The Tale of Pocahontas

http://phimanh.net/News/Hoat-hinh/2007/03/3B9AE11A/pocahontas1.jpg

http://www.lynleigh.com/pocahontas/history/

In December 1607, barely six months after arriving at Jamestown with the 1st English colonists,

Captain John Smith was captured by warriors of Powhatan, the supreme chief of about fourteen thousand Algonquian people who inhabited the

coastal plain of present-day Virginia.

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http://www.poacherguide.co.uk/photos/famouspeople/Captain-John-Smith.jpg

According to Smith, Powhatan “feasted him after their best barbarous manner… two great stones were brought before Powhatan: than as many

[Indians] as could layd hands on [Smith], dragged him to [the stones], and thereon laid his head, and

being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines.”

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/200/269/smith_2.htm

At that moment, Pocahontas, Powhatan’s eleven-year-old daughter, rushed forward and “got [Smith’s] head in her

armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death.” Pocahontas, Smith wrote, “hazarded the beating

out of her owne braines to save mine, and … so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted [back] to

James towne.”

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm

This romantic story of an Indian maiden rescuing a white soldier and saving Jamestown, and

ultimately English colonization of North America, has been celebrated in the writing of American history since 1624, when Smith published his

Generall Historie of Virginia.

http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/pio/4MillVol/3-millionth_vol.htm

Historians believe that this episode happened more or less as Smith described it. But Smith did not

understand why Pocahontas acted as she did. Many have claimed that her love for Smith caused her to rebel against her father’s authority. Pocahontas left

no document that explains her motives; most likely, she could not write.

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm

Everything known about her comes from the pen of Smith or other Englishmen. When their

writings are considered in the context of what is known about the Algonquian society Pocahontas was born into, her actions appear in an entirely

different light.

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Motion Picture:The New World

Most likely, when Pocahontas intervened to save Smith, she was a participant in an Algonquian

ceremony. What Smith interpreted as Pocahontas’s saving him from certain death was instead a

ceremonial reenactment of Powhatan’s willingness to incorporate Smith into Powhatan’ empire.

http://www.animated-news.com/archives/poca4.jpg

The ceremony displayed Powhatan’s power of life or death and his willingness to give protection to those who acknowledged his supremacy, in this

case, the new visitors in Jamestown.

http://www.nativeamericans.com/aa_pocahonta_english_3_m%5b1%5d.jpg

Pocahontas was probably acting out Smith’s new status as an adopted member of Powhatan’s

extended family. Rather than a rebellious, love-struck girl, Pocahontas was almost certainly a

dutiful daughter playing the part assigned for her by her father and her culture.

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm

Pocahontas frequently visited the English settlement and often brought gifts of food from her father.

Powhatan routinely attached his sons and daughters to subordinate tribes as an expression of his

protection and his dominance.

ttp://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/pioneer/chap1_1.html

It appears that Pocahontas’s attachment to the English colonists grew out Powhatan’s attempt to

treat the tribe of white strangers at Jamestown as he did other tribes in his empire, an attempt that failed.

http://home.surewest.net/mlamarr/Jamestown/nativeattacks.html

In 1613, after relations between Powhatan and the English colonists had deteriorated into

bloody conflict, the colonists captured Pocahontas and held her hostage at

Jamestown.

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm

Within a year, she converted to Christianity and married one of the colonists, a widower named John Rolfe. After giving birth to a son named

Thomas, Pocahontas, her husband, and the new baby sailed for England in the spring of 1616.

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There, publicists of the Virginia colony dressed her as a proper Englishwomen and even

arranged for here to go to a ball attended by the king and queen.

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm

Pocahontas died in England in 1617. Her son, Thomas, returned to Virginia, and by the time of the American Revolution, his descendants

numbered in the hundreds. The New America, Thomas encountered was no longer dominated

by Native Americans.

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm

Portrait of Pocahontas &her son Thomas.

Old Flames ? According to Captain Smith’s writing, he once

again visited Pocahontas when he learned of her arrival in England.

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~lnbdds/home/images9/smithcaptjohn.jpg

The Legend Continues…….

My daughter Austin visitingDisney World in 2002.