American History

About Pocahontas...

   Born:1956 (exact date uncertain) 

   Died: March (exact date uncertain) 1617

  She was the daughter of Powhatan, an important chief of the Algonquian Indians (the Powhatans) who lived in the Virginia regio. She is most famous for reportedly saving the life of English Captain Johan Smith.

Pocahontas was a favorite of her father's -- his "delight and darling,” according to the colonist Captain Ralph Hamor -- but she was not a princess in the sense of inheriting a political station. Like most young females, she learned how to forage for food and firewood, farm and building thatched houses. As one of Powhatan’s many daughters, she would have contributed to the preparation of feasts and other celebrations. Like many Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians of the period, Pocahontas probably had several names, to be used in various contexts. Early in her life she was called Matoaka, but was later known as Amonute. The name Pocahontas was used in childhood, probably in a casual or family context.

Pocahontas was primarily linked to the English colonists through Captain John Smith, who arrived in Virginia with more than 100 other settlers in April 1607. The Englishmen had numerous encounters over the next several months with the Tsenacommacah Indians. While exploring on the Chickahominy River in December of that year, Smith was captured by a hunting party led by Powhatan's close relative Opechancanough, and brought to Powhatan's home at Werowocomoco.

The details of this episode are inconsistent within Smith’s writings. In his 1608 account, Smith described a large feast followed by a talk with Powhatan. In this account, he does not meet Pocahontas for the first time until a few months later. In 1616, however, Smith revised his story in a letter to Queen Anne, who was anticipating the arrival of Pocahontas with her husband, John Rolfe.

Smith’s 1616 account describes the dramatic act of selflessness which would become legendary: "... at the minute of my execution", he wrote, "she [Pocahontas] hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown." Smith further embellished this story in his Generall Historie, written years later.

Historians have long expressed doubts that the story of Pocahontas saving Smith occurred as told in these later accounts. Smith may have exaggerated or invented the account to enhance Pocahontas's standing. Another theory suggests that Smith may have misunderstood what had happened to him in Powhatan's longhouse.

Although Pocahontas was not a princess in the context of Powhatan culture, the Virginia Company nevertheless presented her as a princess to the English public. The inscription on a 1616 engraving of Pocahontas, made for the Virginian Company, read: "Matoaka, alias Rebecca, daughter of the most powerful prince of the Powhatan Empire of Virginia."

Very few records of the life of Pocahontas remain. The only contemporary portrait is Simon van de Passe's engraving of 1616, which emphasizes her Indian features. Later portraits often portray her as more European in appearance.

Bibliography
Biography Channel
Disponible en: http://www.biography.com/people/pocahontas-9443116