Thursday, November 17, 2011

Pocahontas

Pocahontas (c. 1595 – March 1617), later known as Rebecca Rolfe, was an Indian chief's daughter notable for having assisted colonial settlers at Jamestown. She converted to Christianity and married the English settler John Rolfe. After they traveled to London, she became famous in England in the last year of her life. She was a daughter of Wahunsunacawh, better known as Chief or Emperor Powhatan.
For hundreds of years after her death, Pocahontas was considered in popular culture, and even today, by many academics, to be a princess.
Pocahontas is most famously linked to the English colonist Captain John Smith, who arrived in Virginia with just more than a hundred other settlers in April 1607. 

During her stay in Henricus, Pocahontas met John Rolfe. They were married on April 5, 1614, and lived for two years on Rolfe's plantation, Varina Farms, which was located across the James River from the new community of Henricus. They had a child, Thomas Rolfe.

 In March 1617, Rolfe and Pocahontas boarded a ship to return to Virginia; the ship had only gone as far as Gravesend on the River Thames when Pocahontas became gravely ill. She was taken ashore and died in John Rolfe's arms at the age of twenty-two. It is unknown what caused her death, but theories range from smallpox, pneumonia, or tuberculosis, to her having been poisoned.
After her death, increasingly fanciful and romanticized representations of Pocahontas were produced. The myths that arose around Pocahontas' story portrayed her as one who demonstrated the potential of Native Americans to be assimilated into European society. In another development, Pocahontas' story was romanticized. Some writers preferred accounts of a love story between her and John Smith.
Many movies have been made on the Legend of Pocahontas, including a Walt Disney movie.






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