As ransom, English settlers demanded corn, the return of prisoners and stolen items, and a peace treaty. Some demands were met immediately; others Powhatan agreed to negotiate. Pocahontas was moved from Jamestown to the Henrico settlement near present-day Richmond and, in July , met John Rolfe.
After a year of captivity, Sir Thomas Dale took Pocahontas and armed men to Powhatan, demanding the remainder of the ransom. A skirmish occurred, and Englishmen burned villages and killed Indian men. During this event, Pocahontas told her father that she wished to marry Rolfe. Rolfe helped save the Virginia colony by promoting tobacco cultivation, and was likely aided in some part by his wife. Pocahontas bore a son named Thomas and, in , the Rolfes traveled to England, spending time in London and Norfolk, where the extended Rolfe family lived.
While there, Pocahontas dressed in the Elizabethan style pictured in her famous portrait. Considered an Indian princess by the English, she was granted an audience with King James I and the royal family. Shortly after the Rolfes set sail for their return to Virginia in , Pocahontas became gravely ill from tuberculosis or pneumonia.
She died shortly thereafter at the age of 22 and was buried in a churchyard in Gravesend, England. MLA - Michals, Debra. National Women's History Museum, Date accessed.
Chicago - Michals, Debra. Although Pocahontas was the favorite daughter of the paramount chief, she still had the freedom to choose whom she married, as did other women in Powhatan society.
For the next several years, Pocahontas was not mentioned in the English accounts. In , that changed when Captain Samuel Argall discovered she was living with the Patawomeck.
Argall knew relations between the English and the Powhatan Indians were still poor. Capturing Pocahontas could give him the leverage he needed to change that. Argall met with Iopassus, chief of the town of Passapatanzy and brother to the Patawomeck tribe's chief, to help him kidnap Pocahontas.
At first, the chief declined, knowing Powhatan would punish the Patawomeck people. Ultimately, the Patawomeck decided to cooperate with Argall; they could tell Powhatan they acted under coercion. The trap was set. Pocahontas accompanied Iopassus and his wife to see Captain Argall's English ship. Iopassus' wife then pretended to want to go aboard, a request her husband would grant only if Pocahontas would accompany her.
Pocahontas refused at first, sensing something was not right, but finally agreed when Iopassus' wife resorted to tears. After eating, Pocahontas was taken to the gunner's room to spend the night.
In the morning, when the three visitors were ready to disembark, Argall refused to allow Pocahontas to leave the ship. Iopassus and his wife seemed surprised; Argall declared Pocahontas was being held as ransom for the return of stolen weapons and English prisoners held by her father. Iopassus and his wife left, with a small copper kettle and some other trinkets as a reward for their part in making Pocahontas an English prisoner.
After her capture, Pocahontas was brought to Jamestown. Eventually, she was probably taken to Henrico, a small English settlement near present-day Richmond.
Powhatan, informed of his daughter's capture and ransom cost, agreed to many of the English demands immediately, to open negotiations. In the meantime, Pocahontas was put under the charge of Reverend Alexander Whitaker, who lived at Henrico. She learned the English language, religion and customs. While not all was strange to Pocahontas, it was vastly different than the Powhatan world. During her religious instruction, Pocahontas met widower John Rolfe, who would become famous for introducing the cash crop tobacco to the settlers in Virginia.
By all English accounts, the two fell in love and wanted to marry. Perhaps, once Pocahontas was kidnapped, Kocoum, her first husband, realized divorce was inevitable there was a form of divorce in Powhatan society. Once Powhatan was sent word that Pocahontas and Rolfe wanted to marry, his people would have considered Pocahontas and Kocoum divorced. Powhatan consented to the proposed marriage and sent an uncle of Pocahontas' to represent him and her people at the wedding.
In , Pocahontas converted to Christianity and was baptized "Rebecca. The marriage led to the "Peace of Pocahontas;" a lull in the inevitable conflicts between the English and Powhatan Indians. The Rolfes soon had a son named Thomas. The Virginia Company of London, who had funded the settling of Jamestown, decided to make use of the favorite daughter of the great Powhatan to their advantage. They thought, as a Christian convert married to an Englishman, Pocahontas could encourage interest in Virginia and the company.
Pocahontas, known as "Lady Rebecca Rolfe," was also accompanied by about a dozen Powhatan men and women. Once in England, the party toured the country. Smith had not forgotten about Pocahontas and had even written a letter to Queen Anne describing all she had done to help the English in Jamestown's early years. Pocahontas had been in England for months, though, before Smith visited her. He wrote that she was so overcome with emotion that she could not speak and turned away from him.
Upon gaining her composure, Pocahontas reprimanded Smith for the manner in which he had treated her father and her people. She reminded him how Powhatan had welcomed him as a son, how Smith had called him "father. She said the settlers had reported Smith had died after his accident, but that Powhatan had suspected otherwise as "your countrymen will lie much.
After traveling down the Thames River, Pocahontas, seriously ill, had to be taken ashore. In the town of Gravesend, Pocahontas died of an unspecified illness. Many historians believe she suffered from an upper respiratory ailment, such as pneumonia, while others think she could have died from some form of dysentery. Pocahontas, about twenty-one, was buried at St.
George's Church on March 21, John Rolfe returned to Virginia, but left the young ailing Thomas with relatives in England.
Within a year, Powhatan died. The "Peace of Pocahontas" began to slowly unravel. Life for her people would never be the same. Daniel "Silver Star," based on the sacred oral history of the Mattaponi tribe, offers some further, and sometimes very different, insights into the real Pocahontas. Pocahontas was the last child of Wahunsenaca Chief Powhatan and his first wife Pocahontas, his wife of choice and of love.
Pocahontas' mother died during childbirth. Their daughter was given the name Matoaka which meant "flower between two streams. Wahunsenaca was devastated by the loss of his wife, but found joy in his daughter.
He often called her Pocahontas, which meant "laughing and joyous one," since she reminded him of his beloved wife. There was no question that she was his favorite and that the two had a special bond. Even so, Wahunsenaca thought it best to send her to be raised in the Mattaponi village rather than at his capital of Werowocomoco. She was raised by her aunts and cousins, who took care of her as if she were their own. Once Pocahontas was weaned, she returned to live with her father at Werowocomoco.
Wahunsenaca had other children with Pocahontas' mother as well as with his alliance wives, but Pocahontas held a special place in her father's heart. Pocahontas held a special love and respect for her father as well.
All of the actions of Pocahontas or her father were motivated by their deep love for each other, their deep and strong bond. The love and bond between them never wavered. Most of her older siblings were grown, as Wahunsenaca fathered Pocahontas later in his life.
Many of her brothers and sisters held prominent positions within Powhatan society. Her family was very protective of her and saw to it that she was well looked after. As a child, Pocahontas' life was very different than as an adult. The distinction between childhood and adulthood was visible through physical appearance as well as through behavior.
Pocahontas would not have cut her hair or worn clothing until she came of age in winter she wore a covering to protect against the cold. There were also certain ceremonies she was not allowed to participate in or even witness.
Even as a child, the cultural standards of Powhatan society applied to her, and in fact, as the daughter of the paramount chief, more responsibility and discipline were expected of her.
Pocahontas also received more supervision and training; as Wahunsenaca's favorite daughter she probably had even more security, as well. The most famous event of Pocahontas' life, her rescue of Captain John Smith, did not happen the way he wrote it. Smith was exploring when he encountered a Powhatan hunting party.
A fight ensued, and Smith was captured by Opechancanough. Opechancanough, a younger brother of Wahunsenaca, took Smith from village to village to demonstrate to the Powhatan people that Smith, in particular, and the English, in general, were as human as they were. Pocahontas caused a sensation among an English upper crust that was always in search of novelty and amusement.
Although a century later Robert Beverley Jr. Even John Smith took little trouble to pay his respects to his former friend. Living in London himself, he waited several months before calling on her; in his account, he claimed that he had been too busy. When he finally made his appearance, Pocahontas was so angry with him that she retired to another room to regain her composure.
Their conversation, once it began, soon degenerated into her flinging taunts at him about his shabby treatment of her father. By the time Smith came around, she and her family had moved to Brentford, then a small village outside London. It is more probable that her novelty among the upper classes had faded, and, absent rich sponsors, the Virginia Company was forced to transfer her to cheaper accommodations. Indirect evidence also suggests that she was in good health at that time.
Though they were already planning to return to Virginia, a week before they departed the Rolfes were awarded a large grant by the Virginia Company to start a mission. As part of such an enterprise, Pocahontas would have been expected to serve the dual roles of interpreter and housemother, which would have been a strenuous assignment for someone who was ill or dying. After a two-month delay because of bad weather, the Rolfes and Uttamatomakkin embarked for Virginia in March Pocahontas was rumored to have regrets about leaving London, but that may have been wishful thinking on the part of some Englishmen.
In the end, though, she took ill. Pocahontas, then about twenty-one years old, was taken ashore at Gravesend, down the Thames River from London, where she died.
On March 21, she was interred under the chancel of St. Her son, Thomas, too sick himself to travel, remained in England. Pocahontas is one of the iconic figures in American history.
Since her death, her life story—buttressed by few and not always reliable historical sources—largely has been supplanted by myth.
Except for her time in London, her contemporaries paid little attention to her, and they wrote next to nothing about her. In fact, she did not become a celebrity until the s, when southerners sought a colonial heroine to compete with the story of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts and so establish Virginia more accurately as the earlier of the two English colonies.
Nevertheless, the mythical Pocahontas survives in the Walt Disney animated feature Pocahontas and the Terrence Malick film The New World , both of which emphasize an unlikely romance between the young girl and Smith.
Because of her celebrity, Virginians have long sought to connect themselves with Pocahontas. After St. Attempts made in the s to identify her bones were unsuccessful. However, many Virginians have claimed descent from Pocahontas. The Racial Integrity Act, passed by the General Assembly in , allowed the state to assign all newborns to racial categories and disallowed the mixing of those categories, especially in marriage.
Such connections, though, have always been tenuous at best. He died in , place unknown, and left behind an unknown number of children, if any. Virginia kept no consistent records of births, marriages, and deaths before , and no part of a Thomas Rolfe—descended genealogy was written down until the s—in other words, exactly when the Pocahontas myth was beginning to be constructed. Who is and is not actually descended from Pocahontas thus remains both cloudy and controversial.
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