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The English Pocahontas Ten Essential Questions The English Pocahontas Ten Essential Questions by John Pagano 2020 About the Author John is from upstate New York where he received his BA in History at the State University of New York at New Paltz. After eight years of teaching and then several years working at various historical sites from Pennsylvania to Georgia, John became an outreach educator for the Jamestown- Yorktown Foundation. While working as a teacher and museum professional, John was also a film and documentary consultant and advisor, as well as the author of dozens of magazine articles on various topics on military and United States history. Since 2007, John has been employed as the historical interpretation supervisor at Henricus Historical Park in Chester, Virginia. In his 14 years working there he has become a focused historian and interpreter presenting the story of Pocahontas from the time of her 1613 capture to her death in Gravesend, England in 1617. In these years working at Henricus in Rocke Hall, a reconstructed parsonage designed to interpret the home of Reverend Alexander Whitaker, John has found a tactile method of presenting the year of conversion of Pocahontas from being a Powhatan Indian to an English wife married to John Rolfe. While working in this position, John was asked to be a member of the civic delegation that went from Henrico and Chesterfield Counties to England for the 400th Anniversary of Pocahontas’ death in 2017. That visit changed his more academic based perspectives to an emotional one. Being there and walking her footsteps in life and death made the work in Virginia more urgent, more passionate, and more connective. Whether it is working everyday with local or international guests at Henricus or in his writing, John will be an advocate and voice for Pocahontas, with better accuracy and questions about her life during her later years. John now lives in Hanover County, Virginia with his daughter, Cora. 1 THE ENGLISH POCAHONTAS 1613-1617: TEN ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS Introduction In his chronicles of the early Virginia settlements, Captain John Smith called Pocahontas the curious title, “the first Virginian,” a title not given to any English leader, laborer, woman, or child. 1 From the first moments that she encountered Captain John Smith in 1608 through her death in Gravesend, England in 1617, she was destined as a special fixture in the story of early Virginia, the early British Empire, and the United States of America. It is a valid argument that she is our “Founding Mother” for all that she sacrificed to assist English success in Virginia. But what really happened? Where and when did it happen? And the most difficult question to answer, why did it happen? It is a fascinating and gripping story that needs no embellishment. Pocahontas was abducted in an exchange between the Patawomeck people and Captain Samuel Argall in the early Spring of 1613. One year later, after the efforts of Sir Thomas Dale and Reverend Alexander Whitaker, she was baptized, converted to a Christian of the Church of England and married to Master John Rolfe. This marriage and their subsequent child, Thomas Rolfe, brought an alliance and treaty between the Virginia Company of London and Powhatan leadership. Without Pocahontas agreeing to make this religious, social, political, and cultural exchange happen, and in one way sacrificing herself, the English and the Powhatan Chiefdom would have continued to clash, engage in bloody campaigns, and decide at that time to try to wipe each other out completely. If her conversion was the key to eventual English success through peaceful expansion of a tobacco economy and not warfare, then the English grew from this. King James I agreed to charter other companies after this Anglo-Powhatan alliance, such as the Pilgrims who would establish Massachusetts, and then later companies that colonized India, Asia, and Africa. The Powhatan people benefited, too, getting a powerful ally, endless trade goods, and advanced technologies. This was a legacy that Powhatan himself could have wanted towards the end of half a century of ruling his chiefdom. In order for these advantages for 2 two cultures to occur, Pocahontas gave herself up in almost every way a person could. It was a test of mental, physical, and emotional toughness unique to our history. This historical sketch will look at 10 essential and fascinating questions regarding Pocahontas becoming and being an English woman. The following interpretations are designed to offer some new questions and explanations. The questions will hopefully get you more immersed in this portion of her story. That immersion will motivate you to investigate these notions and search for more clarity in her English years - a story that has been ignored, poorly interpreted, and even made into a romanticized cartoon that offers a contradiction to any facts we do have. It must be stated that the sources for making this sketch of her English life are almost exclusively derived from English accounts. There were several colonists, mostly the various leaders, such as Captain John Smith, Sir Thomas Dale, John Rolfe, etc. that had contact with her, and wrote some version of a story that I used to make these questions have some assemblance of an answer to difficult questions about her mysterious life. In most instances, so much of her personal world - what she felt, how she thought, and what she knew we can merely speculate and have educated guesses. We have no documents from Pocahontas. She may have written some things; but so far in the historical world of archival holdings and academia - nothing has been found. Because of that, we rely on the English men who saw these events, and through the prism of their perspectives, we have our best understanding of Pocahontas. I wrote the following to offer the reader some catalyst for their own journey into better understanding the life and legacy of Pocahontas. Perhaps it will be the reader who will someday have their own new and more nuanced questions to inspire a future group to look more deeply into the events that surrounded Pocahontas’ life over 400 years ago. 3 #1 WAS POCAHONTAS MARRIED TO A MAN BEFORE JOHN ROLFE? At the time of her abduction in early 1613, Pocahontas was married to a Patawomeck warrior. One English account shows that she was married to a Patawomeck named Kocoum when she was about 15 years old. How long she was married to him is not known. If she was married for a few years before, maybe 14 years old, it was possibly under the common age of marriage for a daughter of a Powhatan monarch; but she could have been married younger if her father willed it or benefitted from the arrangement. The English community believed she was married, as cited by the secretary of the colonist William Strachey: “I say they often reported unto us that Powhatan had then living 20 sons and 20 daughters beside a young one by Winganuske, Machumps his sister and a great darling of the king’s, and besides young Pocohunta, a daughter of his using sometimes to our fort in times past, now married to a private captain called Kocoum some two year since. 2 We do not know with certainty if Pocahontas and Kocoum had children. There is no definitive answer and the English certainly never mention any offspring. Her marriage to Kocoum was not a priority consideration when she was later abducted. For the Christian English, a pagan-like wedding (according to their perspective) presented no validity. In the Powhatan political structure, leaders held the central authority of approving, rejecting, or arranging marriages, which likely affected her life when Pocahontas became a teenager. Lastly, it is quite possible that Pocahontas was married into the Patawomeck tribe as a result of her doings a few years earlier; where she may have assisted in the escape of English boy and translator, Henry Spellman, from her father and brought him to the sanctuary of the Patawomeck people. Powahatan was quite upset with the event and the Patawomecks never gave Spellman back. Perhaps the marriage was arranged to quell the dispute between the two tribes. Stealing in the Powhatan culture was a death penalty 4 offense. When considering she may have stolen a person from her father, one has to really consider what Powhatan would conclude as a fair reparation for the deed committed. No matter how she wound up there with the Patawomeck people, the reality of living among the Patawomeck had a great consequence in the next chapter of her life – that of a converted, Christian English woman. #2 WHY WAS POCAHONTAS ABDUCTED BY CAPTAIN SAMUEL ARGALL IN 1613? Pocahontas was taken from her native home community by Captain Samuel Argall in March 1613. She was, (by some definition) kidnapped in a very unconventional manner. It is more accurate to say she was traded for in a “hard sell” between the English and Native leadership. The method by which she was kidnapped and who was responsible needs to be addressed and ironed out. The entirety of the story is very hard to accept for the normal rational mind of most people today; full of betrayal and the ugliest dealings between cultures four hundred years ago. People were used as commodities, especially daughters of the monarchy, which she was. Captain Samuel Argall, who abducted her, as well as others, wrote candidly on the matter, so we have vivid English perspectives. In March 1613, Captain Samuel Argall, an effective officer to the Virginia Company, picked up where Captain John Smith left off, and journeyed to places to make trade friends among native communities and continued mapping, privateering, or scouting as time and resources would permit.
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