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Pocahontas: Daughter of Powhatan, Saves John Smith after arrival at Jamestown, becomes peacemaker.
Pocahontas a NicknameMany stories and legends, some true while others are unprovable, have arose since Pocahontas lived in the early 1600s. Although she was also of royal birth, as the daughter of the powerful Chief Powhatan, how did such legends come about concerning a young Powhatan girl who entertained colonists by turning cartwheels, while nude, around Jamestown, Virginia? Perhaps that antic its self was the initial inspiration. Pocahontas did not become famous under the name she was given, but under a false name. The name Pocahontas was a nickname meaning the Playful One. The child's correct name was Matoaka. Captain John Smith Arrives at JamestownPocahontas was just a child of some ten or eleven years when Captain John Smith, along with 103 colonists, established Jamestown in Virginia, in 1607, as the first permanent English settlement in the New World. She soon became a peacemaker between her own people and the English colonists. Pocahontas Saves John SmithProbably the more lasting of the stories and legends concerning Pocahontas is the questionable tale of the child saving Captain John Smith from certain death at the hand of one of her fellow tribesmen. The incident was mentioned briefly by Smith himself, some seventeen years after its occurrence. In Captain John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, published in 1624, he tells of being taken as a captive in December 1607, to Werowocomoco, the capitol of Pocahontas' father Powhatan. He evidently was about to be killed when, according to Smith, Pocahontas suddenly flung herself across his body in an attempt to prevent his death. If the incident really happened we have only the word of John Smith to go by. The theories run, if the incident actually happened, from the act being a symbolic ceremony to a public acknowledgment that Powhatan, through his daughter, was adopting Smith in to the tribe. Another probable myth that writers and historians have considerably enjoyed pouncing upon is the creation of a romance between Pocahontas and Captain Smith. Of course, such a thing is and was possible. However, Captain John Smith was born in about 1579, meaning he was at the ripe old age of about twenty-eight when he came to Jamestown. Pocahontas, born around 1596, was some seventeen years younger than Smith was. Smith was already a young man of the world when Pocahontas was a swaddled papoose peering from her cradleboard. Pocahontas Protects Jamestown ColonistsPutting possible legends aside, what Pocahontas actually accomplished was to act as a mutually trusted intermediary who carried food, gifts, and messages back and forth between her people and the people of Jamestown. Some time between 1608 and 1610, she gained the release of Powhatan prisoners that were being held by the English. She also at times protected some of the colonists from her father's anger and revenge. But that was all to come to an end sometime between 1610 and 1614. Peace Comes to an EndIn that space of time, the native inhabitance that lived along the eastern coast of America finally had had enough of the land-grabbing whites and a war was soon in full swing. Such was the extreme of the situation that it was beyond even Pocahontas' powers to create peace. No longer did the child pay visits to Jamestown. Besides, the child was now a woman. That little savage urchin who had cartwheeled in the nude to entertain the colonists was now the wife of fellow tribesman, Kocoum. Pocahontas continues with The Capture of Pocahontas: British Sea Captain Holds Indian Princes Captive.
The copyright of the article Pocahontas in Colonial America is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish Pocahontas in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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