|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] Pocahontas Biography POCAHONTAS (c.1595-1617) . A celebrated Indian princess, daughter of Powhatan (q.v.). She is first mentioned in the True Relation (1608) by Capt. John Smith (q.v.) as "a child of tenne yeares old, which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion much exceedeth any of the rest of his [Powhatan's] people, but for wit and spirits the non-pareil of his country." She seems to have formed an attachment for the whites, especially for Smith, and to have been a frequent visitor at Jamestown until Smith left in October, 1609, when her visits ceased. In April, 1612, while at the village of her uncle, the King of Potowomek, she was lured aboard an English vessel by Captain Argall and was taken to Jamestown as a hostage for the return of several white prisoners and some stolen property. Here she was converted to Christianity and in April, 1613, was baptized and christened Rebecca. In April, 1614, she was married to John Rolfe (q.v.), with whom, two years later, she went to England; there she was received with great enthusiasm, as the daughter of an American king. Then it was that the celebrated story about her rescue of Captain Smith first appeared. In a letter to the Queen (1616) Smith asserted that in 1607, when he, a captive among the Indians, was about to have his brains knocked out against a large stone, Pocahontas had "hazarded the beating out of her owne braines" to save his, and had on another occasion warned the English of a threatened Indian attack, besides furnishing food to the famishing colonists. It is for this rescue story, much elaborated and embellished by Smith in his Generall Historie (1624), which was printed 16 years after the events described therein, that Pocahontas is chiefly remembered. Until Charles Deane attacked it in 1859 it was seldom questioned, but, owing largely to his criticisms, it soon became somewhat discredited. John Fiske, however, in his Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, valiantly defends its authenticity. Pocahontas died March 29, 1617, at Gravesend, and was there buried, the following curious entry being made in the parish records: "1616 (1617) , May 2 j, Rebecca Wrothe wyff of Thomas Wrothe, gent. a Virginia lady borne, here was buried in ye chauncell." Pocahontas and Rolfe had one son, Thomas who, after living for many years in England, migrated to Virginia. From him many prominent Virginia families including the Bollings (Mrs. Edith Bolling Galt was married to President Woodrow Wilson in 1915), the Murrays, the Guys, the Whittles, the Robertsons, the Elbridges, and that branch of the Randolphs from which sprang John Randolph of Roanoke (q.v.), trace their descent. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 759. |