Download
1 / 7
E N D
AUGUST 26, 2022 Pocahontas
INTRODUCTION Pocahontas was born in 1595. She was the daughter of Powhatan, Chief of 30 Indian tribes in Virginia. Pocahontas was given the name of Matoaka, which means "Little Snow Feather." This was a name used only within the tribe because it was believed that if outsiders learned of the tribal name, harm would come to a person and to speak one's real name aloud was like opening a door to evil spirits. She was given the nickname of Pocahontas which has many different translations. It is loosely translated as "one who plays mostly," "playful one," "little wanton," and "playful, frolicsome little girl."
“In the year 1607, the first Englishmen came sailing across the ocean to settle in the part of the New World which they called Virginia after their virgin queen Elizabeth. They might have perished if it had not been for the help, they got from the Indian Princess Pocahontas.’’ —D'Aulaire, page 1, 1946.
THE REAL POCAHONTAS A young Native American girl, known as Matoaka to her clan, entered American mythology long before movies turned her into a “Disney Princess”. She has become so completely mythologized that it is sometimes difficult to remember that this teenager, whose nickname Pocahontas meant "spirited child," was an actual person. In animated films and school plays, the young Pocahontas saves brave Englishman John Smith from being killed by her father, ensuring peace between her people and the Europeans. There is also a hint of romance between the young Indian princess and Smith. The Native people of the Powhatan Nation tell a different story.
Pocahontas's people took their name from her father, Chief Powhatan. Matoaka was born in the village of Werowocomodo, about twelve miles from the British settlement of Jamestown, in 1596 or 1597. She married an Indian named Kodoum in 1610. The story about John Smith supposedly took place 3 years earlier when Matoaka was 10 or 11 and Smith was in his 30’s. What is interesting about Smith's account of his dramatic rescue by the daughter of the Indian chief is that he mentioned nothing about it when he wrote an account of his stay with Powhatan's people immediately upon returning to Britain. It was not until 17 years later, after Matoaka was dead, that Smith recounted that particular story. Also, it is one of 3 different tales he told in which he was saved by prominent women.
What is certain is that in 1612, Matoaka was kidnapped by Captain Samuel Argell for ransom and taken to Jamestown. The struggling colony, which began as a business venture led by the Virginia Company, was desperate for food and greedy for gold. She was held captive for a year during which time part of the ransom was paid. After a series of skirmishes between the Powhatans and the British, a settler named John Rolfe agreed to a peace-making marriage if Matoaka converted to Christianity. He married, he said, "for the good of the plantation, the honor of the country, for the glory of God." One can assume that Pocahontas married in hopes of bringing peace and seeing her family again. In 1614, Matoaka, the "spirited child" Pocahontas, daughter of chief Powhatan, became Rebecca Rolfe.
Rebecca and John Rolfe had a son, Thomas, and 2 years later travelled to Britain. The Virginia Company used her in a propaganda campaign to raise support and funds for the struggling Jamestown colony. By all accounts the Rebecca Rolfe was the toast of London and "carried herself as the daughter of a king." Unfortunately, in a fate that befell most Natives who came into contact with European diseases, Rebecca Rolfe became ill (probably of smallpox) and died before she could return home. She was buried in Gravesend, England, in 1617 at the age of 21. Rolfe may have been killed several years later when the Powhatans attacked Jamestown and killed 1/3 of the colonists. Matoaka's people, who had once numbered nearly 20,000 in Virginia, were reduced to fewer than 2,000 within a century of the founding of Jamestown.
