The English Pocahontas Ten Essential Questions

Home , Alexander Whitaker, George Percy, Henricus, John Rolfe, John Smith (explorer), Patawomeck

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.

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

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.

#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

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. Argall already knew the Patawomeck people from an earlier journey around Christmas 1610, where he rescued sanctuaried English boy, Henry Spellman. Pocahontas had rescued him from her father’s captivity and usage, perhaps fearing he could be executed. It was a fascinating encounter and demonstrated how native people were beginning to be intrigued about the English view of their theology and the native perspective. The incident is vital for asking further

questions about what was really going on in Virginia. Secretary Strachey wrote of Argall’s encounter:

I will conclude these points with opinion of the Indians of Patawomeck River the last year, 1610, about Christmas, when Captain Argoll (sic) was there trading with Iopassus, the great kings brother. After many days of acquaintance with him, as the pinnace road before the town of Matchiponga – Iopassus coming aboard and sitting (the weather being very cold) by the fire upon a hearth in the hold with the captain – one of our men reading of a bible, to which the Indian gave an attent ear, and looked with a very wish’d eye upon him, as if he desired to understand what was read; whereupon the captain took the book and caused a boy, one Spilman (sic), who lived a whole year with this Indian king and spake his language, which the boy did, and which the king seemed to like well of. Howbeit he bade the boy tell the captain, if he would hear, he would tell him the manner of their beginning, which was a pretty fabulous tale indeed. 3

This established two critical elements into the story. The first being that Captain Argall had a Bible on board his ship and was willing to follow either the words of the charters for Virginia and instructions approved by King James I in bringing the word of Christianity to the native people, but not forcing it upon them. Secondly, Argall was quite familiar with the Patawomack and would use that relationship in 1613 to acquire Pocahontas from that community.

Following the winter of 1612-1613, Argall planned his next expeditions and got quickly sidetracked when he was informed by some friendly Powhatan people that he could find Pocahontas with the Patawomeck people, his trade friends to the north. Argall received that information and from his own writings gives us a sense of his motivations:

I was told by certain Indians my friends that the Great Powhatan’s daughter Pokahuntis was with the Great King Patowomeck, whither I presently repaired, resolving to possess myself of Her by any stratagem that I could use for the ransoming of so many Englishmen as were prisoners with Powhatan, as also to get such arms and tools as he and other Indians had got by murther and stealing from others of our nation, with some quantity of corn for the colony’s relief. 4

Argall paints a clear picture of his motivations for getting Pocahontas. He had nothing against Pocahontas, according to his account, chose to use her to get back his own people from her father and additional things deemed worthy of exchange. He went there and met up with Iapassus, a prominent Patawomeck leader and his family. When arriving, Argall (more or less) stated to him that if the Patawomeck wished to keep trade and friendly relations with the English, they would give up Pocahontas. Iopassus ultimately went to his council and all considerations were made and they decided that despite fearing Powhatan’s retribution when giving up his daughter, they valued English trade and friendship more than retaining Pocahontas. (It also seemed evident) they may have slightly feared English retribution as well. With regard to their fears of Pocahontas’ father, Argall stated that he would come to their assistance if Powhatan came against them in retaliation. The biggest effort following the decision was how to get her on the English ship. The manner that removed Pocahontas from the town to the ship was (play-acting) on the part of the tribal leadership. It was done in a way that obviously would not draw the community into the event and would not have Pocahontas resist or refuse that decision or action. Secretary of the Virginia Company, colonist Ralph Hamor, wrote of the acting skills of the native people involved in the plot to get Pocahontas on to the ship:

He (Iopassus) agreed that himself, his wife, and Pocahontus would accompany his brother (Argall) to the waterside. Whither come, his wife should feign a great and longing desire to go aboard and see the ship,

which being there three or four times before she had never seen; and should be earnest with her husband to permit her. He seemed angry with her making, as he pretended, so unnecessary a request, especially being without the company of women; which denial she taking unkindly, (she) must feign to weep (as who knows not that women can command tears!) – whereupon her husband, seeming to pity those counterfeit tears, gave her leave to go aboard so that it would please Pocahuntus to accompany her, yet by her earnest persuasions, she assented. 5

The Patawomeck leader and his wife led Pocahontas falsely onboard the English ship. There everyone was entertained by the best that could be offered by the host. Secretary Hamor continued:

So forthwith aboard the ship they went; the best cheer that could be made was seasonably provided; to supper they went, merry on all hands, especially Iopassus and his wife, who to express their joy would o’er be treading upon Captain Argal’s foot as (who should say ‘tis done?) – “she is our own!” 6

From the account we see that “the best cheer” was offered and consumed. That would have been some form of alcohol - either beer, wine, or whiskey. Any of those three in any amount would have made Pocahontas drunk. The Indians did not have the science of making alcohol, so she would have been under the influence rather easily. After the frolicking was winding down, the final touches to this play were performed. Feeling the physical effects of food and alcohol, Argall and Iopassus got Pocahontas and her fellow native contingent to go sleep it off in the gunner’s cabin within the ship. Hamor elaborated:

“Pochahuntus, nothing mistrusting this policy, who nevertheless, being most processed with fear and desire of return, was first up, and hastened Iapazeus to be gone.” 7

It was in this manner that Pocahontas was kidnapped or abducted (whatever word or semantics could be used to describe it). She was betrayed first by native people who gave Argall the information, then betrayed and given up by the hosts that had her living among their Patawomeck community, and finally betrayed by her once supposed friends, the English. In the end what did Argall give to Iopassus for his efforts? It was recorded that the deal was sealed for some copper kettles and toys. Imagine Pocahontas opening her eyes, the ship she was on was moving and sailing down towards the bay and to the colonist’s capital at Jamestown. What was going on through her mind, heart, and body? The long list of stressors for her began in those days when she sailed to her English destiny. Nothing was recorded of what Argall said or discussed with her about the state of affairs. .

#3 WAS POCAHONTAS BEING USED BY HER FATHER, POWHATAN, FOR POLITICAL LEVERAGE WITH THE ENGLISH?

Pocahontas was brought to Jamestown by late April 1613 and was held there through that summer. The English made contact with her father and offered him a deal for the exchange of his daughter. The exchange was for a mix of things – people, weapons, tools, corn, etc. Powhatan was expected to comply with this, but what if he did not? In the modern understanding of kidnapping, she might be hurt or killed if her father didn’t comply. Would the English hurt or kill Pocahontas? No, because Pocahontas was their friend in many forms, and it is likely her father understood that when these negotiations started. This was a very complicated situation for both sides. Sadly, it got more complicated and eventually led to compounded stressors for Pocahontas. Another perplexing question was why Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, was at a native community routinely visited by his then enemy the English. Why would her father leave her exposed like that? Powhatan was a very intuitive and shrewd leader after he galvanized a chiefdom for half a century. He would have known the English would find her there. It seems evident that she could easily be taken if found there, which she

was. Powhatan must have thought about any eventualities and weighed the pros and cons as any leader would do. Regardless of what her father would initially think or feel, she sat at Jamestown and waited on the outcome of any exchange or communication. What was going through his mind was what goes through any monarch’s considerations - power first and emotions second. Powhatan was thinking about his chiefdom and how his power could be maintained or even expanded. What was going through her mind? The most rational answer is the frame of mind of anyone who is taken as a hostage from their home - “what will become of me?” At some point that summer, a messenger came back to Jamestown with some responses from Pocahontas’ father. This was truly an interesting response as recorded by Hamor, who wrote:

The news was unwelcome and troublesome unto him, partly for the love for his daughter and partly for the love he bare to our men his prisoners, of whom, though with us they were unapt for any employment, he made great use– and those swords and pieces of ours which, though of no use to him, it delighted him to view and look upon. 8

Hamor suggests that he was also torn on what to do with this moment, as was Iopassus, for the true value of people or things was at play here. Powhatan was seemingly cross and vexed over where to go from that moment, or at least Hamor implies that. Is it possible that Powhatan was truly plotting something of a greater significance? At some point, it seemed as if he and others made decisions to go forward with dealing with her English captors. Hamor continued in his records:

He could not without long advice and deliberation with his council resolve upon anything. And it is true we heard nothing of him till three months after, (when) by persuasions of others he returned us seven of our men, with each of them a musket unserviceable, and by them sent us word that whensoever we pleased to deliver his daughter, he would give us in satisfaction of his injuries done to us – and for

the rest of our pieces broken and stol’n from him – 500 bushels of corn, and be forever friends with us. 9

Pocahontas was sitting at Jamestown from May through July, or longer, and at some point in the middle that summer you finally get word that your father made steps to secure your release; but he did not finish the deal and asked the English to transport Pocahontas to him to finish the deal. How would you feel? The English leadership was not at all happy by that outcome, for the man in charge of almost all dealings at this point was Sir Thomas Dale, who in the summer of 1613 was fully engaged with building his new communities around Henrico. He was not going to drop all he was doing to make an expedition to Powhatan when the deal was that Powhatan was supposed to answer the English ransom! Thus it would happen that Pocahontas was in limbo between her father and the English. How Pocahontas felt about these delays is impossible to determine. During that summer Pocahontas stayed in her familiar stomping grounds at Jamestown. She waited both as a captive and a friend, which was a very strange dynamic. Hamor recorded how they attempted to assuage her pensive attitude. He wrote, “Much ado there was to persuade her to be patient, with which extraordinary courteous usage, by little and little, was wrought on to her.” 10

#4 WHY DID SIR THOMAS DALE AND REVEREND WHITAKER EDUCATE POCAHONTAS?

Sir Thomas Dale was not the most patient man in Virginia in 1613 and at some point, took her on as a project, and brought her from Jamestown to his community of Henrico. As noted by Hamor, the word patience was inserted into this power scenario between the company leadership and Powhatan. Dale could best be described as a man of action, and the conversion of Pocahontas was the personal, if not professional ambition of Sir Thomas Dale. His partner in this ideology, Alexander Whitaker, assisted in carrying out the quasi instructions or policies of King James I and the Virginia Company of London with regard to theology or conversion.

These two men, Dale and Whitaker at Henrico, and not Governor Gates and Reverend Bucke leading at Jamestown - educated her themselves. Why those two men at Jamestown did not take the lead is unrecorded. Dale, on the other hand, provided us with a candid look at his godly work in a letter from Henryco in June 1613, where he wrote:

Honorable sirs(,) howsoever the world esteemeth of me I doo not greatly passe, so that my proceedings maye be approved of god & indeed benyfycyall to my countrye, wher in my princypall car hath bin to get sum of our savaiges to whom we maye teach both our languaige and relygyon. But the elder have bin all to dead settled in their Ignorance. The children are so tenderly beloved of ther parens that neyther copper nor love can drawe any from them soe have offten assayed our best friends with great opertunyte, but they answer that ther lyttle children must goe with them to hunt…I sent one Totakins to your self by Capteyne Newporte but he was to bygg and as yet I never herd what becam of him. 11

This first paragraph of a several page letter going to England, highlights his principal work to bring Christianity to some Powhatan people. Dale had already attempted a conversion, with a Powhatan man named Totakins, who the Virginia Company of London may have lost. Of course, Totakins may have died and nobody told Dale. Regardless, the High Marshal was not pleased, and it seems logical to presume that his next attempt should be more closely watched. That next effort was surely Pocahontas. In fact, there is a slight chance that he was referring to her when he wrote the above letter. One thing that makes sense is that he was not running back and forth to Jamestown doing all this work. Dale, most likely, brought her to Henrico that summer.

One interesting citation is the mention that Reverend Whitaker makes about Dale. It seems that the Reverend wanted people back home in England to know that it was he who was behind that critical effort. In 1614, following her conversion, he wrote:

The colony here is much better. Sir Thomas Dale, our religious and

valiant governor, hath now brought that to pass…one Pocahuntas, or Matoa [ka], the daughter of Powhatan, is married to an honest and discreet English gentleman, Master Rolfe; and that after she had openly renounced her country idolatry, confessed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was baptized – which thing Sir Thomas Dale had labored a long time to ground in her. 12

Those objectives were accomplished through various references, but the last line is the most telling. She would marry John Rolfe in April 1614, the agreement to do so was only a month before. It would not seem realistic that a marriage could be arranged so quickly. The mentioning that Dale had “long time ground in her” implies that she was with him a long while learning to be a Christian, not learning to be Rolfe’s wife. We cannot be sure for how long, but from Dale’s writings and Whitaker’s reference, it is more than likely she was in fact with Dale from the previous summer. Would John Rolfe have been around her often? Nobody wrote about that, but being a leading colonist in 1613 would have had him in proximity to Dale, if not Pocahontas. There is one nagging question that remains regarding why Dale took responsibility for her and not anyone else. Why then did Gates and Bucke, senior men in the colony, not write anything on this critical, dynamic, and nuanced situation? The answer is a basic one – they were not involved with Pocahontas’ switch to becoming an English woman. By them not being involved, and knowing Dale and Whitaker were entrenched into the environment upriver at Henrico and Coxsondale, it seems safe to say that it was not Jamestown where these events occurred. Why did Gates and Bucke not take the lead? We have no record of that, but who would want to realistically challenge the power of position and personality of Dale? With the official position of “High Marshal” of Virginia, he was in charge of all law, security, trade, and interactions with the Powhatan leadership. If he wanted to do something, who would really try to intervene in such decisions? Governor Gates knew Dale well. Both served in the same regiment in the Low Countries against the Spanish. More than that, Dale’s influence went to the household of King James I. The king had knighted Dale and the Virginia High Marshal was close to James I heir to the throne, Prince Henry of Wales,

which gave Dale a lot of political leverage. Thus, he was an untouchable figure in the chain of command in the colony. If Dale wanted to initiate conversions, then those around him would have supported that effort or at least respected his position to do so.

#5 IN WHAT WAYS DID POCAHONTAS STRUGGLE LIVING WITH THE ENGLISH?

What would she have struggled with in this transformative process to become English? Pocahontas was approximately 15 years old when she was brought to Reverend Whitaker at his parsonage called Rocke Hall in the extended settlement of Coxsondale, just across the James River from the Henrico fort. It was there, in some isolation that she would receive a form of English boot camp, and brought into the world of an English woman, far different in some respects than a Powhatan woman.

Her body in many ways would feel an immediate impact on those changes. Emotionally, her heart must have been hurting for the loss of her former ways and the people she knew in her life. Pocahontas’ brain would have surely struggled over what she was learning from her English mentors – social norms, politics, science, health, diet, clothing, and religion. Colonist William Strachey wrote an interesting description of Powhatan clothing and fashion. It involved a younger Pocahontas, but will illustrate a point about where she will begin to struggle becoming English. He wrote:

…nor are they much ashamed thereof, and therefore would the before-rememb’red Pocahuntas, a well-featured but wanton young girl, Powhatan’s daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, of the age then of 11 or 12 years, get the boys forth with her into the marketplace and make them wheel falling on their hands, turning their heels upwards, whom she would follow and wheel so herself naked as she was all the

fort over. But being past 12 years, they put on a kind of semicinctum leath’ren apron, as do our artificers or handicraftsmen, before their bellies and are very shamefast to be seen bare. 13

Powhatan people wore different clothing at different times, but past the age of 12 they all wore at least a deerskin apron. She would have worn it in the warm season, like that summer of 1613. When Pocahontas was abducted it was still the chilly season, so she more than likely was taken with fuller covering. When the season turned to summer she would most likely want to undress to the single apron covering her around her hips to upper thigh, and possibly a fuller piece of deerskin covering over her shoulder. Clothing was most likely a hard switch for her because that minimal clothing would weigh maybe a half pound to a pound and a half and if heavily ornamented, a few pounds. When switching to her English clothing she was fitted into linen and woolen clothing that would weigh 5-7 pounds in the summer, more in the winter. Clothed fully as an English woman would be what she had to do. The Reverend had his perspectives about body modesty, nakedness, and being clothed. One quote from Reverend Whitaker helps us better understand his specific prejudice on the topic of nudity and appearance. In his lengthy report about the spiritual well-being of the colony, “Good New from Virginia,” the reverend wrote, “Secondly, let the miserable condition of these naked slaves of the devil move you to compassion toward them…” 14 Imagine that she was English-dressed at Jamestown, May-July, and then brought to Whitaker and in that summer with him was fully dressed as an English woman. That means she would wear soled latchet shoes, knit woolen stockings, garters to hold the stockings up to the thigh, a smock (underwear shirt), bodies (essentially a corset), petticoats (long skirts/dress), a bolster (pad to keep petticoats fashionably outward over the hips), jacket, coif (linen cap for hair), and a hat for outside. When colder she would have some form of cape, cloak, or overcoat. In summer, if in the best conditions, she was wearing summer weight woolens or fustian, or even canvas, she would still be hot. What would that weight and extra burden be like for her? No one can know exactly. How

would you do wearing what a circa 1613 English woman wore in mid-summer? Those clothes could be a struggle for most people today.

Not only would her clothing and appearance change, but also her diet. It seems reasonable that she was burdened and very hot, so needed to adjust to her new hydration compared to what she was used to as a Powhatan woman. She would have to drink more fluids. The problem was that native people in Virginia drank almost exclusively water, excepting the seasonal mixing of berries into water. The English most often drank beer and other alcohol such as wine, whiskey, and cider, none of which the Powhatan people had. The most common ration would have been bread, beer, and cheese. Her hydration and diet would have been another issue coupled with the clothing. Consider that she was plagued by summer heat and humidity in her linens and woolens, her mind being taxed by alcohol consumption, and presumably the accompanying headaches from not drinking enough water that her body was used to.

Food was another concern for her. Of all the English foods that she could get adjusted to, the oatmeal, peas, barley, salted fish, salted pork, the garden vegetables, etc. it was probably English domestic dairy products that would have hurt her, medically or scientifically speaking. The English would constantly be producing milk from their goats and cows and processing it into cheese and butter. The Powhatan people never had animals and dairy culture. Thus, it is probable that Pocahontas was lactose intolerant. If that was the case and she had butter and cheese routinely, or creams added to various cuisines in the Reverend’s house, she would hurt until somebody figured that out.

There would have been physical changes and things that would hurt her in various forms internally and externally. Her emotions, already vexed by what had occurred to her, would have been a giant struggle from the first day. As noted in previous statements about her abduction, Pocahontas would have been through months of isolation. Not knowing what her relationship was with her then husband, Kocuom, nor her father Powhatan, brothers, and friends, it seems impossible to make determinations other than the human one. The most logical one is that she missed her family and home.

On top of that emotional strain was the knowledge she had that her identity was slowly being removed from her. From her name, which was officially replaced at baptism, to her language, which would never truly leave her, but greatly reduced, to her tattoos, all would change. That change would have taken some toll, the extent of which we will never know. Her tattoos were a part of her identity and almost all covered. With her English clothing would come the change of covering those on her arms and legs. English ladies used modest makeup and a white covering of the face. One description of how Powhatan women painted and tattooed themselves was by colonial leader George Percy. He wrote:

The womankind of this country doth pounce and race their bodies, legs, thighs, arms, and faces with a sharp iron which makes a stamp in curious knots, and draws the proportion of fowls, fish, or beasts. Then with paintings of sundry lively colors they rub it into the stamp, which will never be taken away, because it is dried into the flesh, where it is seared. 15

From artwork of the time and written descriptions, we have a good sense of what Pocahontas most likely looked like. The following image is one of the classic watercolor paintings from around the time of the Roanoke settlement by John White. That art work shows the native people 50-100 miles south of the nearest Powhatan village, yet it matches English descriptions in 1613 Virginia.

The arms, legs, and face are all tattooed in this one study of a young woman.. The deerskin apron, and most other items with this image closely follow the previously mentioned descriptions. Pocahontas would have to leave this part of her culture behind. She would not be permitted to tattoo anymore and then be expected to hide her existing body art, which must have been hard for her. Most Powhatan women covered themselves in red paint, but her tattoos would have been set into her skin with dark walnut dye ink. In this form of English painting fashion, the tattoos were treated like blemishes, and would

have to go. Pocahontas would have been affected in some way because her identity, family, and all things Powhatan were reduced and washed away. We do not have a great amount of material on her actual religious conversion. Emotions would not have been a priority, to her father in his doings, or to the English leadership. Pocahontas had to convert to Protestant Christianity, into the Church of England. Her teacher was a single 30-year-old minister, Reverend Alexander Whitaker, whose father was appointed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth to head theology at Cambridge. His father was a foremost academic and his son, Alexander was the one in the family of several brothers and sisters who followed his father into the clergy. Whitaker was impressed by the Powhatan culture and society, if not their “pagan” traditions of religion. He would write extensively of how to look upon the Powhatan people, and in doing so, often complimented them in part, but also saw a necessity to introduce a Christian faith into their culture that was considered a great advancement for them. He wrote:

They have reasonable souls and intellectual faculties as well as we. We all have Adam for a common parent. Yea, by nature the condition of us both is all one: the servants of sin and slaves of the devil. Oh, remember, I beseech you, what was the state of England before the Gospel was preached in our country. How much better were we then and concerning our souls’ health than these now are? Let the word of the lord sound out that it may be heard in these parts…But if any of us should misdoubt that this barbarous people is uncapable of such heavenly mysteries, let such men know that they are far mistaken in nature of these men. 16

The passage above is quite provocative. This is perhaps the one writing Whitaker is offering to peacefully bring the Powhatan people into the English community, and to avoid warfare and death. First of all, he states they have intellectual equality with himself, which was not the norm of that period and then states that both cultures were sinners and committed acts against God. He evokes history by stating that the English

were just like the Powhatan people, which is accurate when considering the (pagan) traditions of pre-Roman Empire England. Whitaker is to the Powhatan people what it appears Pocahontas was to the English. His writing is attributed to Henrico on July 28, 1612, a year before Pocahontas and Whitaker would intersect. Pocahontas and her intellect would have been challenged on several layers. Another portion of his writing articulates his theological stances against the Powhatans. He wrote:

…let the miserable condition of these naked slaves of the devil move you to compassion towards them. They acknowledge that there is a great god, but know him not, having the eyes of their understanding yet blinded. Wherefore they serve the devil for their fear, after a most base manner, sacrificing sometimes (as I have here heard) their own children to him. I have sent one image of their god to the council in England, which is painted upon one side of a toadstool, much like unto a deformed monster. Their priests, whom they call Quiokosoughs, are no other but such as our English witches are. They live naked in body as if their shame of their sin deserved no covering. Their names are as naked as their body. They esteem it a virtue to lie, deceive, and steal, as their master the devil teacheth them. Much more might be said of their miserable condition, but I refer to The particular narration of these things to some other season. 17

Reverend Whitaker had common social and religious biases. His beliefs were fairly common to most Europeans and how they saw native people; but as indicated from his earlier fonder reflections, he truly wishes to help the native culture in Virginia advance themselves through integrating with his own people.

Pocahontas was taught to read and write as part of this education. Whitaker would have steered her towards the Bible as soon as she was literate. Imagine for a moment these few basic intellectual challenges. She was the first of her people to attain a written language and read from a book. She was the first of her people to view God

through the written word and not just the spoken word. Pocahontas would constantly be assessing the power of her own culture and religion when weighed against the English. Think about her understanding all the resources the English had – their domesticated animals, such as horses, cows, oxen, pigs, goats, chickens, etc. and why her own people had no such things. She would have looked upon the technologies – metal production, glass, gunpowder and guns, etc. The English clothing came from plants and animals the Powhatans never knew and produced dozens upon dozens of dyes for colors in their clothing that the Powhatans had never created. The English had giant ships under sails that must have seemed awe inspiring.

Now imagine that thinking with God. The Powhatan religion is somewhat mysterious; but the English wrote many observations on it. The educated men from England equated it to pagan traditions and superstitions. In these beliefs, the sun, the moon, the earth, the animals, etc. were all a part of their beliefs, but the sun or the supreme God of life had a name that Pocahontas would have called in English spelling, Ahone. 18

Pocahontas would have given Whitaker all she had in further elaboration, yet we must not forget that although she knew English, her vocabulary would have been extremely limited, especially in comparison to a Reverend, one of the most educated men in all of England. In modern terms, maybe it would have been close to our children speaking at a K-2 grade level. (However, who would not want to be sitting in that parlor with these conversations?)

Consider now that when she read the first words of the New Testament, it was written -“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth...” The intellectual proposition of how different or the same the English faith was versus the Powhatan one is a curiosity indeed. Did she read it literally that the Christian God created her powerful God, Ahone? English protestant Christianity had no nature or idol worship, the perceived core of how the English saw Powhatan prayer or religion. The Church of England Christanity did believe in a Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. How

would Pocahontas have viewed those Gods compared to her own? It must have been very challenging for her in many ways.

Pocahontas had these physical, emotional, and intellectual conflicts and stressors. These all impacted her, but we will never know the extent of what damage they did. The stressors she endured must be considered when evaluating her motivations, changes, and ultimately, her death.

#6 DID POCAHONTAS EVEN KNOW JOHN ROLFE BEFORE 1614?

In March 1617, Pocahontas was brought with Sir Thomas Dale on an expedition to confront her father, Powhatan, over his dealings with the English a year before. On those ships were 150 men under arms. In addition to the soldiers coming along for obvious martial reasons, were leading planters such as Master John Rolfe; so Dale was going there for both war or peace, depending upon the outcome, and Rolfe would in fact play an integral part of the peace. Pocahontas, the principal cargo on the trip, may have guided Dale’s ship to find the Powhatan capital town where they would find her father. It was a tense trip. Dale wrote:

With me I carried his daughter, who had long been prisoner with us. It was a day or two before we heard of them. At length they demanded why we came; I gave for answer that I came to bring him his daughter, conditionally he would-as had been agreed upon for her ransom-render all the arms, tools, swords, and men (that had run away), and give me a ship full of corn for the wrong he had done unto us. If he would do this, we would be friends; if not, burn all.19

About a year after her abduction, Sir Thomas Dale was bringing her back to her father. (That is a great deal of work she must have gone through.) If the intent was to truly return her without being baptized or married to Rolfe, was she just to be a plant for the growth of Christianity and reconciliation? That could have been the reality. Or, did

her father allow her to stay among the English to be his plant, for he would know she would have been governed and handled by the English leaders? That would be another well crafted possibility.

On the surface, this was a bold move. After the initial encounter, some of the Powhatan warriors a few days march from the capital, attacked Dale’s shore column. Dale’s soldiers won the skirmish and destroyed some small villages. Farther along and nearer to the capital town, Machcot, Dale halted once again to offer battle and this would have been a much bloodier encounter. At this point Dale agreed to send Pocahontas ashore to talk to her people. He wrote:

The king’s daughter went ashore, but would not talk to any of them, scarce to them of the best sort, and to them only that if her father had loved her, he would not value her less than old swords, pieces, and axes; wherefore she would still dwell with the English-men, who loved her. 20

One can sometimes doubt the veracity of people of the past who wrote under circumstances of stress and war, but Dale’s reputation was always very up front, very candid, and he does not seem like the type to inflate a situation as he sees it. Is this truly what Pocahontas felt? It seems her sentiments towards her father are very strained. Did she truly believe that the English who she was a strange prisoner to, loved her?

From this point the story gets truly amazing in its perspectives. It appears that her father did want to be friends with the English and although he did not see or talk with his daughter, offered her to the English, specifically Sir Thomas Dale. From the English accounts it seems as if they had to make on the spot decisions to mediate a peace with Pocahontas herself knowing how to go about it. The timeline may shed some light. Colonist Ralph Hamor, also present, wrote that as both sides, 400 warriors facing down Dale’s 150 musketeers, may have been brought to a stand down by the interjections of

Pocahontas. At some point she joined a conversation with her brothers and that made things happen. Secretary Hamor wrote:

…two of Powhatan’s sons, being very desirous to see their sister, who was there present ashore with us, came unto us, and the sight of whom and her welfare, whom they suspected to be worse entreated (though they had often heard the contrary), they much rejoiced, and promised that they would undoubtedly persuade their father to redeem her, and to confirm a firm peace forever with us.21

Thus, the fateful decision came to be. Pocahontas met her brother aboard the ship with Dale present, and there, momentous discussions took place. This expedition was an aggressive line in the sand by Dale, and Pocahontas would have known that. If something positive did not result, many would die. That is what rested on her shoulders and that of her brothers. Rolfe’s escort to the Powhatan leadership was Robert Sparkes, who was well acquainted with the language, as he had once lived with the Powhatan people.

Powhatan refused to speak with them directly; but allowed his successor, Opechancanough, to speak in the deliberations and come up with some resolutions. The outcome of two mighty warriors was the diplomacy of soldiers. Honorable terms were to be expected and if not, blood would be spilled. It can be hard to rationalize that these nuances of trade, power, and peace were going on for over a year. Pocahontas was with the English for one year before an agreeable outcome came to be.

The words of Pocahontas on that day were not recorded. There are a few outcomes of these meetings that we know occurred. At some point John Rolfe had drafted a several page letter and gave it to Secretary Hamor to formally introduce it to Sir Thomas Dale, then Pocahontas’ guard and guardian. The letter was a lengthy treatise by Rolfe on why a marriage between him and Pocahontas was to everyone’s benefit.

#7 WAS IT JOHN ROLFE’S IDEA TO MARRY POCAHONTAS?

On April 5, 1614 Pocahontas was married to master John Rolfe, the father of Virginia tobacco and a rising star in the early Virginia Company of London. Rolfe had lost his first wife and child on the journey to Virginia with the shipwreck of the Virginia Company ship, The Sea Venture. That ship and all the passengers were stranded on the uninhabited Bermuda and there the two were buried. 22 John Rolfe was a widower when he arrived again in Virginia in May 1610. The colonists who were shipwrecked managed to build smaller seaworthy vessels from the shipwrecked Sea Venture. Rolfe was from a successful yeoman farming family from near Norfolk, England and was doing agricultural work for the Virginia Company. He will forever be associated for his development of Spanish seed tobacco in the new English colony. That tobacco would not have flourished without a peace in Virginia that would allow the colonists to stop being soldiers and concentrate on what most English do well – farming. That tobacco, coupled with the eventual marriage to Pocahontas, would bring Rolfe into the forefront of history. This partnership could be perhaps the first and greatest interracial marriage in history. So how did Rolfe come to marry Pocahontas?

John Rolfe was on the Dale expedition to either confront or to deliver Pocahontas to her father, Powhatan. Why he was on that expedition is still questionable unless one looks at the outcome. Did he have it upon his thoughts to marry Pocahontas before that expedition or was it a decision made by all the involved persons when all those meetings took place near the Powhatan capital? Rolfe wrote a long letter to Dale outlining his thoughts for marrying her. That letter could have taken some time to draft, but could have been done in the time the ship’s journey went towards Powhatan. How long was he thinking those thoughts to articulate them in that letter? It seems as if he thought about this for a longer time than in those few precious days under a pressurized scenario where Dale was ready to wage war. (Let’s examine some of his proposal letter and immerse some time into the planter’s thoughts.)

John Rolfe, from his writing to Dale, presents the case for marriage and truly thought out the problems and nuances of this marriage. But, despite all, he writes to the very religious Dale a Biblical perspective for his idea. He wrote:

Nor was I ignorant of the heavy displeasure which Alrighty God conceived against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives, nor of the inconveniences which may thereby arise with other good circumspection into the grounds and principal agitations which thus provoke me to be in love with one whose education hath been rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in all murtriture from myself that oftentimes with fear and trembling I have ended my private controversy with this; “Surely these are wicked instigations, hatched by him who seeketh and delighteth in man’s destruction!” – and so the fervent prayers to be ever preserved from such diabolical assaults as I took those to be, I have taken some rest.23

Perhaps one of the most important of the passages from his several-page letter is the fact that he admits to being in love. John Rolfe loved Pocahontas, that is clear. Yet, evidence from more passages, he had numerous fears and trepidations from these thoughts. tThis is an interracial association that becomes an interracial marriage. He and his larger family in England would all suffer from this marriage, should it be looked upon negatively or worse. In one of his passages, however, Rolfe relates that he was marrying for love and not looks. He wrote:

Now if the vulgar sort, who square all men’s actions by the base rule of their own filthiness, shall tax or taunt me in this my godly labor, let them know it is not any hungry appetite to gorge myself with incontinency. Sure, if I would and were so sensually inclined, I might satisfy such desire (though not without a seared conscience) yet with Christians more pleasing to the eye and less fearful in the offense unlawfully committed. Nor am I so desperate an estate that I regard

not what becometh of me, nor am I out of hope but one day to see my country, nor so void of friends, nor means in birth but there to obtain a match to my great content, nor have I ignorantly passed over my hopes there, regardlessly seek to lose the love of my friends by taking this course. I know them all and have not readily overslipped any. 24

This is quite a revealing portion of the letter. When broken down to its basic elements, John Rolfe is saying that it was wholesome Christian love to why he wanted to marry Pocahontas, though he did not find her as attractive as, perhaps, English women, more “pleasing to the eye.” (Sex was something he could enact with others if he really was driven to it.) Rolfe admits that was not his motivation with her. He felt that he had a good family name, was financially stable, so it was not for any profit, and was not wishing to spend any time going home to look for another choice; but was quite happy with this match in Pocahontas and was marrying her for all the good reasons.

Still, Rolfe had to have Dale’s approval, the consent and ceremony of the clergy, (since the king headed the church), everyone had to be confident that from the Virginia Company of London to King James I, this potential marriage was deemed acceptable. What did Rolfe write with regard to this great political, social, and religious endeavor? His strongest argument was the following passage where he lays it all out there. He wrote:

Let before this my well-advised protestation, which here I make between God and my own conscience, be a sufficient witness as the dreadful Day of Judgment (when the secret of all men’s hearts shall be opened) to condemn me herein if my chiefest intent and purpose be not to strive with all my power of body and mind in the undertaking of so mighty a manner, no way led-so far forth as man’s weakness may permit-with the unbridled desire of carnal affection, but for the good of this plantation, for the honor of our country, for the glory of God, for my own salvation, and for the

converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ an unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas, to whom my hearty and best thoughts are and have a long time been so entangled and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was even a wearied to wind myself thereout.25

Rolfe wrote in all the necessary reasons why this was a positive good for Dale to consider. It was not for his own lust or sexual desire, nor his own advancement; but rather for the sake of the colony, England, and God. Then at the end a humble Rolfe wrote that it was good for his own salvation. One cannot help but wonder if he felt some guilt for the death of his wife and child in Bermuda. Perhaps he felt that this selfless marriage would somehow revamp his soul and spirit or get him back in the good graces of his Creator. Rolfe became a student of scripture and found a way to talk in Dale’s religious tones. That strategy was highly effective in attaining Dale’s support.

Secretary Hamor delivered Rolfe’s official proposal to Dale and it was approved. When that actual approval took place is a curious question. It may be that Dale did not have the wedding as a priority in the beginning of this expedition. From the wording of Hamor to the accounts of who talked to whom in those moments in front of the Powhatan capital, that it very well could have been thought of by everyone on the spot, coming up with the solution we know as the marriage. Or it could have been on plan A, B, or C list that Dale had over the past several months. One thing we know – it was all managed and approved by Dale. The marriage was carried out “in the Church” to Pocahontas who had been baptized with the name Rebecca.

For those who are unfamiliar about the name Rebecca, you can find that story of that teenage girl who would marry Isaac in Genesis, within the beginning of the Old Testament. It is a story of a girl who was well known to be good to everyone in all the communities, helpful, and full of love. She was put into a position of an arranged marriage to a stranger, Isaac, whom she had never met. Genesis lays out that it was

presented to her as a great duty and obligation before God, but she had a choice, and in answering whether to go she responded, “I am willing.”26 (Rebecca at the well, offering drink)

This Biblical story could be the hint as to how and why she agreed to conversion, baptism, and marriage to Rolfe. It is just as reasonable to presume that she saw it as her duty to everyone, including her God, that this should happen. The marriage would in fact bring a peace and alliance. Had she lived another 50 years there may have been a vast difference in Anglo-Powhatan relationships in Virginia.

In the story of Isaac marrying Rebecca, were all the family members and leaders amiable and agreeable to this marriage? The momentous marriage between John and Rebecca answered that question, was provided by Sir Thomas Dale. He wrote:

Powhatan’s daughter I caused to be carefully instructed in Christian religion, who after she made some good progress therein renounced publicly her country idolatry, openly confessed her Christian faith, was as she desired baptized, and is since married to an English gentleman of good understanding, as by his letter unto me containing the reasons for his marriage of her you may perceive, another knot to bind the peace the stronger. Her father and friends gave approbation to it, and her uncle gave her to him in the church. She lives civilly and lovingly with him, and I trust will increase in goodness as knowledge of God increaseth in her. She will go into England with me, and were it but the gaining of this one soul, I will think my time, toil, and present stay well spent.27

Dale, ever tasked with law and order, especially Church law, ironed out a checklist of what expectations were met in this conversion and marriage. He claimed responsibility for what had taken place, presented his own matchless affirmation that she did all of these deeds willingly, that Rolfe documented his willingness to marry Pocahontas for the good of Virginia, and that the Powhatan leadership and community was in sound agreement with the outcome. Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, he gives an idea of what he

firmly was motivated by in Virginia – the “…gaining of this one soul…” or the conversion of native people and merging their culture into the community of Christian Englishmen.

Lastly, when Dale wrote that John Rolfe and Rebecca were married “in the church,” what he meant was that it was not an outside or natural wedding. Those weddings were traditional Powhatan, considered pagan weddings or rituals and not in keeping with Christian beliefs. There needed to be a roof and sanctioned and attended by a minister. But where that was, and by who, is a great quest and perhaps a mystery.

Which church made the most sense for the wedding?There were three churches in Virginia in 1614 – Jamestown, Henrico, and Bermuda City. Jamestown was technically still the headquarters of the Virginia Company of London and oldest Church, which made it the probable location, especially if the acting governor resided there. The acting governor Sir Thomas Gates contributed no evidence that he was involved in the conversion or marriage and neither was Reverend Richard Buck, the attending clergy there at Jamestown. The church at Jamestown would have been the easiest for the Powhatan delegation to get to.

The church of Henrico would make sense since Pocahontas was converted there and all persons involved were there. It very well could have been there since that was the western bastion of the Virginia Company and where Dale set up the core of his community. However, Dale moved the greatest of his efforts to the newest and largest of the Virginia communities to Bermuda City, across the Appamatuck River from Bermuda Hundred and West Shirley Hundred, the newest and larger settlements for the leading citizens of Virginia. Whitaker was in-charge of the church there as well, and it would have been the newest and presumably the nicest. Could it have taken place there, in what is modern day Hopewell? That is another possibility.

Equally fascinating is answering which Reverend performed the marriage. Reverend Buck himself died in 1623 and gave us no writings that we know of that show

him attending or performing the wedding.28 Buck had come to Jamestown, Virginia on the ship with Rolfe, was there at the family tragedy on the island of Bermuda and was there at the signing of John Rolfe’s will in 1622. Rolfe left Buck a portion of his will, too. It surely establishes Buck as a friend and more than likely he was the man who married the couple.

Reverend Whitaker had died by drowning in the James River in 1617 and was not around to elaborate on his legacy. It is challenging to establish him as performing the wedding. Yet, it was Whitaker who did the long and hard intellectual labors with Pocahontas and carried out Dale’s primary and personal objectives. It seems off to believe Dale would just let Buck eat the cake that Whitaker made from Dale’s recipe. Buck wrote little to nothing from his Virginia experiences and Whitaker wrote dozens of pages to be read by various persons in England. Whitaker did not specifically mention his own contribution in marrying her, and as stated, Buck wrote nothing on it. If Dale is claiming responsibility for the whole affair, then one would have to surmise it was his man Reverend Whitaker. Still, if it happened at Jamestown, more than likely it was Buck. It’s fascinating that NOBODY wrote down who married the Rolfe couple. It’s quite a conundrum to piece together.

It is a set of very mysterious omissions. What is perhaps the greatest singular event in the early history of the growth of English North America and establishment of the beginning of the British Empire has no evidence as to where it exactly happened and who performed the wedding. A captivating mystery, if nothing else. We could go on another four hundred years looking through all the papers and pondering more intently, and more than likely will come up with the same void in knowledge.

#8 WHY WAS POCAHONTAS BROUGHT BY SIR THOMAS DALE TO ENGLAND IN 1616?

From the time Pocahontas was married to John Rolfe in early April 1614, she lived with him wherever he took residence, through the spring of 1616.

It is very challenging to track down all the places that Rolfe definitively lived at, but we have some ideas from John Rolfe’s will and his records as the secretary of the colony. From his high social status in Virginia he may have lived in the biggest and most stately settlement of Bermuda City, which was situated high upon the bluff overlooking a great port at the confluence of the Appamatuck and James Rivers. It would have had the best airs and view of any English settlement. Rebecca and John had a son, Thomas Rolfe, who was born sometime in 1615; so he was around a year old when the family departed for England in the spring of 1616.29 It may have been Bermuda City where Thomas was born. One thing is certain, that Rebecca Rolfe and her industrious planter husband were part of Dale’s return to his homeland, England. Dale had several motivations for returning, particularly to see his own wife. He had been gone 5 years when considering his coming home and returning to his wife, he wrote:

The time I promised to labor is expired. It is not a yoke of oxen hath drawn me from this feast; it is not the marriage of a wife makes me haste home, though that salad give me an appetite to cause me return. But I have more care of the stock than to set it upon a die, and rather put myself to the courtesy of noble and worthy censures than ruin this work; and have a jury-nay, a million! – of foul mouthed detractors scan upon my endeavors, the ends whereof they cannot dive into.30

Sir Thomas Dale wanted to go home and answer to his work in Virginia, for it appears there were many who did not approve of his work or actions there. He wanted to answer them with the results which he was literally packing upon his ship. Essentially, Dale went home to do a victory lap. The biggest part of that victory was the Pocahontas conversion, marriage, and peace. He owned it. It was in fact, Dale’s question/work to answer to, whether it be good or bad.

Sir Thomas Dale arrived along the coast of England around June 2-3, 1616 after a several weeks journey across the north Atlantic. He brought several people on the

journey. With him were John Rolfe, Rebecca Rolfe (Pocahontas), their one-year old son, Thomas Rolfe, the Spanish prisoners captured in Virginia in 1611, and a Powhatan Indian delegation of several chosen persons headed by Uttamatomakkin (Tomocomo). Excluding the normal unpleasantness that people had to deal with on a ship’s journey in that time period, you had three cultures or communities on that ship – English, Spanish, and Powhatan people. Dale would have had dinner with a diverse group, most likely Pocahontas’ abductor, Captain Argall, Powhatan’s representative, Uttamatomakkin, (with Pocahontas translating), the Spanish prisoner, Captain Diego De Molina, John Rolfe, and others. The conversations must have been quite interesting, to say the least.

By the second week in June, all persons of Dale’s return were in London and beginning to get familiar with the business of touring for the Virginia Company. There are some basic portions of Pocahontas’ time in London that are the most important to her last nine months of life. Neither her husband John Rolfe nor the Virginia Company was well endowed for this venture. Firstly, she lived mostly in a working-class district of England that was far from high society. In the summer, though England was not too hot, the air was choked with airs of the Thames and coal-fired hearths. It was not a healthy environment. Some well-to-do Londoners like John Chamberlain were not impressed and suggested the effort was poorly done. He wrote:

“…with her tricking up and high style, and titles, you might think her and her worshipful husband to be somebody, if you do not know that the poor company of Virginia [only] allow her four pounds a week for her maintenance.”31

Though her stay was in an old part of London, within sight of the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral, it was a rough time for the once preferred daughter of Powhatan. The population of London was over 200,000 people, one of the largest cities in Europe, and her father’s capital across the ocean in Virginia, the Powhatan capital of Werowocomoco, was approximately 2,000. One can only imagine the germ pool Pocahontas, and her son Thomas, were walking into.

The lodging most associated with her stay was the Bell Savage Inn, a large enough accommodation for the Rolfe family and the delegation of a dozen Powhatan people led by Uttamatomakkin. It was certainly not a palace, but far from the lowest sort of place one could have found in London at that time. Some visitors would have come to see the Rolfes there, but anyone of a higher station, such as clergy or officials within the Virginia Company. One can only speculate how many impromptu visits from common people happened in their stay there. Some of the more notable visits to influential residents of the city were people like John King- Bishop of London, Samuel Purchas, a clergyman, and others who may have wanted to see what a Powhatan Indian convert looked and sounded like. According to Samuel Purchas, also a resident of Ludgate, the Bishop of London went the extra mile for Pocahontas. He, “…entertained her with festival state and pomp, beyond what I have seen in his great hospitality afforded to other ladies.”32

Rebecca was living the life of a celebrity, perhaps the first type of pop-culture lifestyle in modern terms. That lifestyle and environment had a damaging element. Pocahontas, as well as others in the accompanying delegation, fell sick in those months getting used to the London environment. At some point before the Christmas season, she had been brought out of London to stay in the suburbs, at Syon Palace, the home of a Duke of Northumberland, who was the brother of Virginia Company captain and part time governor years earlier, George Percy. They were an influential family, and the accommodations more spacious and the air much cleaner. This could have been arranged through the Percy and Smith connections, they both being around the city at that time, well acquainted with her, and friendly to the Virginia Company. It was there, in that old community called Brentford, that Pocahontas would stay until she attempted the departure back to Virginia. Much would happen before that return endeavor.

The greatest of all incidents in Pocahontas’ personal stressors happened when there was one reception at Syon House. Her long lost friend, Captain John Smith who had left Virginia in 1609, came to see her. They had an awkward and emotional reunion.

Smith wrote of the event and gave us a glimpse into the connections between the two. He wrote:

…hearing shee was at Branford (sic) with divers of my friends, I went to see her: After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humour her husband, with divers others, we all left her two or three houres, repenting my selfe to have writ she could speake English. But not long after, she began to talke, and remembred mee well what courtesies shee had done: saying, You did promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you; you called him father being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I doe you: which though I would have excused, I durst not allow of that title, because she was a Kings daughter; with a well set countenance she said, Were you not afraid to come into my fathers Countrie, and caused feare in him and all his people (but mee) and feare you here I should call you father; I tell you then I will, and you shall call mee childe, and so I will bee for ever and ever your Countrieman. They did tell us alwaies you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plimoth; yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seeke you, and know the truth, because your Countriemen will lie much…33

There was so much that was written, and one should only applaud Smith for being so open in his publishing. One thing is certain and that is that Pocahontas was seriously offended that the English did not tell her, or he did not make efforts to have them tell her that he survived his Virginia wound. It was certainly a moment that all people dread, and considering he was her closest English friend, the reader can certainly empathize with that. By that point, she had been betrayed by her own people, her father, the friends amongst the English who abducted her, and in this moment her greatest English friend had let her down. The parting was not a happy one.

Regardless of hurt feelings, Smith would always remain her friend and sent Queen Anne a letter to invite Pocahontas as a guest to be received and acknowledged as a

great contributor to English successes in Virginia. That letter had some superb compliments and consideration for the monarchy to embrace. Smith wrote:

…she is in England; the first Christian ever of that nation, the first Virginia ever spake English, or had a childe in marriage by an Englishman, a matter surely, if my meaning bee truly considered and well understood, worthy a Princes understanding. 34

Smith considered her the savior of the early Virginia settlement and worthy of a presence with King James I and his court. It was hoped that Anne would make it happen. Smith himself a bit of a celebrity for his deeds of daring around the world, was still a common middling man. He was a famous soldier and map maker, but was trying to be an academic, historian, and with this request, a diplomat. Yet, he was putting his own name on the line sending this very forward correspondence. It worked. Anne would see to it that Lord De La Warr and his wife, Lady De La Warr were the official escort of the Rolfe family and Powhatan delegation.

That early winter of 1616 into 1617, Pocahontas had a lot going on. She sat for an artist, Simon de Passe, and had an engraving done of her. She attended a Twelfth Night Maske party, where she was received by the king and queen, and then prepared to return to Virginia. Perhaps the salient moment of Pocahontas’ stay in London was having her engraving done by an up-and-coming young artist from the Dutch community named Simon de Passe, who was the same age as Pocahontas. Her image in the portrait is striking. Some modern audiences believe it to be unflattering. It could just be showing her previous illness and that she had been wearing the stress of her English conversion.

Pocahontas is shown in nicer clothing. The clothing she would wear on her public outings and in her viewing of the performances around the Twelfth Night festivities, where she would finally be greeted by the King and Queen. Pocahontas had traditional facial tattoos, something no English woman had. The trend for fashionable women’s makeup in the period, she most likely had white face paint on top of her skin. What would her tattoos look like under the makeup? Or did the artist choose to omit them?

The highlight of her political visits and moments would have been the “masque” she attended with her husband and the Powhatan delegation, escorted by the De la Warr’s. It was this event on January 6, 1617 where she would officially be recognized by

Queen Anne of Denmark, with King James I present. Masques combine music, dance, poetry, and many attendees and performers in elaborate costumes. The signature performance was Ben Jonson’s The Vision of Delight, which was highly acclaimed and enjoyed by James I. The event took place at the Palace of Whitehall. Englishman John Chamberlain chronicled her attending the night’s events and her participation. He wrote, “the virginian woman Poca-huntas, with her father’s counsaillor, have been with the king and graciously used, and she and her assistant well placed at the maske, she is upon her return (though sore against her will) yf the wind wold come about to send them away.”35

Chamberlain used a term that Smith used, which is Virginian. She seems to be the first definitively described Virginian. Regardless of her enjoyment or boredom at the masque banquet at Whitehall, her accompanying delegation representative, Uttamatomakkin, was not impressed by the lack of due etiquette that should have been afforded to him and the others.

According to Purchas, Uttamatomakkin was disgruntled by not being offered some gift when being brought before the king and his court. He told Purchas that he was not sure he had met King James I because not one gift was offered to him in that meeting. Uttamatomakkin felt that Pocahontas was considered of a greater position to meet royalty than he, the actual representative of Powhatan’s chiefdom of power. 36

The weeks commemorating “twelfth night” festivities must have been curious to Pocahontas. Even if the colonists in Virginia did some similar activities for them, they were most likely subdued and not to their fullest degree as they would have been in secular London under the reign of James I. Regardless of how much eating, drinking, singing, and dancing she directly did, the 12 days of frolicking may have been quite burdensome to someone recovering from or in the midst of an illness. How she felt the rest of that winter is unknown. Captain Samuel Argall readied the return ship to Virginia and the Rolfe family would have to decide if they should be on it.

By March 1617, the Rolfe family visit to England was nearing its end. It was a successful trip from many perspectives. Sir Thomas Dale proved he did his job in Virginia. He was rewarded with being assigned as the English admiral to a large fleet to be sent to India and beyond, to establish and protect English trade there. This was the greatest fleet ever assembled in England and Dale, the establisher of Virginia, was asked to do what he did in Virginia, in southeast Asia. John Rolfe would receive an appointment to the position of Secretary of the Virginia Colony which would carry him beyond his agricultural prowess, receiving great tracts of land for his contributions. New investors would gradually rejuvenate the colony in Virginia and women would eventually invest themselves into the men planting there. Pocahontas was the perfect propaganda for that. She demonstrated that the native Powhatan people could assimilate and or partner with the English in the New World, despite Uttamatomakkin’s critique of English monarchy and ceremony.

The Rolfe family was busy the last several weeks in England. They conducted final visits to John’s family in Heacham in Norfolk, then readied their supplies for the return. What she was thinking about cannot possibly be known. It seems most likely she would wonder what the land of her birth would seem like after being in cluttered and noxious London. But intellectually, perhaps she would understand her role between two cultures. Pocahontas would have been the ambassador back to her people when she arrived home in Virginia.

#9 HOW DID POCAHONTAS DIE IN GRAVESEND, ENGLAND IN 1617?

Captain Samuel Argall, then appointed acting governor of Virginia, brought the Rolfe family back to Virginia in March of 1617. He, like the rest, was authorized to return on board the ship, George. All would have to play the waiting game of loading a ship with supplies, getting the outbound tide right, plus receiving extra help from the winds to get down the Thames. Then once at Gravesend, receive a river pilot to get the

ship or ships out safely to the channel. It is not clear whether or not the Rolfe’s met the ship in London or Gravesend.

More than likely, they boarded somewhere around London and considered their several week trip ro come. The ship moved slowly on its way towards the English Channel; but at some point, Pocahontas came down with something terrible, a fast killing illness that consumed her while at Gravesend in Kent. John Smith chronicled the last days of his friend, Pocahontas. He wrote:

The Treasurer, Councell and Companie, having well furnished Captaine Samuel Argall, the Lady Pocahontas alias Rebecca, with her husband and others, in the good ship called the George, it pleased God at Gravesend to take this young Lady to his mercie, where shee made not more sorrow for her unexpected death, than joy to the beholders, to heare and see her make so religious and godly an end.37

Her illness and death are perplexing. She may have been ill sometime in the autumn and winter, as noted with her being brought to Syon House in Brentford for better air. However, had she developed the worst of tuberculosis it was probable that by March the affliction would have gotten to the point where John Rolfe would not have put her on the ship. That is speculative, but makes sense. It seems very rational to consider something that could kill an adult fairly-quickly, say in 48-72 hours. What then killed her?

Strangely, what may have killed her was what also Sir Thomas Dale in August of 1619, and thousands of others who served aboard crowded ships and in filthy towns or garrisons, had suffered from, especially those under siege. While serving off the coast of India, Dale, an English admiral, was afflicted with a terrible illness often contracted while on ships, that disease being the “Bloody Flux.” This disease is most commonly known as dysentery, which is a much more severe form of normal diarrhea, attacks the intestines, most specifically the colon, and produces a fever. In a worse form, especially as a virus, with profusely watery and often bloody feces, a vibrant and strong person in the 17th

century would consider themselves fortunate to survive it, let alone anyone having an existing and weakened state. More than likely Pocahontas was doing well enough from her earlier illness to go back to Virginia; but considering for a moment that the Rolfe family boarded the George in London and then spent the day or so getting to Gravesend, she maybe would have been exposed to the poor sanitation immediately when settling in on the ship. In that amount of time, within 24 hours or so, the symptoms could have been hitting her.

What happened around her treatment is even more speculative because no physician from London or Gravesend wrote about attending her. She may have been on the ship still, or they may have moved her into a house in Gravesend; but regardless of location her final days would have been terrible. The constant stream of fluids leaving her body would have weakened her and coupled with a severe fever, may have done her in. Those around her at the time of her death would have been her husband John Rolfe and perhaps, and ironically so, Captain Samuel Argall, who started this journey for her on his ship when he abducted her almost four years earlier. Lastly and most probable would have been a member of the clergy from the St. George Church in Gravesend. That fact has not been established besides them recording her burial inside the church.

Her last moments were apparently focused on validating her Christianity. John Rolfe provided an interesting and noticeably succinct summary of her death. Once back in Virginia he wrote:

My wife’s death is much lamented; my child much desired when it is of better strength to endure so hard a passage, whose life extinguisheth the sorrow of her loss, saying all must die, but ‘tis enough that her child liveth.38

Reverend Purchas also contributed to describing her end, though how he came to understand those moments is one that needs to be examined. We know that he was closely following the condition and fate of these native Virginians as he called them, and

so would have either have been there or would have been informed by persons there, so as a member of the St. George Church. Purchas wrote:

At her return towards Virginia she came at Gravesend to her end and grave, having given great demonstration of her Christian sincerity, as the first fruits of Virginian conversion, leaving here a godly memory, and the hopes of her resurrection, her soul aspiring to see and enjoy presently in heaven what here she had joyed to hear and believe of her beloved Saviour.39

It was obvious that some witnesses - influential onlookers who were around Pocahontas, wanted to know that she fully embraced her Christian beliefs and that it could be seen as a mark of great progress in Virginia. They wanted to be able to see if Pocahatas was a legitimate representation of the needed intelligence and moral composition to make an impact on how people would see the Powhatan. She would have died from dehydration and the complications of fever if it was in fact the “Bloody Flux” that got her. This is a terrible and uncomfortable end, and as one can imagine, an ugly death and perhaps the reason that nobody declared what had killed her, or perhaps they just did not know. It could have been a bad fever from several other illnesses. Regardless, it would not have been so long before she was buried, as the care for the remains in this period was basic. In 1617, when one died, they wanted to get the deceased into the ground within 24-48 hours for various reasons, decomposition being an obvious one. The St. George Church in Gravesend opportuned the Rolfe family with opening up their chancel area inside the church for her resting place. It was a place reserved normally for clergy and leading citizens. It was quite the honor and she was buried there, March 21, 1617. Pocahontas was approximately 21 years old.

The ship, George would eventually leave Gravesend by the end of March and made its way to Plymouth, England where eventually John Rolfe was convinced to leave his son, Thomas Rolfe under the care of friends and family. He gave a sound explanation in his writing upon arriving in Virginia. He wrote:

I know not how I may be censured for leaving my child behind me, nor what hazard I may incur of your noble love and other of my best friends. At my departure from Gravesend, nothing withstanding I was much importuned, I had no such intent. But in our short passage to Plymouth in smooth water I found such fear and hazard of his health, being not fully recovered of his sickness, and lack of attendance – for they who looked to him had need of nurses themselves- and indeed in all our passage [he] prospered no better, that by the advise of Captain Argall, and divers who also foresaw the danger, and knew the inconvenience hereof, persuaded me to what I did. At Plymouth I found Sir Lewes Stakely…”40

It must have been so hard for John Rolfe to consider in those moments – knowing his first wife and baby died on the first journey to the New World in 1609-1610, and for even a second thinking on and pondering his second wife and child once again dying in the transport to Virginia. Thomas Rolfe was left with Sir Lewis Stakeley and then John’s brother Henry Rolfe.

Thomas may have had what his mother had a few weeks before. Thomas was only two years old during that traveling season. Mother and child were both ill at Gravesend, and leaving him in England must have been brutally hard in one respect, but simple choice on another. John Rolfe would agonize over not hearing word of his child for months, at least, and potentially not seeing him ever again at odds with the best decision for the health of the child, leaving him with better care in England. Thomas Rolfe would lead a successful childhood until 18 years old in England, eventually move to Virginia, pick up where his father left off as a planter, and usher into the community his own family and legacy for centuries to come and eventually inherit all his father’s land in Virginia.

#10 WAS POCAHONTAS THE ONLY POWHATAN WOMAN TO DIE IN ENGLAND?

Though not directly about Pocahontas, but perhaps closely tied to her, are those other Powhatans left in England to assimilate there. It did not end well for several unfortunate souls. In the writings of the English, Sir Thomas Dale sent Totokins to England before 1613, where Totokins may have died or vanished through some series of events unrecorded by personnel within the Virginia Company. However, other Powhatan people did in fact die while living in England after the time of Pocahontas’ death. These were some that came with the Powhatan delegation in Sir Thomas Dale’s return in 1616.

From the court records of the Virginia Company in May 1620, it was written that one of those persons was dying and the company was trying to figure out the reimbursement for the treatment of this Powhatan who was then staying in the Cheapside community in London. The document stated:

The Court, taking notice from Sr William Throgmorton ye one of the maides which Sr Thomas Dale brought from Virginia a native of ye Country who some times dwelt a servant with a Mercer in Cheapside is now verie weake of a Consumption att Mr Gough in the Black Friers, who hath greate care and taketh greate paines to comforte her both in soule and bodie whereupon for her recoverie the Company are agreed to be att the charge of xx a weeke for this two monneths, if itt please god shee be not before the expiracon therof restored to health or dy in the meane season for ye administring of Phisick and Cordiall for her health and that the first paymt begin this day seavn-night…41

This weekly payment over the span of two months was quite a cost for lodging, medicine, and alcohol. More than likely she died within a few weeks to months at that time of this entry into the records. The English involved in the Virginia Company of London were mixed on their want and need to care for or assimilate the Powhatan people

of Virginia. There were clearly factions within the company that believed in the benevolent elevation of that culture to assimilate into the religion and citizenry of England. Many wanted only good or Godly things for the Powhatan people, but sadly for some, including Pocahontas and others, that introduction to English culture came with a terrible cost – sickness or death.

In the end, we will never know all the facts of the life of the English Pocahontas. She never provided us her own version of all the events we have scratched the surface of. However, because many of the English who were close to her for various reasons and motivations, wrote direct and reasonably candid accounts of what they saw and understood at the time. Those Englishmen had their natural biases and expressed their opinions along with facts as they saw it. They generally believed in and desired the best outcomes for Pocahontas, her people, and their own English in Virginia. The one thing that is certain in the outcomes of Pocahontas’ conversion and becoming Mistress Rebecca Rolfe is that it changed English fortunes in Virginia.

If the Virginia Company of London failed in Virginia due to lack of profit from ongoing war and strife there, say around 1614-1620, they would have left the colony and embarrassed the man who signed their charter, King James I. Due to that, James I would not have signed off on the Virginia Company of Plymouth and surely no “Pilgrims” would have created the Massachusetts colony in 1620-1621. If there are no thriving and expanding English settlements in America, James I would most likely not sanction further charters to India and beyond. Thus, no early development of the British Empire, or at least a much delayed expansion, and if no empire, no eventual United States of America, which was a unique offspring of that empire. What would the 19th and then 20th centuries through the world wars look if not for England, her colonial might, and the United States? Interesting questions for any historian or student.

But one question tied closely upon this discussion is who may have launched that empire, the largest one the world had ever seen? Maybe that is our great closing question and though not a fact, yet one great pondering, is who was responsible for the beginning

of the British Empire that would shape the history of the world for the next 300 or more years? It very well could be Pocahontas, or Mistress Rebecca Rolfe. If it were not for her fortitude and intelligence, and sacrifice, it is likely English fortunes as a global colonizer may have ended or been seriously delayed in Virginia in 1613 and 1614. Perhaps that consideration is deep within our grand historical and culture subconscious between the mother country, England, and our venerable United States of America. Were it not for this woman, the first Virginian, both countries may not be what they are today. Perhaps the world may not be what it is today.

Notes and Sources

It is especially obvious to those of us that study the Pocahontas period that there is a glaring issue in understanding the true events that unfolded in the years 1613-1617. That one issue is that we do not have any writing from Pocahontas herself. The men who encountered her give the only perspective and glimpse and offer the only references. These men, mostly Captain John Smith, Sir Thomas Dale, Reverend Alexander Whitaker, Captain Samuel Argall, Ralph Hamor, John Rolfe, etc. – give us the best insights into what Pocahontas was saying, doing, or feeling.

Most of those accounts are found in Jamestown Narratives, Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade; 1607-1617 edited by Edward Wright Haile and published in 1998. For anyone studying the period, this is a perfect volume for easy reference and immersing the quest for evaluating the exact sentiments of these participants in the Pocahontas story.

The following are the essential letters to read:

rd 1. John Smith, The General History, 3 Book, p. 215

th 2. John Smith, The General History, 4 Book, p. 857

3. Thomas Dale, Letter to the Council of Virginia, 25 May 1611, p. 520

4. Thomas Dale, Letter to Salisbury, 17 August 1611, p. 552

5. Thomas Dale, Letter to Smythe, June 1613, p. 757

6. Thomas Dale, Letter from Henrico, 10 June 1613, p. 758

7. Thomas Dale, Letter to M.G. 18 June 1614, p. 841

8. Thomas Dale, Letter to Winwood, 3 June 1616, p. 878

9. Reverend Alexander Whitaker, Letter to Crashaw, 9 August 1611, p. 548

10. Reverend Alexander Whitaker, Good News from Virginia, p. 695

11. Reverend Alexander Whitaker, Letter to M.G. 18 June 1614, p. 848

12. Samuel Argall, Letter to Hawes, June 1613, p. 752

13. Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse, p. 792

14. John Rolfe, The Pocahontas Letter, p. 850

15. John Rolfe, A True Relation, p. 865

16. John Rolfe, Letter to Sandys, 8 June 1617

17. William Strachey, The History of Travel, First Book, p. 563

18. Uttamatomakkin, An Interview in London, p.880

These letters really paint a picture of the situation that existed between the Powhatan people and the English leadership during the years of 1613 through Pocahontas’ death in March of 1617.

There are some great references that illustrates the English perspectives of the Powhatan people after the death of Pocahontas. Those references are various, and one needs to read through the volumes of Records of the Virginia Company: The Court Book, edited by Susan Myra Kingsbury and published through the Library of Congress in Washington DC in 1906, edited by Susan Myra Kingsbury. These documents give great insight into the establishment of the College of Henrico, or college lands designed for a school for selected Powhatan children, the immediate by product of the successful Pocahontas conversion years before.

There are some other documents that offer some primary accounting of what took place, and they are found within the footnotes of those used references. Not many references are found outside of what has been used. The only Powhatan “letter” is the interview with Uttamatomakkin while he was in England in 1616-1617. That was, of course, a translated conversation.

It is bad fortune that most of the principal Englishmen close to Pocahontas from the years 1613-1617 died before their later years and did not leave us with a full memoir. Whitaker drowned in Virginia in early 1617, Dale died off the coast of India in 1619, and John Rolfe around Virginia in 1622, not one too many years beyond 40 years old.

Captain John Smith’s writings of the early colony, published in London in 1614 and then later published with a second edit, is a standard and must-read to understand the scope of what was happening around Pocahontas’ life in the early 17th century.

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: With the Names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours from Their First Beginning, Ano: 1584. To This Present 1624. With the Procedings of Those Severall Colonies and the Accidents That Befell Them in All Their Journyes and Discoveries. Also the Maps and Descriptions of All Those Countryes, Their Commodities, People, Government, Customes, and Religion Yet Knowne. Divided into Sixe Bookes. By Captaine Iohn Smith, Sometymes Governour in Those Countryes & Admirall of New England

Smith and Pocahontas go hand in hand in studying these moments in time, despite Smith not being in Virginia during her conversion and marriage. He does, however, have that chance meeting with her in England after her

marriage to Rolfe, which must be understood and incorporated into who she was by that age and in her last year of life.

The last real primary source book used in this history is the King James I Version of the Bible, officially known in the 1611-1612 publishing as, "THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties ſpeciall Comandement"

The section of Genesis where the story of Rebecca is revealed is a must- read. If read carefully and associated with her conversion, the story itself may articulate what she was feeling more than any other document. For if she understood the social and political reality of Rebecca’s situation, it is possible that name suited her in the state of affairs in 1613.

The secondary sources used for this book are also few. For some biographical information, Martha McCartney’s, Virginia Immigrants and Adventures,1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary, published a second time in 2007, gives well documented sketches of anyone who was present in the colony through those years. It is a requirement for a library studying this topic.

Aside from a few miscellaneous letters or citations, the above-mentioned works help immeasurably into forming a foundation or image of what had occurred in Pocahontas’ English life.

1 Smith, General History of Virginia, p. 122 2 Strachey, Jamestown Narratives, p. 620 3 Strachey, Jamestown Narratives, pgs. 658-659 4 Argall, JN, p.754 5 Hamor, JN, p. 803 6 Ibid 7 Ibid 8 Hamor, JN, p. 804 9 Hamor, JN, p.804 10 Ibid 11 Dale, JN, p. 761 12 Whitaker, JN, p. 848 13 Strachey, JN, p. 631 14 Whitaker, JN, pgs. 730-731 15 Percy, JN, p. 97 16 Whitaker, JN, p. 731 17 Whitaker, JN, pgs. 730-731 18 Strachey, JN, p. 646 19 Dale, JN, p.843 20 Dale, JN, p. 844 21 Hamor, JN, p.808 22 McCartney, Virginia Immigrants and Adventures, p. 606 23 Rolfe, JN, pgs. 851-853 24 Ibid, p.855 25 Ibid, p.851 26 Genesis, King James Bible, 24:58 27 Dale, JN, p.845 28 McCartney, Virginia Immigrants and Adventures, p.167 29 McCartney, VIA, p.608 30 Dale, JN, p.843 31 Chamberlain to Dudley, letter 1616 32 JN, Purchas, pgs. 883-884 33 General History of Virginia, Smith, 4th Book 34 GHV, Smith, 4th Book 35 Letter Chamberlain to Dudley, p. January 18, 1617 36 JN, Purchas, pgs.884-885 37 Smith, GHV, 4th Book 38 Rolfe, JN, pgs. 888-889 39 Purchas, JN, p. 884 40 Rolfe, JN, p.889 41 Virginia Company of London Records, p.338, V1