118 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
ponte “ Pocahontas ” was a nickname, meaning “ Little Wet 
ton,” given for her lively and frolicsome disposition. 
An old writer gives the following quaint little glimpse of her 
merry and fun-loving nature: 
“And therefore would the before remembered Pocahontas, a 
well featured but wanton young girle, Powhattan’s daughter, 
sometymes resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleven or 
twelve yeares, get the boyes forth with her into the market place 
and make them wheele, falling on their heads, turning their heeles 
upwards, whome she would poles and wheele so herself, naked 
as she was, all the fort over.’ 
So it was not always gloomy and distressful at  famnestionran. 
There was a little brightness and light and fun when Pocahontas 
joined the boys in the market place and wheeled all over the fort. 
Under Smith’s management an appreciable improvement of 
conditions took place. Confidence began to return to the dis- 
couraged settlers; order was restored and the rules of common 
sense enforced. In the year 1608 only 28 men had died. 
When Smith returned to England, in October 1609, times sadly 
changed. The strong hand of control was removed, and disorder, 
neglect, and misrule returned. The “Starving Time” followed 
with all its ghastly sufferings, too horrible to describe here. When 
Sir Thomas Gates arrived, in May 1610, the colonists had been 
reduced from nearly 500 in September to about 60 “ most miser- 
able, poor creatures.” The case was so hopeless that Gates deter- 
mined to take them all back to England and abandon the colony. 
On June 7, 1610, they all got aboard and were dropping slowly 
down the river when they met Lord Delaware, the Governor Gen- 
eral of Virginia, appointed under the new charter of May 23, 1609, 
with a fresh convoy of men and supplies. On June 10 Delaware 
had them all back at Jamestown again, and after the new governor 
immediately on landing had had divine services, once more all 
hands took hold again, never to let go. And so Jamestown was 
settled at last and Virginia was established forever. 
