by Angela La Fon

Created on: May 26, 2007   Last Updated: September 25, 2009

Born an Indian princess in 1595, Pocahontas was the favored of many daughters of Chief Powhatan of the Powhatan Indian Nation. Her people called her Matoaka, which means "Little Snow Feather."

Pocahontas at age 10: Three Ships Sailing

At the age of ten, as three ships sailed in the direction of the coast, the direction of Pocahontas's' life was forever change. It was the English colonists who called her Pocahontas, which means "Bright Stream Between Two Hills," or playful one. Curious about them, Pocahontas often visited the English and sometimes brought food and furs which she traded for tools and trinkets. Pocahontas was said to have copied young boys of the colony who were turning cartwheels and "she would follow and wheele some herself, naked as she was all the fort over."

She began to speak to John Smith using sign language. There are stories told that Pocahontas once saved Smith's life when she asked her father to spare him. Smith himself shared this story though historians have argued that the story may have been romanticized or that the scene may have been part of an arraigned ritual.

Pocahontas at age 12: Saved the Colonists

Pocahontas was credited with warning the colonists of a coming attack but when John Smith left the colony following injuries and she was told, inaccurately, that Smith was dead, her support of the colonists came to an end.

Pocahontas at age 15: Married then Kidnapped

Her later marriage to John Rolfe is well known but Pocahontas was actually first married to an Indian named Kocoum in 1610.In a desperate move to try to procure land, the return of captured men and food, the English kidnapped Pocahontas. She lived with the settlers for many years and was treated well. Pocahontas was baptized and given the English name "Rebecca."

Pocahontas at age 17: Married to John Rolfe

With the permission of her father, she married John Rolfe. Rebecca and John lived in a house on land given to them by her father and a year later they had a son, Thomas.

Pocahontas at age 20: Visits England

At the age of twenty, the family traveled to England where Pocahontas was already considered a celebrity because of the stories about her written by John Smith. Pocahontas appeared before Queen Anne and King James I. She was well received. Galas were thrown in her honor and she was visited by poets and dignitaries.

Pocahontas Dies at age 21:

In 1617 at the age of twenty-one, Pocahontas died quietly on a ship in Thames River, which was supposed to take her from England back home to what is now Virginia. She was born Little Snow Bird, and she died Rebecca but her years as Pocahontas fascinate us all.

Sources:

http://www.biography.com/articles/Pocahontas-9443116

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

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