1803

Wirt, William. The Letters of the British Spy. Richmond, 1803. 37-42 (Letter IV). (New York, 1875. 161-70) (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1970. 161-70. Introduction by Richard Beale Davis.) A visit to Pocahontas’s birthplace spurs a melancholy meditation on the plight of the Indians on the part of this prominent lawyer who, in the 1830s, would defend the Cherokee before the Supreme Court. Virginians have “no right to this country,” and it is “no wonder” that the “poor wretches” are so “implacably vindictive against the white people." Wirt’s “soul melts with pity and shame," and he states that if he were president he would “bury the tomahawk” by asking for forgiveness and permission to remain in their homeland. But Pocahontas, “the patron deity of the enterprise” worthy of “a better fate,” undoubtedly sought in her marriage "the abolition of all distinction between Indians and white men," and deserves a festival “in honour of her memory." Without this “sensible and amiable woman,” “the anniversary cannon of the Fourth of July would never have resounded throughout the United States." And thus this essay is one of the earliest indications of what would be called the "Indian problem" and one of the earliest calls for public canonization of the “unfortunate princess.” (See Ruricola 1831 for testimony to the lasting influence of this essay.)
[Indian problem]
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