Pocahontas (1596?-1617)

Pocahontas (1596?-1617)

Powhatan “princess”

Sources

European Connections. The daughter of Wahunsunacock, chief of the Powhatan people, Pocahontas (“the Playful One”) is remembered as the first native woman to marry an Englishman in the North American colonies. Her connection to the Europeans arose in the context of Native American foreign relations. In the autumn of 1607, when the newly arrived colonists at Jamestown were starving, the Powhatan chief sent corn to help them. The Powhatans viewed the English as potentially powerful allies although Capt. John Smith and the other colonists felt so powerless that they considered all native peoples as threatening.

Smith. In December 1607 Smith was captured during an exploratory expedition. The Powhatans staged a mock execution ceremony (designed to dramatize native power and friendship) by pretending to cut off Smith’s head. At the crucial moment, Pocahontas, then age twelve, intervened, throwing herself on Smith’s body. Smith and the other Virginians interpreted this as a spontaneous demonstration of love (probably divinely inspired) while recent historians see it as part of a cultural drama of power and an offer of alliance.

Rolfe. In 1613 Capt. Samuel Argall, a member of the Virginia council, led a raid against the Powhatans and captured Pocahonatas. John Rolfe, a prosperous tobacco planter, fell in love with the young Indian woman and asked permission from Gov. Sir Thomas Dale to marry her. Their union occurred during a time of few white women in Virginia. It also served as an attempt to improve relations between the whites and native peoples.

England. In 1616 Rolfe and Pocahontas traveled to England on a voyage to encourage future colonization of Virginia. The following spring, as they were preparing to return to North America, Pocahontas became ill, probably from pneumonia, and died at the approximate age of twenty-two. A statue in the cemetery of Saint George’s Church at Gravesend in Kent is believed to mark her grave. Her death, and that of her father, led to a deterioration of relations that resulted in war and the destruction of the Powhatan people.

Sources

Frances Mossiker, Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend (New York: Knopf, 1976);

Grace Steele Woodward, Pocahontas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969).