Pocahontas
Reality vs. Tradition
1595 – 1617

So what do we really know about this young Powhatan woman who was an important figure in the history of Colonial America? Was she really an “Indian Princess” since her father was a paramount chief in his tribe? Also, how about the account of how she saved the life of early Virginia colonist John Smith? Or how about the 1995 “reimagined” animated Disney movie that fancifully depicted her as an exuberant young woman who floated over the screen praising the beauties of nature?

Are those stories real? If not, what was the real Pocahontas like? One sure way to discover the reality of an historical person is to read what they wrote, but of course that wouldn’t work here since Pocahontas seems to have left no such thing. So that means that most everything we know about her was written by others. However, let’s see what we do know:

Though her real name may have been something like Mantoaka, history knows her by the nickname Pocahontas, which reportedly meant “playful one” because of her frivolous nature. She was probably born around 1596 and was the daughter of Wahunsenaca, the paramount chief of the Powhatan people—the English settlers called him Powhatan since it was probably easier to say. At the height of their influence the Powhatan people numbered some 25,000 persons and included some 30 Algonquian tribes—each with their own chief.

Nothing is known of Pocahontas’ mother, though she was probably one of Powhatan’s wives—and some speculate that she died when Pocahontas was born. Yet whether that was what happened or not Pocahontas would have learned all the traditional tasks for a tribal woman, including building their shelters, doing the farming and cooking and gathering firewood.

The English settled Jamestown in May, 1607 when Pocahontas was probably around eleven-years-old, yet it wasn’t until that winter that she and her father met any of the new arrivals. At that time the tribe captured Captain John Smith, one of the colonists, and he was eventually brought to the paramount chief. What happened next became the stuff of history—or not.

So what happened? According to Smith’s later account, he was brought before the chief, and forced down to kneel next to two massive stones on the ground, then his head was shoved down on the stones as someone raised a club to smash out his brains. But just then a girl stepped out of the crowd to place herself on the ground beside the prisoner and put her head against his, thus stopping the procedure. So did this really occur?

Perhaps—or perhaps not—since Smith’s story of the incident was not included in his earliest accounts so that makes some even wonder if it really did happen? Some have speculated it wasn’t an execution attempt but a sort of ceremony adopting Smith into the tribe—not out of the question because Smith did become close to Pocahontas’ people. Eventually Powhatan came to consider Smith as a member of the tribe and he was released.

Since most colonists were more interested in finding wealth than building a community, the English were ill prepared to raise any food, so Powhatan and his people often had to provide him with part of their daily rations. Thus Pocahontas often visited the Jamestown settlement and played with the Jamestown children.

This relationship meant that Pocahontas soon became a link between the English and her people, which included being a liaison in a prisoner release situation. Smith himself later wrote that though Pocahontas’ influence was important for a time, but often relations between colonists and the Powhatan people soured.

Relations between the Powhatan people and English colonists became particularly difficult in the winter of 1608-9, when apparently as the English tried to trade beads for more corn, it became difficult because a drought meant little food was available. As trading between the two peoples ceased, the colonists threatened to invade the Powhatan village, to seize what they needed. Then about this time Powhatan and Pocahontas returned to temporary obscurity and lost contact with the colonists. Then in 1609 Smith was injured in a gunpowder accident, returned to England, and later Pocahontas was told that he died on the return voyage.

However, tribal life continued and in 1610 Pocahontas married a tribesman named Kococum and for a while colonial accounts do not mention her. However, about 1613 somehow she was captured by the colonists and settled in Jamestown, where she stayed with a local pastor to improve her English, and to learn about the colonists’ religion and customs.

By this time she was a young woman and entered the next phase of her life, as she met John Rolfe who had brought prosperity to the colony, as he introduced tobacco as an exportable cash crop. It was likely that by this time Kococum and Pocahontas had separated, and even divorced, since she had left the tribe. Pocahontas was baptized in the Jamestown church, taking the name of “Rebecca” and then she and Rolfe were married in 1614. Their union seemed to bring a lull to the ongoing conflicts between the English and Pocahontas’ people. They were to have a son named Thomas.

Jamestown had been settled and was supported by the Virginia Company of London, and they pounced on the Rolfe marriage as the perfect opportunity to publicize the colony. It was a great public relation’s gimmick—a native woman who converted to Christianity, then married an English settler and had a child—an attractive image for Virginia, and hopefully an attraction for more settlers.

In 1616 Rolfe, Pocahontas, their son and several members of her tribe traveled to England with the Virginia Company paying their way. Introduced to the English aristocracy as Lady Rebecca Rolfe, she was presented at the court of King James I. The family then settled in a country house when in 1617 she met Captain John Smith, it proved to be an uncomfortable meeting since she had been told he had died.

That same year the Rolfe family set off to return to Virginia and as their ship descended the Thames Pocahontas became ill and was removed to shore to recuperate. However, she did not survive, succumbing to what may have been an upper respiratory ailment such as pneumonia. She was 21.

Pocahontas was buried from a local church in March, 1617 and her husband returned to America, leaving his son with relatives in England. Within a year Powhatan died and relations between the tribe and the colonists began to unravel again.

Later Thomas Rolfe returned to Virginia where he married and had a family. One daughter, born in 1750, married Robert Bolling and through him came various descendants of Pocahontas. One of these was Edith Bolling Galt who became First Lady when she married widower President Woodrow Wilson in 1915.

It was Edith Wilson whom some historians have called the “petticoat president,” when Mr. Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919, and his wife became the link between her husband and his staff, and the public during his recovery. It was a period Mrs. Wilson called “her stewardship” period, but may have been a continuation of the legacy of her courageous dynamic ancestor, Pocahontas.

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Anne Adams is a retired church staffer. She lives in East Texas and has an historical column for a local newspaper. She has published in Christian and secular publications for more than 40 years.

References:
Wikipedia
National Park Service