Spectrum Biographies: Pocahontas

Pocahontas was most likely born in Werawocomoco (what is now Wicomico, Gloucester County, Virginia) on the north side of the Pamaunkee (York) River, around the year 1595. Her true name was Matoaka, but that name was only used within her tribe. Native Americans believed harm would come to a person if outsiders learned of their tribal name. Pocahontas was one of many daughters of a powerful chief named Powhatan, who ruled more than 25 tribes.

Pocahontas first became acquainted with the English colonists who settled in the Chesapeake Bay area in 1607. Along with her tribe, Pocahontas watched the colonists build a fort and search for food. The next year, Powhatan's brother Opechancanough captured colonist John Smith. Smith was brought to Powhatan, who decided he must die. According to an account written later by Smith, Pocahontas saved Smith's life by throwing herself down and cradling his head before he was clubbed to death.

After promising to supply Powhatan with several guns, Smith was allowed to return to Jamestown. He did not deliver the guns, but sent many other presents instead. Over the next year, Pocahontas and other tribal women visited the fort and brought food to the settlers. However, in 1609, Smith was forced to return to England after being badly burned in a gunpowder accident. After his departure, relations deteriorated between the natives and settlers.

Several years later, the colonists took hostage Pocahontas. She was treated kindly during her captivity and lived in the home of a minister. During this time, Pocahontas converted to Christianity and was baptized with the name Rebecca. While being held in Jamestown, Pocahontas met a distinguished colonist named John Rolfe. The two fell in love and planned to marry. Virginia governor Sir Thomas Dale, as well as Chief Powhatan blessed the marriage. Although the chief did not attend the wedding, he sent others in his place and a pearl necklace for his daughter.

In 1615, Rolfe and Pocahontas had their first and only child, Thomas. The following year, the family was invited to England, where Pocahontas became the center of attention of English society. Banquets and dances were given in her honor, and her portrait was painted by famous artists. Pocahontas was received with royal honor by the king and queen. While in England, Pocahontas was also reunited with her friend John Smith, whom she had believed dead.

Before returning to Virginia, Pocahontas contracted small pox. She died in England in March 1617, at the age of 21. Pocahontas was buried in the chapel of the parish church in Gravesend, England. Rolfe returned to Virginia, where he developed a popular sweet variety of high-grade tobacco. Its export provided a way for the colonists to support themselves. Their son, Thomas, remained in England, where he was educated. He returned to the colonies at the age of 20 and became an important member of the community.

Although her life was short, is remembered for contributing to the maintenance of peace between the colonists and the natives. She remains an important part of American folk history to this day.  

Wolstenholme Towne

Martin's Hundred (hundred defined a subdivision of an English county) fronted on 10 miles of the north shore of a bend in the James River, about 9 miles below Jamestown. The administrative center was Wolstenholme Towne, a fortified settlement of about 40 souls sheltering in rough cabins of wattle and daub woven on wooden posts thrust into the clay subsoil.

Like all of the land the English claimed along the river, the plantation's 21,500 acres had been part of the domain of the Powhatan Indians, an association of Tidewater tribes formed at the end of the 16th century by the Indian chief Powhatan. For seven years after the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607, the English and the Indians often fought for control of the Tidewater lands and resources.

By the time the Gift of God arrived in Virginia, however, Powhatan had died, the confederation was headed by his brother Opechancanough (pronounced O-pa-CHAN-ca-no), and the two peoples had been at peace since April 1614, when Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas had married an Englishman.

Although they were spared death in combat with the Powhatans, many of the settlers died. Mortality rates some years climbed so high the company worried its trading colony would get the name of a slaughterhouse. Of the 280 people shipped to Martin's Hundred by the winter of 1621-1622, about 140 remained alive, scattered about the plantation.

Still, fresh settlers came, and on March 22, 1622, the Powhatans rose to kill as many English as they could surprise in their homes and fields. From near modern Richmond to Newport News, the Powhatans burned and looted dwellings and desecrated corpses. Death counts vary, but about 400 English died. Martin's Hundred, the plantation hardest hit, lost more than 50, perhaps as many as 70. Wolstenholme Towne's death toll was not separated in the death rolls.

Called at the time--and for centuries afterward--the Massacre of 1622, the attack is viewed by some modern historians as more of an uprising or even a revolt. By any name, it nearly accomplished its purpose. The English withdrew from their scattered settlements to the safety of Jamestown.

Wolstenholme Towne was resettled a year or more later but abandoned sometime after 1645. It may be that no trace of the town was apparent by the time planter Robert "King" Carter bought the land about 1709. What remained of Wolstenholme Towne and its dead lay forgotten beneath the plantation's fields and woodlands until 1976.

Jamestown

As a woman travails as she brings forth life into the world, so was the birth of the British colony of Jamestown. Its dawn was a time of misery and despair and the many horror stories of the initial years in Jamestown seem to depict the destruction of a colony rather than its birth. In the first year alone, nearly ninety percent of its initial inhabitants perished due to starvation, disease, and the bitter winter cold.

In the spring of 1607, the Virginia Company of London established this colony along the James River (formally Powhatan River), near the coast of the Atlantic. As amazing as it may seem, it started with only 500 souls. By the spring of 1608, only 60 remained alive1. Its inhabitants even resorted to cannibalism as a means of survival. Little, apparently, was learned from the Roanoke experience as they demonstrated they were ill prepared to survive in the wilderness of America. There were no trading posts or general stores; only in nature could they find hope of survival.

Just as the settlers before them, they became dependent on the Indians for their very survival. Initially, the Indians obliged them, but the men and women of Jamestown became a burden the Indians could not bare.

Virginia was a sparsely populated territory in 1607. One man, Powhatan, ruled over the small tribes that were about the area. The British came in peace, but peace would soon evade them. Three days after they began building their settlement, two hundred of Powhatan's warriors attacked the colony. For the next decade, there would be attacks and counter attacks. The attempts to live in peace were futile. As the numbers of the settlers grew, so did their hunger for the land Indians believed belonged to Mother Earth.

When Dutch merchants brought the first Black servants to the colony in 1919, the colony was again ill prepared to receive them. There were few provisions for those who were currently there, and hundreds were dying from European born diseases that were beginning to also take a toll on the Indian population. Little is known of the 20 Blacks who first came. At the time, most of the servants provided services for seven years before being given provisions and land to work for themselves. Although most of the servants were treated very poorly, they were at least treated as fellow human beings instead of mere property. The concept of chattel (property) slavery had not yet become the rule of the land.

The demand for African labor was not yet desirable in Jamestown. Labor demands did increase during the 1620's when the colonies began to export tobacco to Europe. By the end of the decade, the boom had gone bust and few profits could be gained by selling tobacco.

During the booming 20's, the British leaders actually built an Indian college and attempted to create a homogenous society with the Indians. Unfortunately, most of the White settlers did not share the vision of men like governor Yeardley and George Thorpe, a former Member of Parliament. Little respect was given to the Indians and after March 22, 1622, things would never again be the same. Powhatan's successor and brother Opechancanough led his forces on an attack of the Jamestown colony. On this day, 347 men, women, and children were massacred2.

The massacre released all restraints the British had formally imposed on themselves. Some said that it was now time to use the example of the Spaniards and Portuguese, but most simply wanted the Indians exterminated. The English began to make treaties with the Indians for the sole purpose of lowering the Indian's guard. Once they felt safe and believe there was peace, the English would attack them3.

They should have been more concerned with the diseases they brought with them instead of the Indians. Yes, some 347 were killed by the Indians, but over 3,000 of a total of 4,270 died due to disease and starvation.

The first permanent British settlement in North America was founded in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Twelve years later, twenty Africans arrived on the Atlantic shores to work as indentured servants. Their tenure ranged from four to seven years before receiving their freedom. The concept of permanent enslavement in the British colonies would not come until forty-one years later when the Virginia colony enacted laws of permanent forced servitude. The other colonies soon followed their lead, as Blacks became the property of their White owners to be used, abused, and sold at the master's whim.

White indentured servants and Indian slaves were initially used for labor in the British colonies. Many, however, fell to diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. Most of the Black slaves were immune to these diseases due to a trait now known as Sickle cell anemia. The demand for Black slaves, therefore, increased dramatically due to their longevity and agricultural skills acquired in their own lands.

The discovery of America created enormous growth in the economies of the world. The Atlantic trade route known as the Triangular trade route between Africa, the West Indies, and America brought about prosperity the world had never known. The toll on the African continent, however, was devastating to most of its peoples. For seven hundred years, Muslim Arabs had previously ravaged the continent capturing slaves throughout Northeastern Africa. Now, White Europeans from Portugal, Spain, Britain, Holland, and other Western European nations would ravage the rest of Africa.

The total number of slaves brought to the West was approximately 11 million. Millions more were either killed in the quest for their capture, or taken to Europe or the Middle East to be sold into slavery. The mortality rate during the sea travel alone was more than 20% throughout the history of the slave trade to the Americas.

The logs from one ship indicated that nearly half of its cargo of slaves had died as the result of dysentery. Slaves who were found to be sick were often thrown over board to avoid widespread contamination. This torturous adventure of two to three months on the high seas has been coined the Middle Passage -- The second leg of the Triangular route from Africa to the West Indies.

During a period that spanned some 240 years (1619-1859), African slaves were ferried across the Atlantic to an unsettling future of forced servitude in North America.

Jamestown Timeline

c. 800 A.D.: Native-American introduction of domesticated plants in Virginia area

c. 1200: Permanent Native-American villages established in Virginia area

1606+: America and advertising begin to grow together. One of the first products heavily marketed is America itself. Richard Hofstadter called the Virginia Company's recruitment effort for its new colony, "one of the first concerted and sustained advertising campaigns in the history of the modern world." The out-of-place, out-of-work "gentlemen" in an overpopulated England were sold quite a bill of goods about the bountiful land and riches to be had in the New World. Daniel J. Boorstin has mused whether "there was a kind of natural selection here of those people who were willing to believe in advertising."

1606: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh imprisoned in the Tower

Dec 1606: ENGLAND: Admiral Christopher Newport takes the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery out of London, bound for Virginia with 140 Colonists. During the voyage, Newport places John Smith under arrest for mutiny. Smith is scheduled to be hanged.

13 May 1607: FIRST permanent English settlement in the New World begins.  105 men and boys land at Jamestown. Secret orders opened upon landing name Smith as one of the Councilors.

26 May 1607: Paspahegh Indians attack settlers, killing two, wounding ten.

15 Jun 1607: The triangular James Fort completed

 22 Jun 1607: Chistopher Newport sets sail back for London, loaded with "treasure"--fool's gold and dirt.

Aug 1607: Disease is rampant. The sixth of August there died John Asbie of the Bloudie Fluxe. The ninth day died George Flowre of the swelling. The tenth day died William Bruster Gentleman, of a would given by the Savages.--George Percy

10 Sept 1607: Councilor George Kendall is accused of sowing discord and placed under arrest on the Discovery.

12 Sept 1607: President Edward M. Wingfield found guilty of libel; deposed as first president of colony. John Ratcliffe takes his place.

Sept 1607: Kendall convicted of conspiracy and is shot. At the trial, Kendall claimed President Ratcliffe's real name was John Sicklemore.

10 Dec 1607: Smith Captured By Indians.  Smith leads food-gathering expedition up the Chickahominy. Under attack, his men killed by Indians, he ties his Indian guide to his arm as a shield. Becomes stuck in an icy swamp, is captured. Shows Powhatan's half-brother Opechancanough the wonders of his compass, which apparently saves his life.

29 Dec 1607: Smith Saved By Pocahontas.  John Smith is brought before Chief Powhatan, where the Pocahontas incident is said to have taken place. The possible ritual grants him Chief Powhatan's acceptance.

02 Jan 1608: A Momentous Day.  Smith returns from Powhatan's camp accompanied by 2 Indians to take back 2 guns Smith had promised Powhatan. Smith offers the 2-ton demiculverins, immovable by the Indians, and in demonstration loads the cannon with rocks and blasts an icicle-filed tree--much to the Indians' shock.

As evidenced by the tree episode, it is bitter cold, and the situation at the fort is desperate. Only 38 of the original 105 colonists remain. Some are about to leave for home on the tiny Discovery, but Smith aims one of the fort's cannons at the ship and threatens to blow it out of the water.

Smith is accused of causing the deaths of his men; is deposed from his position, tried, and condemned to hang. Some accounts hold the noose is about his neck when

The First Supply arrives--Captain Newport on the John and Francis, carrying fresh supplies, along with 60 new settlers. He puts a stop to Smith's execution.

07 Jan 1608: FIRE.  Hope turns to desperation. Almost the whole town of thatch/wattle houses goes up in flames; everyone's clothes are burned, leaving colonists little protection during one of the century's most frigid winters.

Jan 1608: Pocahontas proves invaluable, periodically visiting the fort with her friends and bringing food.

Feb 1608: FIRST OFFICIAL MEETING BETWEEN ENGLISH AND POWHATAN.  Smith brings his "father" (Christopher Newport) up the York to meet Powhatan. Newport almost botches the trading session by acceding unqualifiedly to Powhatan's proposal of a "deal"; Smith salvages the situation by trading "rare" blue beads for substantial provisions. "Sons" are traded--young Thomas Savage is sent to live with the Indians; Namontack is sent to live with the English. These and others similarly traded will serve as interpreters and communications links between the two peoples.

May 1608: Pocahontas, as emissary for Powhatan, negotiates with Smith for the release of 7 Indians captured during a Powhatan campaign to seize English swords by any means possible. Smith releases the captives to her, and there follows one of early Jamestown's few periods of peace with the Indians.

Pocahontas visits regularly, bringing provisions and messages from Powhatan, and, with other maids, turning cartwheels naked through the streets of Jamestown. By August, however, beginning to reach an age when Powhatan girls are "shamefaced to be seen bare," begins wearing a small apron-skirt of fringed buckskin.

08 Sept 1608: Smith is elected president of the Jamestown council.

Sept 1608: Christopher Newport arrives with the Second Supply, the Mary and Margaret. On board--besides an Elizabethan bed as a present for Powhatan and a 5-piece supposedly-portable barge with which to explore past the Richmond falls--are two women--"Mistresse Forest and Anne Buras her maide." Forest came over with her husband; Buras was unmarried. In the annals of Jamestown, we hear no more about Mrs. Forest...

Nov 1608: Jamestown's first wedding of English--Anne Buras marries John Laydon, a carpenter. She had 4 daughters, and was one of the very few still alive as late as 1625.

24 Jul 1609: ATLANTIC OCEAN: A fleet of 9 ships led by the Sea Venture--carrying all the leaders--strikes the edge of a massive hurricane in the West Indies...

28 Jul 1609: BERMUDA: Tossed for four days, the Sea Venture finally becomes wedged on a reef off Bermuda. Safe are all 150 on board, and the supplies. The colonists begin building two boats from the wreckage.

Sept 1609: John Smith, injured in gunpowder accident; is sent back to London

Sept 1609: Now-President Ratcliffe sails up the Pamunkey to bargain with Chief Powhatan for food; he fails to keep his guard up, and is tortured to death by the Indian women.

Sept 1609 to May 1610: The "Starving Time"

 1610: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh notes to King James, "I long since presumed to offer your Majestie my service in Virginia, with a short repetitio of the commoditie, honor, and safetye which the King's Majestie might reape by that Planattion, if it were followed to effect."

23 May 1610: BERMUDA: The Deliverance and the Patience, the boats built in Bermuda out of the wreckage of the Sea Venture, arrive to find Jamestown in ruins. They are met by 60 gaunt survivors out of the previous fall's 500-600.

25 May 1610: Lieutenant Governor Sir Thomas Gates implements martial law. The code is set down in Gates' "Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiail" (1612), which will remain in effect until 1619.

07 Jun 1610: Jamestown is abandoned

08 Jun 1610: Lord de La Warr's ships arrive; he orders the colonists to return to Jamestown

1611: Puritan Rev. Alexander Whitaker arrives at Jamestown to establish the 1st Presbyterian congregation in Virginia. He will instruct Pocahontas in Christianity, and convert her in 1613.

1613: ENGLAND: Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest is written. It is popularly thought to be based on William Strachey's account of the Sea Venture's shipwreck on Bermuda. However, see The Tempest and the Bermuda Shipwreck of 1609

13 Apr 1613: Pocahontas is brought to Jamestown as a hostage by Capt. Argall.

28 Jun 1614: John Rolfe ships his first cargo of Virginia tobacco to England..

1614: ENGLAND: FIRST sale of Virginia tobacco

 24 Apr 1614 (?): John Rolfe and Pocahontas (Rebecca) are married

03 Jun 1616: ENGLAND: John Rolfe and Pocahontas arrive in London

1616: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh is paroled. Makes another expedition to the Orinoco

17 Mar 1617: ENGLAND: Pocahontas dies in Gravesend

1618-23: "THE GREAT MIGRATION:" Jamestown grows from 400 to 4,500.

1618: Sir Walter Raleigh, with four ships limping home from a disastrous Orinoco expedition, passes the North Carolina and Virginia coast, but does not stop..

Apr 1618: Chief Powhatan dies..

29 Oct 1618: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh executed for treason. He smokes a pipe of tobacco just before. When he lays his head on the block, he is facing West, toward the New World. Someone suggests he turn his head to the East, toward Calvary. Raleigh replies, "What matter how the head lie, so the heart be right."

1619: 90 "Young maids to make wives for so many of the former Tenants" arrive. The Virginia Company dictates they are to be priced at not less than "one hundredth and fifty [pounds] of the best leaf Tobacco."

03 Jul 1619: FIRST representative legislative assembly is held.

The General Assembly meets in the choir of the Jamestown church from July 30-August 4. First law: tobacco shall not be sold for under 3 shillings per pound.

1619-08: FIRST 20 blacks are purchased as indentured servants from a passing Dutch ship.  John Rolfe writes in his diary, About the last of August came in a Dutch man of Warre that sold to the US twenty negros.

1620: 1st Public Library established at Heunco, VA.

1621: 1st windmill in America built in VA.

1622-03: "Jack of the Feathers" killed. Thought to be the final straw leading to the Indian Massacre.

1622: The Indian Massacre of 1622.  350 killed by surprise uprisings at plantations in Opechancanough's attempt at ethnic cleansing; Jamestown itself spared by warning from Indian boy, Chanco. Colony goes from 1,400 to 1050.

20 Dec 1622: The Abigail arrives, not only bringing no food to replenish the losses from the massacre, but infecting the colony with a shipload of diseased survivors poisoned by one Jeffrey Dupper's contaminated, "stinking beere." The resulting plague and starvation reduce the colony to 500, as survivors desperately await the Abigail's companion-ship, Seaflower. It will never arrive. . .

18 Mar 1623: BERMUDA: During a celebration of the Seaflower's safe arrival in Bermuda, the Captain's son went down to the gun room, and through "drinckeinge Tobaco by neclygense of ther fyer Blue uppe the Shyppe."

Apr 1623: Henry Spelman and over 20 others are killed in a botched trading expedition; Indians capture men, armor and guns.

May 1623: Tucker & Potts Poison a Village.  Captain William Tucker concludes peace negotiations with a Powhatan village by proposing a toast. The drink has been laced with poison by Dr. John Potts.

... 200 Powhatans die instantly. 50 more are slaughtered ...

1624-05: The Virginia Company loses its charter; Virginia becomes a royal province..

 1624: >1,033 Early Virginia Pioneers Indexed by last name, first name from 1624 records

1631: ENGLAND: John Smith dies at the age of 51.

1631: ENGLAND: George Percy dies.

1638: First slave markets in English America are being run.

11 Jan 1639: King Charles I grants colonists the right to call their General Assembly. Charles' ruling sets precedent of semi-self-rule for all British colonies.

1639-44: Jamestown's brick church is built

 Feb 1642: Sir William Berkeley begins his Governorship. Puritans are persecuted for next 6 years.

18 Apr 1644: Powhatan's reputed half-brother, Opechancanough, orders a second Massacre throughout Virginia/Maryland region. Over 500 English killed..

1644-10: The captive Opechancanough is shot in the back by a resident in Jamestown..

1651: FIRST Indian Reservation created near Richmond, VA for the remnants of Pocahontas' people.

1652: Parliamentary fleet lies off Jamestown; Berkeley surrenders Virginia. Colony government dominated by Burgesses until 1660.

03 Mar 1660: Virginia Assembly elects Berkeley to Governorship.

1661: Virginia Assembly begins institutionalizing slavery, making it de jure.

1662: Jamestown loses its status as the mandatory port of entry for Virginia.

1665: Tobacco overproduction has led to a price of a penny per pound.

19 Sept 1676: Bacon's Rebellion. In retaliation for an attack by Berkeley, Bacon burns down Jamestown..

1698-10-21: Jamestown's fourth statehouse burns down.

1699: Capitol of Virginia moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg. As a city, Jamestown dies.

1807: As Jamestown Island has been given over to two large plantations, the Ambler and the Travis, that year's bicentennial's focus is the mansion of the Travis plantation.

1895: Association for the Preservation of Virginia's Antiquities (APVA) formed.

1899: Only two ruins--the brick church and Ambler House--are left to indicate history of Jamestown Island..

1899: 22 1/2 acres on Jamestown Island given to APVA by Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Barney.

1907: Tercentennial Celebration of Jamestown held.

1924: The Pocahontas Exception: Virginia passes "An Act to Preserve Racial Integrity," outlawing miscegenation and denying certain rights to anyone not 100 percent white. Realizing that this would include many influential families [In Virginia, Pocahontas is considered "The Mother of Us All," her progeny through Thomas Rolfe including many aristocratic Virginia families, most notably the Bollings and Randolphs], legislators then declared that citizens with one sixteenth Indian blood were henceforth classified white . . . If the Indian maiden who saved the Virginia colony in the 17th century had lived in the 20th century, she would have been sent to prison for marrying John Rolfe.--

1957: Jamestown Exposition celebrates the 350th anniversary

 1992: BERMUDA: The Sea Venture's contents are recovered off Bermuda and fully documented.

 2007: Celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the establishment of our nation to be held at Jamestown.