Pocahontas

Pocahontas (c.1595–1617), daughter of Indian chief Powhatan, was really named Matoaka. Her popular name means “sportive.” The fame of Pocahontas is largely based on the story in Book III, Chapter 2, of John Smith's Generall Historie (1624), which is considered apocryphal. In 1608, according to Smith, when Powhatan was about “to beate out his brains, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death.” The story has been frequently studied by historians and repeated in literature. The first treatment in the latter form was John Davis's novel The First Settlers of Virginia (1805), and later examples include J.N. Barker's The Indian Princess, G.W.P. Custis's Pocahontas, and Robert Dale Owen's Pocahontas, all dramas; and Seba Smith's metrical romance Powhatan. Hart Crane treats Pocahontas as a mythic and symbolic figure in The Bridge, as, in a manner closer to history, does Louis Simpson in At the End of the Open Road. In 1613 she was held as hostage for English prisoners, and in Jamestown became con‐verted to Christianity and married John Rolfe. She went to England with him (1616), and died there. Their descendants include many prominent Virginia families. Her name has been spelled Pokahontas, as in J.E. Cooke's novel My Lady Pokahontas.