Thursday, September 23, 2021

The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith


      Two of Virginia’s most unusual and colorful characters were Captain John Smith and the Native American princess Pocahontas.

     Captain John Smith was an English soldier of fortune who fought his way across Europe in wars being waged by the various rulers in Slovenia, Hungary and Transylvania, earning many awards for bravery.  The Prince of Transylvania awarded Smith with a title and his own coat of arms which displayed the heads of three Turks killed and beheaded by Smith in individual combat.  But Smith’s luck was about to run out.  In 1602 he was wounded in battle and captured by the Turks.  He was sold into slavery and marched six hundred miles to Constantinople.  Here Smith was presented to his new master’s fiancĂ©e as a gift.  The woman promptly fell in love with Smith and tried to convert him to Islam.  When this didn’t work, she shipped him off to her brother in Rostov in what was then Turkish occupied Russia.

    The brother beat Smith frequently and put an iron collar around his neck.  John Smith was a man that required a great deal of breaking, and his new master did not succeed.  In fact, Smith killed him and escaped on his horse.  With the help of local Christians, Smith traversed Russia and Ukraine, making his way to Germany, France, and finally England.  After travelling some eleven thousand miles between 1600 -1604, you would think that Smith would be done with long journeys, but his longest journey was just about to begin.

    In April 1606, the Virginia Company was granted a royal charter by King James I to establish a colony.  In December, three ships carrying one hundred and four settlers, including Captain John Smith, set sail for Virginia.  Impressed by Smith’s military record, the Virginia Company had invited Smith to join the enterprise as a member of the new colony’s seven man ruling council. 

   Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, named in honor of King James I, was founded on May 14, 1607.  The early going was tough for the colonists.  The colony suffered from food shortage, disease, and unhealthy drinking water, all in addition to skirmishes with the local Powhatan tribe.  In the autumn of 1607, Captain Smith conducted trips to Powhatan villages to secure much need food.  During one of these forays, Smith was taken prisoner by a large Powhatan hunting party and ultimately brought before Wahunsenacawh, better known to history as Chief Powhatan.

  According to Smith, his head was placed on two stones and as he was held down, a warrior prepared to smash in his skull with a heavy club.  Before the fatal blow fell, however, Chief Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas rushed to Smith’s side and placed her head on his, preventing the attack. Thus was born the legend of the beautiful princess saving the life of the intrepid English explorer.

  It is easy to understand how Smith, unfamiliar with Powhatan customs thought he was about to be murdered when, in fact, he was being inducted into the tribe.  According to some anthropologists, Smith was undergoing a ritual adoption ceremony, and after the ceremony was treated well and ultimately returned to Jamestown.  As for the Native American princess, her real name was Amonute (she also had the more private name Matoaka). Pocahontas was a nickname which meant “playful one.”  Did she really save John Smith?  Smith only wrote of the incident years later when he was safely back in Europe and there was no one around to contradict his version.  Some have suggested that he took the story of the hero being saved by the beautiful daughter of a powerful lord from an old Scottish ballad.

   Whatever the truth of the rescue story, Pocahontas lived a remarkable life.  While Smith was with the Powhatans he spent time with Pocahontas and they taught each other rudimentary aspects of their different languages.  Pocahontas became an important emissary to the Jamestown colony, negotiating the release of prisoners and occasionally bringing food to the hungry settlers.  Notwithstanding her efforts, relations between the colonists and the Powhatans remained strained.  In 1609, the starving colonists threatened to burn Powhatan villages unless the tribe brought them food.  Chief Powhatan offered to barter for food with Captain John Smith.  Supposedly the chief intended to ambush and kill Smith, but Pocahontas warned Smith of the plot and saved his life (again?).  Smith returned to England after this incident.

   Pocahontas avoided the English until 1613 when she was kidnapped.  The English informed Chief Powhatan that Pocahontas would not be returned unless a food ransom was paid and certain stolen weapons returned.  The ransom was slow in coming and Pocahontas remained a prisoner in the settlement of Henricus where she was under the care of a minister.  Here she learned how to speak English and learned about both Christianity and European culture.  Pocahontas converted to Christianity and took a new name, Rebecca.

   After she had been a prisoner for a year, Sir Thomas Dale, with one hundred and fifty armed men, marched Pocahontas to Chief Powhatan to demand the rest of the ransom.  Along the way a number of villages were burned and a skirmish occurred, but Pocahontas was able to secure peace when she announced to Chief Powhatan that she wished to marry one of the colonists, one John Rolfe, a tobacco planter.  The Chief agreed and on April 5, 1614 the marriage took place, cementing the so-called “Peace of Pocahontas.”

   In 1616, Sir Thomas Dale sailed for England to raise money and to demonstrate that the goal of converting Native Americans to Christianity was being met.  John Rolfe, Pocahontas, their baby son Thomas (born in 1615) and twelve Powhatan tribe members made the trip.  In London, Pocahontas was hailed as a princess and was presented to King James I.  The Virginia Company commissioned a portrait of Pocahontas in European dress.  The painting’s identifying plaque reads, “Matoaka, alias Rebecca, daughter of the most powerful prince of the Powhatan Empire of Virginia.”

   In 1617, Pocahontas and her family set sail for Virginia, but had hardly launched when she was overcome by a grave illness.  The party disembarked at Gravesend, England, where she died.  On her deathbed she said, “All must die. But ‘tis enough that my child liveth.”



Virginia Legends and Lore


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