captain Fleet was well suited by nature and experience to be an Indian trader. For years he traded with the Indians along the Potomac--bartering "beads, bells, hatchets, knives, coats, shirts, Scottish stockings and broadcloth" and other "trucke," for beaver fur, tobacco and corn. Some of the Indian tribes traveled "seven, 8 and 10 days journey" to trade with him. He was the most regular and dependable trader the Indians knew.

By 1632 Captain Fleet was operating several boats in the Indian trade, and in that year he built a shallop and a "Barque" of sixteen tons for his own use. He also opened a trade between the Massachusetts settlement and the Potomac River. Sometimes he carried as much as eight hundred bushels of corn at one time from the Potomac to New England.

One day, while trading for beaver with the Anacostans, Captain Fleet ran into trouble. He met the pinnace of a rival trader, and on board was John Utie of the Virginia Council. The latter arrested him by order of the Council for trading with the Indians without license. Fleet had to stop his activities and set sail for Jamestown, where he was tried, but soon given his liberty.

Captain Fleet became a powerful man in Indian affairs. After the massacre of 1644 he was commissioned to negotiate a peace, at his own expense should he fail. He was successful in arranging a treaty with Necotowance, successor of Opechancanough, "in terms that showed a marked advance of civilization; Necotowance must do homage for his land to the King of England, in token whereof he was fined 20 beaver skins at the going away of the Geese yearly."

When bargaining with Necotowance Captain Fleet had been authorized to build a fort on the Rappahannock, "an important station."

Fleet remained in the region of the Potomac long enough to see the first settlers come to the Northern Neck. He was their friend and interpreter and helped them with their Indian troubles.

_A PETITION_

In July, 1639, owing to the increase of population in Bermuda, the Proprietors of the Island, in London, petitioned for the region "scituate betwixt the two Rivers of Rapahanock, and Patowmack wch by good Informacon your petit'iors finde to be both healthful and otherwise--not yet Inhabited." (Lefroy's _Bermudas_, Vol. I, p. 558.)

_FROM NORTH OF THE POTOMAC_

The first settlers did not come to the Northern Neck from the direction of Jamestown, which would have been the natural direction. Nor did they come for the natural reason--new lands.

Instead, they came from north of the Potomac. In order to understand the reason for the migration of these pioneers from the north side of the Potomac to its south side, it is necessary to go back a few years and study the situation in the upper Chesapeake Bay region.

Before 1640 the activity of white men in the Chesapeake Bay centered about a trading post at Kent Island, situated far up the Bay. The trade there was with the Indian tribes in "fur, skins and Indian baskets."

Captain Henry Fleet, William Claiborne, a Virginian, and Lord Baltimore and his brother were chief among those who were making history in this region at that time.

Claiborne and a number of Virginians had established a colony on Kent Island under a charter secured before Lord Baltimore had settled his colony on the north side of the Potomac in a region that he called Maryland.

When Lord Baltimore was granted a charter to settle in this area, his charter included Kent Island. The charter, however, had said that he should have authority only over uninhabited lands.

Claiborne considered that Kent Island was inhabited and was not, therefore, a part of Maryland.

In 1634, the second Lord Baltimore sent about one hundred settlers, under the leadership of his brother, Leonard Calvert, to a point of land across the Potomac from the Northern Neck, and a settlement was established there, known as the "Citie of St. Mary's."

A year after this colony had been planted the settlers were instructed by their Governor, Leonard Calvert, to seize Kent Island.

Claiborne appealed to the Crown but the decision was in favor of Lord Baltimore's claim.

[Illustration: _First settlers at Coan._]

Claiborne did not give up so easily. With the help of Puritan rebels he seized Kent Island, captured the "Citie of St. Mary's" and drove Calvert from the colony.

But Calvert was also tenacious. He returned a year later, regained control of his Maryland possessions and forced Claiborne to give up Kent Island. Later, the English government decided, once and for all, in favor of Lord Baltimore's claim.

At this time there was much religious dissension in England and in Virginia. Lord Baltimore, a Catholic himself, had hoped to establish a colony where religious freedom could be had by all. Many Puritans left the lower Tidewater Virginia and joined the Maryland settlers.

But Lord Baltimore's plan for a harmonious mingling of all religions did not work out. The Puritans seized the reins of government and there followed years of intolerance and persecution in the "Citie of St.

Mary's."

Many Protestants and Royalists in the Maryland colony decided to look for a new home where they could live as they pleased.

Across the Potomac there was a long peninsula inhabited only by Indians.

What better place was there to find peace?

It was in this way that the first settlers came to the Northern Neck from north of the Potomac.

_THE FIRST SETTLER_

IT WAS probably about the year 1640 when the Indians of Chicacoan[5] saw a white man's boat turning from the Potomac into their inlet, Sekacawone.

[Footnote 5: Indian words had various spellings. Chicacoan, for example, was spelled Chickawane, Chickcoun, Chuckahann, Chickhan, Chiccoun, Accoan, Sekacawane, Secone, Chickoun, Chickacoon, Sekacawone, Chickacoan, Chicokolne, Chicokolue, Chicacoun, etc.]

The boat was of the type called a shallop, built and used by Indian traders. This one may have been of fifteen or twenty tons burden, with two masts, and square sails that were higher than they were wide. The wood may have been turpentined, or painted in a gay combination of colors, such as red, blue, green or yellow. If oars were used as well as sails they were probably painted red.

The white men on board the shallop were doubtless dressed in the manner of seamen of their day--loose breeches and jerkins of canvas, hose of coarse wool and boots of leather. They may have worn woolen stocking caps or felt hats, depending upon the season.

The owner of the vessel was an Englishman, not over thirty years of age.

His clothes were probably of a finer weave and cut than those of his men. Unless he was different from other men of his time and station, he wore his natural hair long and flowing about his shoulders. He may have worn a sword at his side. This young gentleman's name was John Mottrom, formerly of Maryland, but more recently from the vicinity of the York River.

If the inhabitants of Chicacoan thought that the shallop held "trucke"

to barter for their corn, they were mistaken. Far better for them had this been so.

John Mottrom was not looking for trade but for a new home, and he liked what he saw here--a wilderness peninsula, shut-away from the government at Jamestown by miles of water and forest, protected from Maryland by the Potomac, but close enough to keep in touch with his friends in the "Citie of St. Mary's."

He could see, too, that this wilderness held promises of future riches.

He had done well as a merchant, trading with Maryland, around the Potomac and up the Bay at Kent Island, but now the fur trade was on the wane and tobacco was taking the place of beaver skins as currency.

Here, in this peninsula of northern Virginia, new lands could be had for the taking--fields for tobacco. This inlet of the Potomac that the Indians called Sekacawone was a sheltered harbor but deep enough for big ships to come in and take the tobacco away to foreign markets. The adjacent lands had been cleared by the natives; the forest would furnish materials for homes and boats.