Pocahontas

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Warner, Charles Dudley. Captain John Smith, 1881. Repr. in Captain John Smith Project Gutenberg Text, accessed July 4, 2006 Letter (excerpt) from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated 22 June 1616 (catalogue reference: SP 14/87, f.135v) Lemay, J.A. Leo. Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith? Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1992 During the year-long wait, Pocahantas was held at the English settlement of Henricus in present-day Chesterfield County, Virginia. Little is known about her life there, although colonist Ralph Hamor wrote that she received "extraordinary courteous usage." [33] Linwood "Little Bear" Custalow refers to an oral tradition which claims that Pocahontas was raped; Helen Rountree counters that "other historians have disputed that such oral tradition survived and instead argue that any mistreatment of Pocahontas would have gone against the interests of the English in their negotiations with Powhatan. A truce had been called, the Indians still far outnumbered the English, and the colonists feared retaliation." [34] At this time, Henricus minister Alexander Whitaker taught Pocahontas about Christianity and helped her improve her English. Upon her baptism, she took the Christian name "Rebecca." [35]

One goal of the London Company was to convert Native Americans to Christianity, and they saw an opportunity to promote further investment with the conversion of Pocahontas and her marriage to Rolfe, all of which also helped end the First Anglo-Powhatan War. The company decided to bring Pocahontas to England as a symbol of the tamed New World "savage" and the success of the Virginia colony, [47] and the Rolfes arrived at the port of Plymouth on June 12, 1616. [48] The family journeyed to London by coach, accompanied by eleven other Powhatans including a holy man named Tomocomo. [49] John Smith was living in London at the time while Pocahontas was in Plymouth, and she learned that he was still alive. [50] Smith did not meet Pocahontas, but he wrote to Queen Anne urging that Pocahontas be treated with respect as a royal visitor. He suggested that, if she were treated badly, her "present love to us and Christianity might turn to... scorn and fury", and England might lose the chance to "rightly have a Kingdom by her means." [7] Pocahontas (1995), a Walt Disney Company animated feature, one of the Disney Princess films, and the most well known adaptation of the Pocahontas story. The film presents a fictional romantic affair between Pocahontas and John Smith, in which Pocahontas teaches Smith respect for nature. Irene Bedard voiced and provided the physical model for the title character.

Stith, William (1865). "The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia". archive.org. p.136 . Retrieved April 8, 2014. Purchas, Samuel. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes. 1625. Repr. Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1905–1907. vol. 19

Pocahontas was apparently treated well in London. At the masque, her seats were described as "well placed" [53] and, according to Purchas, London's Bishop John King "entertained her with festival state and pomp beyond what I have seen in his greate hospitalitie afforded to other ladies." [54] In 1907, Pocahontas was the first Native American to be honored on a U.S. stamp. [66] She was a member of the inaugural class of Virginia Women in History in 2000. [67] In July 2015, the Pamunkey Native tribe became the first federally recognized tribe in the state of Virginia; they are descendants of the Powhatan chiefdom of which Pocahontas was a member. [68] Pocahontas is the twelfth great-grandmother of the American actor Edward Norton. [69] Image gallery Pocahontas: Schauspiel mit Gesang, in fünf Akten (A Play with Songs, in five Acts) by Johann Wilhelm Rose, 1784 Rountree, Helen C. (November 3, 2010). "Uses of Personal Names by Early Virginia Indians". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved February 18, 2011.

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Dale, Thomas. Letter to Sir Ralph Winwood. June 3, 1616. Repr. in Jamestown Narratives, ed. Edward Wright Haile. Champlain, VA: Roundhouse, 1998.

The documents that really jumped out at me were the notes that survived from John Smith. He was kidnapped by the Native Americans a few months after he got here. Eventually, after questioning him, they released him. But while he was a prisoner among the Native Americans, we know he spent some time with Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas and that they were teaching each other some basic aspects of their languages. And we know this because in his surviving notes are written sentences like "Tell Pocahontas to bring me three baskets." Or "Pocahontas has many white beads." So all of a sudden, I could just see this man and this little girl trying to teach each other. In one case English, in another case an Algonquian language. Literally in the fall of 1607, sitting along some river somewhere, they said these actual sentences. She would repeat them in Algonquian, and he would write that down. That detail brought them both to life for me. After her death, increasingly fanciful and romanticized representations were produced about Pocahontas, in which she and Smith are frequently portrayed as romantically involved. Contemporaneous sources substantiate claims of their friendship but not romance. [43] The first claim of their romantic involvement was in John Davis' Travels in the United States of America (1803). [71]A Guide to Writing about Virginia Indians and Virginia Indian History" (PDF). Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Council on Indians. January 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 24, 2012 . Retrieved July 19, 2012. Nonetheless, Pocahontas developed a friendship with him and other settlers. She delivered messages from her father and accompanied Indian men delivering gifts of food to the starving colonists. However, the peace ended when colonists demanded more food, and Powhatan— facing shortages and drought in 1608 and 1609— declined. Colonists burned Indian villages and threatened violence, and from then on, Pocahontas ceased visiting Jamestown. Among the most famous women in early American history, Pocahontas is credited with having helped the struggling English settlers in Virginia survive in the early 1600s. The explorer John Smith— who claimed Pocahontas saved his life— hailed her as “the instrument to pursurve this colonie from death, famine, and utter confusion.” Since the shift in mainstream scholarship is so recent, do you think going forward there’ s more to learn from her story? Pocahontas was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of about thirty Algonquian-speaking groups and petty chiefdoms in the Tidewater region of the present-day U.S. state of Virginia. [8] Her mother's name and origin are unknown, but she was probably of lowly status. English adventurer Henry Spelman had lived among the Powhatan people as an interpreter, and he noted that, when one of the paramount chief's many wives gave birth, she was returned to her place of origin and supported there by the paramount chief until she found another husband. [9] However, little is known about Pocahontas's mother, and it has been theorized that she died in childbirth. [10] The Mattaponi Reservation people are descendants of the Powhatans, and their oral tradition claims that Pocahontas's mother was the first wife of Powhatan and that Pocahontas was named after her. [11] Names