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Subject:

Author: Four Faces of Pocahontas

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: Thursday, June 05, 12:30:38pm Four Faces of Pocahontas Board of Supervisors and County Manager's Office Henrico County, Virginia ---------------------------------------------------------- Many different depictions of Pocahontas exist today. Pictured clockwise from top left: Mary Ellen Howe (1994), Robert Matthew Sully (1850s), Thomas Sully (1852), Jean Leon Ferris (c. 1921) courtesy of William E. Ryder and the Virginia Historical Society. ---------------------------------------------------------- According to Native American lore, her parents knew her as "Amonte" and her secret clan name was "Matoaca." Her European Christian friends called her "Lady Rebecca." Many have revered her as the "mother" of our nation, the female counterpart to George Washington. We know her as Pocahontas, legendary Indian princess, daughter of the mighty Chief Powhatan. ---------------------------------------------------------- Four hundred years ago she lived part of her life in what is present-day Henrico County. Pocahontas forever influenced the history of the County, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and America. It is her image that graces the Henrico seal and flag. ---------------------------------------------------------- Pocahontas' father, Chief Powhatan of the Algonquin Nation, ruled a confederacy of Powhatan Indian tribes in Henrico and eastern Virginia. A hunting party captured Captain John Smith in 1607 west of Jamestown along the Chickahominy River. Captain Smith later wrote that he was taken to Powhatan and sentenced to death. In his "General Historie" published in 1624, Smith described his controversial rescue by Pocahontas. ---------------------------------------------------------- "Having feasted him . . . A long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could lay hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperour [Powhatan] was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper . . ." ---------------------------------------------------------- Even though relations between the Indians and the settlers were hostile at times, Pocahontas and John Smith maintained a friendly relationship. In 1608 Pocahontas may have saved Smith's life a second time with her warning that Powhatan again wanted him put to death. ---------------------------------------------------------- Pocahontas was kidnapped by the settlers in 1613. She was betrayed by two Indians for a copper kettle and lured onto a ship in the Potomac River. She was brought to Jamestown and used as a political pawn in negotiations with her father. During this time she was taken to the Citie of Henricus for religious instruction. Pocahontas became the first Native American in Virginia to convert to Christianity. She was baptized an Anglican and given the name Rebecca. ---------------------------------------------------------- In 1614 Pocahontas married John Rolfe, and according to Native American lore and local tradition, they made their home in what is now Henrico's Varina District. The marriage brought peace between the English and the Powhatan tribes -- an accomplishment that would affect the rest of American history. ---------------------------------------------------------- Two years later Rolfe took Pocahontas and their son Thomas to England. The arrival of Pocahontas in London was well publicized. She was presented to King James I, the royal family, and the rest of the best of London society. While preparing to return to her native land, Pocahontas became ill and died at Gravesend, England, where she was buried. ---------------------------------------------------------- After growing up in England, Pocahontas' son Thomas returned to his mother's homeland, became a militia officer and commanded a frontier fort in western Henrico on the James River. ------------------------------------------------------------ Sources of information: Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, The United Indians of Virginia, The Virginia Historical Society, Dr. Louis Manarin, author of The History of Henrico County and The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580 - 1631), in three volumes, edited by Philip L. Barbour, v.II, p. 151. ---------------------------------------------------------- To read more about Pocahontas, visit the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) site. ---------------------------------------------------------- Cross the Atlantic and visit Pocahontas' final resting place: St. George's Church, Gravesend, England. ---------------------------------------------------------- To read about Pocahontas and the official Henrico County seal, use this link. ---------------------------------------------------------- Visit the 1611 Citie of Henricus, where visitors can watch a "living history" unfold before their eyes when they set foot on the grounds where Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan and the early English settlers walked and talked together. ---------------------------------------------------------- http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues99/jan99/object_jan99.html ---------------------------------------------------------- Picturing Pocahontas ---------------------------------------------------------- An image at the National Portrait Gallery may be the truest account we have of the Indian princess The corpulent visage of Henry VIII peers at me across the centuries from the pages of Baziliwlogia: A Booke of Kings. As I leaf through the 1618 edition, another engraved portrait jumps out at me — a New World princess from Virginia. Though nobility radiates from her resolute eyes, Pocahontas couldn't be more different from the other royals. A Jacobean stovepipe hat and lacy ruff can't hide her non-Anglo roots. Was this the face that launched a thousand myths? ---------------------------------------------------------- "Yes," answers Wendy Wick Reaves, a curator at the National Portrait Gallery. This engraving of Pocahontas is the only known life portrait. "life portraits," Reaves continues, "are our greatest treasures." The engraving is the oldest item in the NPG's 18,000-piece collection. ---------------------------------------------------------- The Portrait Gallery also owns a more recent image, an oil painting of Pocahontas done more than a century later by an unknown artist who probably worked from the engraving. Mythmaking has begun to work its subtle magic on her face: the complexion is fairer and anglicized; the high cheekbones no longer seem so prominent. The hair is European brown not Native American black; the intensity in the eyes has softened. Anyone trying to get a reasonable fix on the lady, somewhere between dry history and the Disney version, soon finds out that none of the details of her real life come from her own words. Historians have pieced together her life from the accounts of others, most notably her friend, Capt. John Smith, whose veracity of detail and recollection is, to put it mildly, questionable. During the intervening four centuries others have showered her with virtues. Poets and writers from Thackeray to Hart Crane celebrated her charm. More lately rocker Neil Young sang, "I would give a thousand pelts / To...find out how she felt." And now we have the animated eco-warrior princess from Disney. ---------------------------------------------------------- Needless to say, many fabled stories of her life are partly fiction. Top among them is her rescue of Capt. John Smith from execution, romanticized in eternal stone relief in the U.S. Capitol. Their celebrated love affair probably never happened, either. We do know that Pocahontas was born Matoaka, the favored daughter of Powhatan, the powerful chief of the Powhatan Confederacy of Tidewater Algonquian tribes. "Pocahontas" is a pet name meaning "frolicsome." In 1607, when she was about 12, she first saw the 104 Jamestown colonists struggling to survive on a low-lying peninsula (now an island) in the James River. Virginia's stifling summers and the swampy ground bred disease. With remarkable lack of foresight, the colony had far too few workers skilled in the basics of survival, and those not brought low by disease (more than half succumbed by the end of the first summer) lived in fear of random Indian arrows. Both English and Powhatans murdered each other in periodic skirmishes and reprisals. Far from being a peace-loving Indian leader, Powhatan hacked and tortured his way to power. He even hired Indian warrior mercenaries to butcher his rivals. In shooting Indians, the English proved no better. Twice a day by royal decree, they recited a prayer for the "plantation" that declared its aim to "display the banner of Jesus Christ, even here where Satan's throne is...." ---------------------------------------------------------- Pocahontas managed to visit the fort during sporadic peaceful moments. William Strachey, secretary of the colony, described the little girl as "wanton," because she cavorted with young colonists, cartwheeling naked "all the Fort over." ---------------------------------------------------------- One Englishman, Capt. John Smith, proved an exception to the general haplessness of the little colony. A man of action and a veteran of foreign wars, Smith saw Pocahontas as a possible bridge to the Indians, and perhaps a key to the survival of the colony. No one at Jamestown could forget that the 116 English colonists of Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony from the 1587 expedition had vanished without a trace. Smith learned Algonquian words and customs from Pocahontas, and her friendship brought tangible benefits to the English. This much of the standard story is true. ---------------------------------------------------------- And so is the part that tells how Smith wandered into a Powhatan ambush. The Indians killed his comrades, took him prisoner and led him before Powhatan, who treated him to a feast. Whether Powhatan intended it as the last meal of a condemned man or the celebration of an honored guest is still debated. Years after the rescue, Captain Smith — eccentrically writing about himself in the third person in his Generall Historie — recalled how Indian warriors brought out "two great stones . . . and thereon laid his head," preparing to smash it with their war clubs, when Pocahontas took it "in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death." ---------------------------------------------------------- Many historians doubt Smith's life was ever in peril. A popular theory, based on tenuous evidence, holds that Smith unwittingly participated in an adoption ceremony in which ritualized death brought symbolic rebirth as an Indian. "Clubbing," notes ethnohistorian Helen Rountree, "was a punishment for disobedient subjects, not a treatment for foreigners." Slow torture and execution by flaying, burning and dismemberment should have been the fate of an adversary of Smith's stature. In any case, Powhatan gave Smith the Indian town of Capahosic to rule, called him a son and returned him to Jamestown unharmed. ---------------------------------------------------------- For a while, there was a measure of peace. Powhatan supplied the colonists with food, often brought by Pocahontas. When relations worsened, she shuttled back and forth, trying to explain how each side felt. She saved the life of a young colonist who wandered into an Indian camp. Perhaps the boldest act of her life was warning Smith about her own father's impending act of treachery, probably saving his life and ensuring the survival of the colony. He later wrote Queen Anne that Pocahontas "was . . . the instrument to preserve this Colonie from death, famine and utter confusion." The colonists repaid her kindness by kidnapping her to get concessions from her father. By this time, Smith had returned to England. ---------------------------------------------------------- Pocahontas eased relations between Indians and colonists by marrying widower John Rolfe, the founder of English tobacco-growing in Virginia. An able student of English, she was baptized and took the Christian name of Rebecca. Eventually, the sponsors of the Jamestown Colony saw marketing possibilities in this regal, converted, English-speaking princess. Luring new colonists to Jamestown and finding investors for the venture was a hard sell. What better "poster girl" than Pocahontas? ---------------------------------------------------------- In the spring of 1616, Pocahontas, Rolfe, their infant son, Thomas, and a retinue of Indians sailed for England. Pocahontas was presented to King James I and the court. She became America's first celebrity. Poet and dramatist Ben Jonson met her, asked her several questions, then stared at her intently for 45 minutes without saying a word. She finally got up and walked away. ---------------------------------------------------------- But the damp English weather and the smoke from London's coal fires began to take a toll on her health. Several coughing spells forced her to bed. After seven months, though Pocahontas was very ill, Rolfe's family prepared to sail back to Virginia. Rolfe wanted to get back to raising tobacco. Pocahontas had helped the colony win more backing and royal favor for Virginia, but she paid a tragic personal price. While the anchored ship waited for a fair wind, she died of tuberculosis or pneumonia in Gravesend. She was about 22 years old. After the funeral, Rolfe, who was told their baby son wouldn't survive the journey, left Thomas with an uncle and sailed back to the colony, never to return. ---------------------------------------------------------- Sometime during Pocahontas' stay in England, Simon Van de Passe, the 21-year-old son of a famous Dutch engraver, did her portrait on a copper plate. Prints were sold to the curious, eager to feast their eyes on the exotic princess who had so bravely assisted the colonists. ---------------------------------------------------------- By John F. Ross ---------------------------------------------------------- [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
April 5th UTC full moon	1614 Pocahontas marries John Rolfe	Monday, April 05, 05:19:18am
I am in numerology the same as the world 4 quarters (NT)	I have returned Pohcahontas. March 3rd--Friday9	Thursday, March 02, 03:42:49pm
There were 4 periods of 12 hours between buy and sell	Mr 1--March 1st at 10.37am sell 6.70--to Mr 1 buy March 3rd 6.87 in pre open approx (few minutes short--pre open)	Thursday, March 02, 03:45:45pm