Pocahontas
c. 1596-1617
Pocahontas was the daughter of Chief
Powhatan when the Virginia
Colony was first established. When she was a little girl, the English
and the Powatans were friendly to each other. Her father often brought
her along whenever he visited Jamestown, and the colonists adored her.
Then relations soured between the two communities. As the
Anglo-Powhatan conflict intensified, one of the Powhatans' rival tribes
connived with the English to spring a trap to take her captive. The
English kept her as a hostage, and after a while, she settled in,
converted to Christianity and was rechristened Rebecca. She
married the
tobacco
planter, John Rolfe, and eventually became the ancestor of some of
Virginia's most venerable familes. On their first visit back to his
homeland of
England, she was celebrated by the
adoring public, but she quickly died of some strange new disease that
was endemic to that
side of the Atlantic.
Because Pocahontas was being held hostage by the English when she
married, modern writers often wonder how much choice she had in the
matter.
Some openly used words like brainwashing
or Stockholm Syndrome or even
rape when describing it. That,
however, projects modern sensibilities back onto the past. Of course she had no choice. The
sad
truth is, nothing about life in the 1600s was optional. No matter
where you went, there was always someone else with absolute control
over your life. Whether male or female, white or not , you were defined as being a child, wife, slave,
peasant, soldier, apprentice, outlaw, etc, and you did whatever your father,
husband, master, lord, captain or minister told you, or else you'd be
beaten or cast out to face the world alone and
penniless. It wasn't even coercion; it's simply how the world worked.
Her widowed husband was probably killed by her uncle, Opechancanough,
but it wasn't personal. When Chief Powhatan died, his brother
Opechancanough took over as leader. In 1622 the Powhatans tried to
exterminate the
Virginia colony with coordinated surprise attacks against all the
English settlements. They massacred a quarter of the white
population of Virginia, and John Rolfe disappeared from the records
after this.
PS: The story of Pocahontas rescuing John Smith was probably a lie
an
embellishment.
He kept quiet about it until Pocahontas had already become famous
and
conveniently dead. Plus, to hear him talk about his perilous adventures
worldwide,
he was always getting
captured by savages and rescued by infatuated ladies.
