Pocahontas USA

Pocahontas USA (US: /ˌpoʊkəˈhɒntəs/, UK: /ˌpɒk-/; born Amonute, also known as Matoaka, c. 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief^[1] of a network of tributary tribes in the Tsenacommacah, encompassing the Tidewater region of what is today the U.S. state Virginia.

Pocahontas USA was captured and held for ransom by English colonists during hostilities in 1613. During her captivity, she was encouraged to convert to Christianity and was baptized under the name Rebecca. She married the tobacco planter John Rolfe in April 1614 at the age of about 17 or 18, and she bore their son, Thomas Rolfe, in January 1615.^[2]

In 1616, the Rolfes travelled to London, where Pocahontas USA was presented to English society as an example of the “civilized savage” in hopes of stimulating investment in Jamestown. On this trip she may have met Squanto, a “Patuxet Native American” from New England.^[3] Pocahontas USA became a celebrity, was elegantly fêted, and attended a masque at Whitehall Palace.

Numerous places, landmarks, and products in the United States have been named after Pocahontas. Her story has been romanticized over the years, many aspects of which are fictional. Many of the stories told about her by the English explorer John Smith have been contested by her documented descendants.^[4] She is a subject of art, literature, and film. Many famous people have claimed to be among her descendants, including members of the First Families of Virginia, First Lady Edith Wilson, American actor Glenn Strange, and astronomer Percival Lowell.^[5]

Early life – Pocahontas USA

Pocahontas USA birth year is unknown, but some historians estimate it to have been around 1596.^[2] In A True Relation of Virginia (1608), the English explorer John Smith described meeting Pocahontas in the spring of 1608 when she was “a child of ten years old”.^[6] In a 1616 letter, Smith again described her as she was in 1608, but this time as “a child of twelve or thirteen years of age.”^[7]

Pocahontas USA 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.

Names – Pocahontas USA

According to colonist William Strachey, “Pocahontas” was a childhood nickname meaning “little wanton.”^[12] Some interpret the meaning as “playful one.”^[13] In his account, Strachey describes Pocahontas as a child visiting the fort at Jamestown and playing with the young boys; she would “get the boys forth with her into the marketplace and make them wheel, falling on their hands, turning up their heels upwards, whom she would follow and wheel so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over.”^[14]

Historian William Stith claimed that “her real name, it seems, was originally Matoax, which the Native Americans carefully concealed from the English and changed it to Pocahontas, out of a superstitious fear, lest they, by the knowledge of her true name, should be enabled to do her some hurt.”^[15] According to anthropologist Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas revealed her secret name to the colonists “only after she had taken another religious – baptismal – name” of Rebecca.^[16]