Thinking Like a Historian: Who Was Pocahontas?

Matoaka — nicknamed Pocahontas — was born around 1596 in the region the English would soon name Virginia. A daughter of Chief Powhatan, her interactions with colonists were important at the time and have been mythologized ever since. Pocahontas left no writings, so what we know of her comes from others. From these accounts, we know that she acted as a mediator with the Jamestown settlers; she was the first Native American to marry an Englishman; and she traveled to England with her husband and son. Pocahontas fell ill and died in Gravesend, England, in June 1617.

  1. John Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia, 1624. Smith’s description of being a captive of Powhatan in 1607.

    Having feasted [Smith] after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could layd hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperour was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper.

  2. Robert Vaughn’s engraving of Pocahontas saving Smith’s life, from John Smith’s Generall Historie of Virginia, 1624.
    image
    Source: © British Library Board / Robana / Art Resource, NY.
  3. John Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia, 1624. Pocahontas visited Jamestown regularly in the years following Smith’s capture. Smith returned to England in 1609; four years later Captain Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas and held her captive in Jamestown.

    [S]he too James towne [was brought.] A messenger forthwith was sent to her father, that his daughter Pocahontas he loved so dearely, he must ransome with our men, swords, peeces, tooles, &c. he treacherously had stolen. … [H]e … sent us word, that when we would deliver his daughter, he would make us satisfaction for all injuries done to us, and give us five hundred bushels of Corne, and for ever be friends with us. … [W]e could not believe the rest of our armes were either lost or stolen from him, and therefore till he sent them, we would keep his daughter. … [W]e heard no more from him a long time after. …

    [Long before this, Master John Rolfe, an honest Gentleman of good behavior had been in love with Pocahontas, and she with him. … T]his marriage came soone to the knowledge of Powhatan, a thing acceptable to him, as appeared by his sudden consent, for within ten daies he sent Opachisco, an old Uncle of hers, and two of his sons, to see the manner of the marriage, and to do in that behalf what they were requested … which was accordingly done about the first of April: And ever since we have had friendly trade and commerce.

  4. John Rolfe, Letter to Sir Thomas Dale, 1614. Pocahontas and John Rolfe married in April 1614. In June, Rolfe defended his motives in this letter to Virginia’s deputy-governor.

    I freely subject my selfe to your grave and mature judgment, deliberation, approbation and determination. … [I am not led by] the unbridled desire of carnal affection: but for the good of this plantation, for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbeleeving creature, namely Pocahontas. To whom my hartie and best thoughts are, and have [for] a long time bin so intangled, and inthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was even awearied to unwinde my selfe thereout. … [I have often thought]: surely these are wicked instigations, hatched by him who seeketh and delighteth in man’s destruction[.]

    I say the holy spirit of God has often demanded of me, why I was created … but to labour in the Lord’s vineyard. … Likewise adding hereunto her great appearance of love to me, her desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge of God, her capableness of understanding, her aptness and willingness to receive any good impression, and also the spirituall, besides her owne incitements stirring me up hereunto. …

    Now if the vulgar sort, who square all men’s actions by the base rule of their owne filthiness, shall tax or taunt me in this my godly labour: let them know, it is not any hungry appetite, to gorge my selfe with incontinency; sure (if I would, and were so sensually inclined) I might satisfy such desire, though not without a seared conscience.

  5. Portrait of Pocahontas by Simon Van De Pass, 1616. In 1616, the Virginia Company of London sent Pocahontas, John Rolfe, and their son Thomas to England, where she met King James and sat for this portrait, the only surviving image of Pocahontas.
    image
    Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource, NY.
  6. John Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia, 1624. In 1624, John Smith recalled a meeting he had with Pocahontas during her 1616 tour of England.

    [H]earing shee was at Branford with divers of my friends, I went to see her: After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humour her husband, with divers others, we all left her two or three houres. … But not long after, she began to talke, and remembred mee well what courtesies she had done: saying, [“]You did promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you; you called him father being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I doe you:[”] which though I would have excused, I durst not allow of that title, because she was a Kings daughter; with a well set countenance she said, [“]Were you not afraid to come into my fathers Countrie, and caused feare in him and all his people (but mee) and feare you here I should call you father; I tell you then I will, and you shall call mee childe, and so I will bee for ever and ever your Countrieman. They did tell us [always] you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to [Plymouth]; yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seeke you, and know the truth, because your Countriemen will lie much.[”]

Sources: (1, 3, 6) John Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1907), 101, 218, 220, 238–239; (4) J. Franklin Jameson, Narratives of Early Virginia (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907), 237–244.

ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

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