Pocahontas

Pocahontas, daughter of an Indian chief, Powhatan, born about 1595, figures prominently in the American travels of Captain John Smith (q.v.) in connection with the part she played in the history of the early English colonists in Virginia. The expedition under Captain Bartholomew Gosnold and others had landed in Chesapeake Bay in 1607. The James River was explored, and a settlement formed, but a great drawback was the lack of food-supplies. In one of the expeditions for food, and to explore the Chickahominy, Smith was taken prisoner, brought before the chief Powhatan, and his head laid on a stone preparatory to having his brains beaten out with clubs. At this juncture Pocahontas, then a young girl, 'when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death.' She again saved Smith's life in 1609 by informing him of a plot by her father against him. She was brought a prisoner to Jamestown by Captain Argall in 1613. She married an Englishman, John Rolfe, in 1614, is said to have embraced Christianity, and came to England with her husband in 1616. During her residence of seven months in England Smith petitioned Queen Anne on her behalf. Having embarked with her husband for Virginia, she died off Gravesend in March 1617. She left one son, and a branch of the Randolphs and several other Virginia families claim descent from her (Robertson and Brock, Pocahontas and her Descendants, Richm. 1887). Charles Deane, in his notes to his reprint of Smith's True Relation (1866), first started doubts as to Smith's veracity in connection with the Pocahontas incident, and this scepticism has been shared by other writers. But Professor Edward Arber in his reprint of Smith's works (1884) holds implicitly to the truth of the story, which, after a most rigorous test, he declares is a solid historical fact.