Pocahontas (n. d.) by Unknown

Renowned in American legend for saving the life of English colonial leader Captain John Smith, Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, chief of a large Algonquian confederacy based in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Powhatan’s loose alliance had frequent conflicts with the English colonists who founded Jamestown in 1607 on Native American land. Pocahontas often visited this settlement, becoming a liaison between her father’s people and the English. By Smith’s later account, the young Pocahontas, also known as Matoaka, spared Smith’s life in 1607. She threw herself over his body to prevent his execution at the hands of her father and his men.

In 1613, during a period of recurrent discord, English leaders captured Pocahontas and brought her against her will to Jamestown, so that she could be used as a bargaining pawn. Once there she was treated graciously by the acting governor. She eventually converted to Christianity, taking the name Rebecca. Her 1614 marriage to Englishman John Rolfe secured a temporary peace between the colonists and the Algonquians, which aided in the establishment of the Jamestown colony. Pocahontas accompanied her husband to England in 1616, where she was received at court as a princess. She died of smallpox seven months later while still in England. Her son Thomas later immigrated to Virginia.