by Lenna Gonya

Created on: December 18, 2009   Last Updated: December 19, 2009

John Smith wrote that Pocahontas was, "the instrument to pursurve this colonie from death, famine, and utter confusion."

The Algonquian Indian princess, daughter of the chief Powhatan, was born around 1595, and was only ten when she got her first look at the English colonists whom she would soon befriend. In her short life, she did more to establish relations between Native Americans and the newcomers than anyone else in the colonies. It was because of her that trading began, and necessary food supplies were provided to the Jamestown colonists.

In the most famous account of her life, she was responsible for saving John Smith, who had been captured by her tribe, and was in danger of being put to death. Because of her intervention, her father adopted Smith, and trading began between his tribe and the settlers. There is a possibility that this was only a ritual, and, that Smith was in no actual danger, but, either way, Pocahontas soon became the emissary between her people and the English.

She remained friends with Smith, until an accident caused him to return to England, and she was told that he had died.

Eventually, relations between the Indians and the colonists deteriorated, and, Captain Samuel Argall, a member of the Jamestown colony, developed a plan to kidnap the princess, and demand ransom. He demanded goods, food, and the return of the English prisoners from her father Powhatan.

During her captivity, she was moved to Henrico, another settlement, where she was converted to Christianity, and met a tobacco planter named John Rolfe.

When she was finally released, she told her father that she wanted to marry Rolfe, and, miraculously, even though blood had been shed on both sides, her father agreed.

The English were thrilled to have a marriage between the two peoples and Rolfe agreed, “for the good of the plantation, the honor of our country, the glory of God, for mine own salvation. . . “ Pocahontas was baptized and named Rebecca, and she and Rolfe were married April 5, 1614.

In 1616, Pocahontas, her husband, and their son, Thomas, sailed for England, where she was presented to King James I, and all of London society. It was here that she discovered that her old friend, John Smith had not died, but was alive and well in England.

In 1617, as they were ready to sail home to Virginia, she became seriously ill with pneumonia, and taken ashore, where this extraordinary young woman died at the age of 22. She is buried in a churchyard in Gravesend, England, far from her native soil.

http://www.preservationvirginia.org/rediscovery/page .php?page_id=26

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