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page 158

156. Selected image: page 158. Source: Watson, Virginia. The Princess Pocahontas. Philadelphia: Penn Publishing Company, 1916. Illustrations by George Wharton Edwards. (Rpt. as Karla Dougherty, The Legend of Pocahontas. New York: Children's Classics, 1995.) 300th anniversary of the death of Pocahontas, part of a series on early history for children. Focus on "Pocahontas," even "Matoaka," rather than the "Lady Rebecca" persona. And a perspective sympathetic to the Indian: "The earlier histories and stories dealing with the Indians . . . made the red man a devil incarnate. . . . Now, however, there is a new spirit of understanding. We are finding out how often it was the Indian who was wronged and the white man who wronged him. . . . Virginia was the first permanent English settlement on this continent, and if not the most important, at least equally as important to our future development as that of New England. . . . But for one girl's aid—as far as man may judge—it would have been uprooted and destroyed. In truth, when I look over the whole world history, I can find no other child of thirteen, boy or girl, who wielded such a far-reaching influence over the future of a nation. . . . And the importance of this Colony to the future United States was so great that we owe to Pocahontas somewhat the same gratitude, though in a lesser degree, that France owes to her Joan of Arc." Pocahontas adopts Smith at the rescue, she meets with the wounded Smith departing to England, there's an Indian-lover sub-plot involving Claw-of-the-Eagle and his foster-mother, who kidnaps baby Thomas. (Several editions, not clear which one is linked.)
[illustrated; novel; juvenile]
[Electronic Version]
[4 of 7 images from this source.]