Volume 16 , Issue 44

Matoaka (Amonute, Pocahontas & Rebecca Rolfe)

Thinking back to my early schooling and the history we were taught it was nothing like the Powhatan Indian history of Poncahontas. We shall try to present the other side of that history here.

Pocahontas was born Matoaka, also known as Ammonite and later known as Rebecca Rolfe, about 1595, with her death in March 1617. Mattock was a Virginia Indian Known for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was also the daughter of Powhatan, a paramount Indian chief of a network of tributary tribal nations in the Tsenacommacah, surrounding the Tidewater region of Virginia.

The name Pocahontas was a childhood nickname that probably referred to her frolicsome nature; according to the colonist William Strachey, it meant "little wanton." The 18th-century historian William Stith claimed that her real name, it seems, was originally Matoax, which the Indians carefully concealed from the English and changed it to Pocahontas, out of a superstitious fear, lest they, by the knowledge of her true name, should be enabled to do her some hurt. According to the anthropologist Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas revealed her secret name to the English only after she had taken another religious, baptismal name, Rebecca.

Pocahontas's capture in the First Anglo-Powhatan war, a conflict between the Jamestown settlers and the Native Americans that began late in the summer of 1609. In the first years of war, the English took control of the James River, at its mouth and at the falls. Captain Samuel Argall, in the meantime, pursued contacts with Native American groups in the northern portion of Powhatan's paramount chiefdom. The Patawomecks lived on the Potomac River were not always loyal to Powhatan, and living with them was a young English interpreter named Henry Spelman. In March 1613, Argall learned that Pocahontas was visiting the Patawomeck village of Passapatanzy and living under the protection of the weroance lapses, also known as Japazaws.

Superman helped translate to Argall, who pressured lapses to assist in Pocahontas's capture by promising an alliance with the English against the Powhatns. They tricked Pocahontas into boarding Argall's ship and held her for ransom, demanding the release of English prisoners held by her father, along with various stolen weapons and tools. Powhatan returned the prisoners, but failed to satisfy the colonists with the number of weapons and tools he returned. There was a long standoff that ensued, during which the English kept Pocahontas captive.

During the year long wait, she was held at Henries, in modern day Chesterfield County, Virigina. Some suggest or asserted that Pocahontas was raped during this time, citing oral tradition survived and instead argued that any mistreatment of Pocahontas would have gone against the interests of the English in their negotiations with Powhatan. Others wrote that Pocahontas received extraordinary courteous usage.

According to Helen Rountree, "Other historians have disputed that such oral tradition survived and instead argue that any mistreatment of Pocahontas would have gone against the interests of the English in their negotiations with Powhatan."

It was during this time period the mister of Henricus, Alexander Whitaker, taught Pocahontas about Christianity and helped her to improve her English. That was also about the time of her (Pocahontas) baptism, that she took the christian name of Rebecca.

In March of 1614, the standoff built up to a violent confrontation between hundreds of English and Powhatan men on the Pamunkey River. At Powhatan's capital of Matchcot, the English encountered a group of some senior Native American leaders, but not Powhatan (who was away). They say the English permitted Pocahontas to talk to her countrymen. She reportedly rebuked her father for valuing her less than old swords, pieces, or axes, and told the Powhatan she preferred to live with the English.

A current Mattaponi tradition holds that Pocahontas's first husband was Kocoum, brother of the Patawomeck weroance Japazaws, and that Kocoum was killed by the English after her capture in 1613. Today's Patawomecks believe that Pocahontas and Kocoum had a daughter, Ka-Okee, who was raised by the Patawomecks after her father's death and her mother's abduction.

Kocoum's actual identity, location and even existence have been widely debated among scholars for centuries with several historians arguing that the only mention of a Kocoum in any English document was taken from a brief statement written about 1616 by William Strachey in England that Pocahontas had been living married to a "private captain called Kocoum" for two years.

Since 1614 is certainly when she married John Rolfe, and no other records even hint at any previous husband, it has been suggested that when Strachey wrote of the "private captaine called Kocoum" he was mistakenly referring to Rolfe himself, with the reference being later misunderstood as one of Powhatan's officers.

However there was a Powhatan military rank called Kokoraws, sometimes translated captain, and debate has also raged whether Strachey could have meant this as one of his famously divergent spellings, as a gloss to Captayne. The date of Strachey's original statement has been widely disputed by numerous authors, that Pocahontas had been previously married. If there was such a marriage and Kocoum was not murdered, it likely ended, according to Poshatan custom, when Pocahontas was captured.

During Pocahontas' stay in Henricus, she met John Rolfe, who had an English born wife, Sarah Hacker, and child, Bermuda Rolfe who had died prior to his journey to Virginia. Rolfe was a pios man who agonized over the potential moral repercussions of marrying a heathen. Rolfe wrote a long letter to the governor requesting permission to wed Pocahontas, and he expressed both his love for her and his belief he would be saving her soul claiming he was: "motivated not by the unbridled desire of carnal affection, but for the good of this plantation, for the honor of our country, for the Glory of God, for my own salvation ... namely Pocahontas, to whom my hearty and best thoughts are, and have been a long time so entangled, and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth that I was even a-wearied to unwind myself thereout."

It was April 5, 1614, Pocahontas married the tobacco planter, John Rolfe, at Jamestown. But there is in fact no surviving record indicating where the ceremony took place. Possible sites include Henricus, Bermuda City, and Jamestown. Richard Buck presided. Rolfe and Pocahontas lived two years on Rolfe's plantation, Varina Farms, which was located across the James River from the new community of Henricus. Their son, Thomas Rolfe, was born January 30, 1615. Their marriage was not successful in winning the English captives back, but it did create a climate of peace between the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan's tribes for 8 years.

With the conversion of Pocahontas and her marriage to an Englishman -- all of which helped bring an end to the First Anglo-Powhatan War -- the company saw an opportunity to promote investment. The Virginia Company of London decided to bring Pocahontas to England as a symbol of the tamed New World savage and the success of the Jamestown settlement.

In 1616, the Rolfe family traveled to England, arriving at the port of Plymouth on June 12, 1616. Pocahontas was presented to English society as an example of the civilized savage in hopes of stimulating investment in the Jamestown settlement.

Pocahontas and Rolfe lived in the suburb of Brentford, Middlesex, for some time, as well as at Rolfe's family home at Heacham Hall, Heacham, Norfolk.

In March 1617, the Rolfles set sail for Virginia. The ship had only sailed 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 not known what caused her death, but theories range from smallpox, pneumonia, or tuberculosis, to her having been poisoned. According to Rolfe, she died saying, "All must die, but tis enough that her child liveth." Her funeral took place on March 21, 1617, in the parish of Saint George's, Gravesend.

Pocahontas has many living descendants. Descendants of many First Families of Virginia trace their roots to Pocahontas and Chief Powhatan, including such notable individuals as Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson; George Wythe Randolph; Admiral Richard Byrd; Virginia Governor Harry F. Byrd; fashion-designer and socialite Pauline de Rothschild; former First Lady Nancy Reagan; actor Glenn Strange; and astronomer and mathematician Percival Lowell. Her "blood" was introduced to the Randolph family of Virginia via the marriage of her great-great-granddaughter, Jane Bolling, to Richard Randolph.
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---