Virginia Vignettes

Pocahontas, a daughter of the paramount chief Powhatan, was about 10 years old in 1607, when the captive John Smith was brought to her father’s headquarters at Werowocomoco. Opinions differ as to whether the famous “rescue of John Smith” actually happened, but if it did, it was most likely a ritual enactment misunderstood by Smith.

During the next two years, Pocahontas sometimes accompanied her father’s councilors on trips to Jamestown. In 1613, the teenager was kidnapped by the English and held for ransom. During her captivity, the Englishman John Rolfe requested permission to marry her. After the English made peace with her father, Pocahontas agreed, with Powhatan’s approval, to accept the English religion and marry Rolfe. She took the name Rebecca.

In 1616, the Rolfes went to England with their young son Thomas, where Rebecca Rolfe was presented to the English court. She died there of an unknown disease in 1617, and she was buried in Gravesend. In 2006, a delegation of Virginia Indians visited her grave and honored her as one of our ancestors who faced difficult decisions.

The legend that has grown up around Pocahontas has been debated by scholars and Indians as well as movie makers and children’s authors. Many of the most popular versions of her story have little basis in historical fact.

This entry first appeared in The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail, 2007, Karenne Wood (ed.), Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

For Further Reading:

Townsend, Camilla. 2004. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. New York: Hill and Wang.

Rountree, Helen C. 1990. Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

This Vignette Provided By

Karenne Wood, Director of the VA Indian Program at VFH and Deanna Beacham, Program Specialist, VA Council on Indians