The Tale of Pocahontas
http://phimanh.net/News/Hoat-hinh/2007/03/3B9AE11A/pocahontas1.jpg
http://www.lynleigh.com/pocahontas/history/
In December 1607, barely six months after arriving at Jamestown with the 1st English colonists,
Captain John Smith was captured by warriors of Powhatan, the supreme chief of about fourteen thousand Algonquian people who inhabited the
coastal plain of present-day Virginia.
http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2005_The_New_World/2005_the_new_world_503.jpg
http://www.poacherguide.co.uk/photos/famouspeople/Captain-John-Smith.jpg
According to Smith, Powhatan “feasted him after their best barbarous manner… two great stones were brought before Powhatan: than as many
[Indians] as could layd hands on [Smith], dragged him to [the stones], and thereon laid his head, and
being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines.”
http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/200/269/smith_2.htm
At that moment, Pocahontas, Powhatan’s eleven-year-old daughter, rushed forward and “got [Smith’s] head in her
armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death.” Pocahontas, Smith wrote, “hazarded the beating
out of her owne braines to save mine, and … so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted [back] to
James towne.”
http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm
This romantic story of an Indian maiden rescuing a white soldier and saving Jamestown, and
ultimately English colonization of North America, has been celebrated in the writing of American history since 1624, when Smith published his
Generall Historie of Virginia.
http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/pio/4MillVol/3-millionth_vol.htm
Historians believe that this episode happened more or less as Smith described it. But Smith did not
understand why Pocahontas acted as she did. Many have claimed that her love for Smith caused her to rebel against her father’s authority. Pocahontas left
no document that explains her motives; most likely, she could not write.
http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm
Everything known about her comes from the pen of Smith or other Englishmen. When their
writings are considered in the context of what is known about the Algonquian society Pocahontas was born into, her actions appear in an entirely
different light.
http://www.chiemgau-online.de/kino/images/200613_166415_1_012.jpg
Motion Picture:The New World
Most likely, when Pocahontas intervened to save Smith, she was a participant in an Algonquian
ceremony. What Smith interpreted as Pocahontas’s saving him from certain death was instead a
ceremonial reenactment of Powhatan’s willingness to incorporate Smith into Powhatan’ empire.
http://www.animated-news.com/archives/poca4.jpg
The ceremony displayed Powhatan’s power of life or death and his willingness to give protection to those who acknowledged his supremacy, in this
case, the new visitors in Jamestown.
http://www.nativeamericans.com/aa_pocahonta_english_3_m%5b1%5d.jpg
Pocahontas was probably acting out Smith’s new status as an adopted member of Powhatan’s
extended family. Rather than a rebellious, love-struck girl, Pocahontas was almost certainly a
dutiful daughter playing the part assigned for her by her father and her culture.
http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm
Pocahontas frequently visited the English settlement and often brought gifts of food from her father.
Powhatan routinely attached his sons and daughters to subordinate tribes as an expression of his
protection and his dominance.
ttp://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/pioneer/chap1_1.html
It appears that Pocahontas’s attachment to the English colonists grew out Powhatan’s attempt to
treat the tribe of white strangers at Jamestown as he did other tribes in his empire, an attempt that failed.
http://home.surewest.net/mlamarr/Jamestown/nativeattacks.html
In 1613, after relations between Powhatan and the English colonists had deteriorated into
bloody conflict, the colonists captured Pocahontas and held her hostage at
Jamestown.
http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm
Within a year, she converted to Christianity and married one of the colonists, a widower named John Rolfe. After giving birth to a son named
Thomas, Pocahontas, her husband, and the new baby sailed for England in the spring of 1616.
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/pioneer/graphics/chap1_d.gif
There, publicists of the Virginia colony dressed her as a proper Englishwomen and even
arranged for here to go to a ball attended by the king and queen.
http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm
Pocahontas died in England in 1617. Her son, Thomas, returned to Virginia, and by the time of the American Revolution, his descendants
numbered in the hundreds. The New America, Thomas encountered was no longer dominated
by Native Americans.
http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/Pocahontas%20smith.htm
Portrait of Pocahontas &her son Thomas.
Old Flames ? According to Captain Smith’s writing, he once
again visited Pocahontas when he learned of her arrival in England.
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~lnbdds/home/images9/smithcaptjohn.jpg
The Legend Continues…….
My daughter Austin visitingDisney World in 2002.