Pocahontas, VA

Pocahontas High School Indians

Dedicated to the classmates, friends and family of Pocahontas High School!

Pocahontas Legends Page

Pocahontas, VA was named after the Indian Princess, Pocahontas.  If you have some stories concerning her, let us know by clicking the link below;

Pocahontas, VA Updates

Here are some that we found!  You decide which to believe!

Matoaka was the beautiful and lively daughter of Powhatan, ruler of the land that the English named Virginia. "Pocahontas" was her childhood nickname, translated as "little wanton," meaning she was playful and hard to control. Pocahontas is most famous for saving the life of Captain John Smith. This story has been retold many times in many ways. Disney's Pocahontas was their first attempt to rewrite a historic event, instead of a fairy tale. As usual, the Disney version resembled the original just enough to confuse everyone. Here is the original story, told by Captain John Smith himself.

“...Two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beat out his brains, Pocahontas the King's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper...”

“Two days after, Powhatan, having disguised himself in the most fearfulness manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods and there upon a mat by the fire to be left alone. Not long after, from behind a mat that divided the house, was made the most dolefulness noise he ever heard; then Powhatan more like a devil than a man, with some two hundred more as black as himself, came unto him and told him now they were friends...”

When Smith returned, there were only 38 colonists left (out of 104). Pocahontas kept the colonists from starving to death that first winter, by visiting regularly with plenty of food. Pocahontas paid regular visits to her friend Captain John Smith, but in October 1609, she was told that Smith was dead. She stopped visiting after that. The following winter was known as the Starving Time. Actually, Smith wasn't dead; his leg was badly burned in a gunpowder explosion, and he had returned to England for medical treatment. The colonists thought the death story would work better with the Indians.

Several years passed, with no sign of Pocahontas. Ralph Hamor heard that she had married one of Powhatan's chiefs, named Kocoum. Captain Argyle discovered that Pocahontas was staying with the Patowamekes, and captured her on June 4, 1613, intending to trade her for concessions from Powhatan. Powhatan only met enough of the demands to keep negotiations open. During her captivity, leading colonists worked to convert her to Christianity. One of those colonists, John Rolfe, fell in love with her, and she with him. Pocahontas was baptized as a Christian, and married John Rolfe in 1614. Her new name was Lady Rebecca Rolfe. She gave birth to a son, Thomas. This marriage created the "Peace of Pocahontas", six years of peace between the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan's tribes.

Pocahontas was the favorite daughter of Powhatan, who ruled the Powhatan Confederacy. She was born about 1595, probably at Werowocomoco 16 miles from Jamestown. Captain John Smith believed she had saved his life twice during the colony's first years. In 1608-1609 she was a frequent and welcome visitor to Jamestown, often bringing gifts of food from her father.

From 1609 to 1613 she was part of Indian society and was not seen by the settlers. In April, 1613 she was captured by the English while she was living on the Potomac River and was brought to Jamestown as a hostage. She soon converted to Christianity and was baptized.

Her marriage to John Rolfe in April, 1614 helped to establish peaceful relations between the Indians and the English. In 1616 she visited England with her husband and infant son, Thomas, and was presented to the Royal Court. While returning to Virginia she died on March 21, 1617 and was buried in St. George's Church in Gravesend, England. Today many Americans claim descent from her through her son and granddaughter.

Pocahontas was born in 1595. She was the daughter of Powhatan, Chief of 30 Indian tribes in Virginia. Pocahontas was given the name of Matoaka, which means "Little Snow Feather." This was a name used only within the tribe because it was believed that if outsiders learned of the tribal name, harm would come to a person and to speak one's real name aloud was like opening a door to evil spirits. She was given the nickname of Pocahontas which has many different translations. It is loosely translated as "one who plays mostly," "playful one," "little wanton," and "playful, frolicsome little girl."

"In the year 1607, the first Englishmen came sailing across the ocean to settle in the part of the New World which they called Virginia after their virgin queen Elizabeth. They might have perished if it had not been for the help they got from the Indian Princess Pocahontas." (D'Aulaire, page 1, 1946.)

In December of 1607, Pocahontas was 12 years old. She saved the life of Captain John Smith who had been sentenced to death by her father. It is written that she held his head in her arms which, by laws of the tribe, meant that John Smith now belonged to Pocahontas. The two soon became good friends and after John Smith was released, Pocahontas visited the village of Jamestown often with baskets of food for her friends. Sometimes she took braves from the tribe so they could trade food and furs. Her father was not pleased with his daughter for her association with the white man.

In January of 1609, Pocahontas again saved John Smith's life and the lives of her friends in Jamestown when she warned them of her father’s plans to kill them.

A few years later, Pocahontas went to live in a neighboring village with a man named Japazaws and his wife. They sold her for a copper kettle and she was held as a political prisoner in Jamestown. She was treated very well while she was there and she even lived in the house of a minister. Pocahontas was taught Christianity. During this time she met and was instructed by a man named John Rolfe.

In April 1614, she was baptized an Anglican and given the name of Rebecca. In the same month, she was also married to John Rolfe. Many of her relatives and friends from the tribe attended the wedding, but her father did not come. He said that he would never set foot in a white man's settlement. The marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe began a period of peace among the Powhatan Indians and the people of Jamestown. This was an accomplishment that affected the rest of American history. This period of peace became known as the "Peace of Pocahontas"

A year later a son was born to Pocahontas and John Rolfe. They named him Thomas. Thomas was a year old when John decided to take his family to England. Several people from Pocahontas' tribe accompanied the Rolfe family. Pocahontas was received well and treated like royalty. She was invited to the palace of the Queen of England. They stayed there for a year and Pocahontas was happy. She did not want to leave. Many of her people that were there with her became very ill because they were not used to the climate and the diseases in England. Pocahontas also became ill and it was decided that they would all return to Virginia. They set sail in 1617 but Pocahontas was not well. The ship anchored in the town of Gravesend. Pocahontas was taken to an inn and a doctor was sent for, but it was too late and Pocahontas died. She never saw the land of her father again. She was buried in a cemetery in Gravesend, England. Pocahontas was 21 at the time of her death. Her death marked the end of the Peace of Pocahontas. The fighting and outbreaks began again. Her husband is said to have been killed in a battle in 1622. Their son Thomas lived in England until he was 20 years old. At that time he returned to his mother's homeland, became a militia officer and commanded a frontier fort in Western Henrico on the James River.

"Although her life was short, Pocahontas is remembered for contributing to the maintenance of peace between the colonists and the natives. She remains an important part of American folk history to this day." (Sahlman, page 2, 1996.) Pocahontas forever influenced the history of Henrico County, the Commonwealth of Virginia and America.

Today we will cover Pocahontas myth and the real person as best as I can tell from reading documentation and what I remember from the True Story of Pocahontas as presented on public television. She was born about 1594 as MATOAKA, in the village of Werowocomoco, located on the north shore of the Pamunkey River (now called the York River) Some eleven miles downstream from the present city of West Point, VA.*(see note below) Her father was; Chief Powhatan who became Chief of the 32 tribe Powhatan's in 1570. The Powhatan Confederacy were a well organized, thriving agricultural and fishing nation with a total population in the neighborhood of about 9,000 at the time Matoaka was born.

Prior to the English landing on May 20th, 1607 and the establishment of Jamestown. Powhatan’s people knew of the Spanish Jesuit (1570-1571) murdered Pamunkey River mission and they heard of the ill-fated (1580) settlement made by the English on the Carolina banks and they had entertained a ship that entered the Pamunkey River about two years prioR to Captain Christopher Newport’s flotilla. The earlier ship, that had been received in kindness, slew the Chief of the Powhatan's’ Rappahannocks tribe and took some of his people as hostages or slaves. So, there is no wonder that Powhatan opposed the making of any settlement on his lands.

Some 200 of Powhatan’s people attack Jamestown, killing one boy and wounding seventeen men.

Then after Capt. Newport and two of the three ships left for England. The Great Powhatan sent word of peace and a deer as an offering of good faith to President Edward Maria Wingfield. It may have been after this time that Matoaka visited the settlement and was known as Pocahontas. Being derived from the Algonkin adjective meaning "playful one, sportive, frolicsome, mischievous, frisky" so is appears that was Matoaka’s nickname. It is interesting how the English described her in 1610; of a colour brown, or rather tawny and her age was somewhere between twelve and fourteen. Round faced, with the fore part of her gross and thick black hair shaven close, and the very long thicker part being tied in a pleat hanging down to her hips. It was also report that she liked to do cartwheels while playing with the children, who may have made her appeared virtually naked to the prudent colonist.

The settlers were advised not to let the Indians see or know of your sick and do not advertise the killing of any of our men. But, of the 100 men and four boys left in Jamestown when the two ships set sail back to England. Only forty were alive by December, the remainder, using the James River for their drinking water as well as for their sewer, were destroyed with cruel diseases as; Swellings (salt water poisoning) , Flixes (dysentery), Burning Fever (typhoid) and by warres. Some departed suddenly, but most of them died of mere famine. Pocahontas and her friends were credited with saving the survivors from starvation.

The myth of Capt. John Smith will be explained latter. But in the meantime, in September of 1609 as he was returning from a trip to the falls of the James River in an effort to expand the colony beyond Jamestown. He was injured while sleeping, when a powder-bag exploded and tore flesh from his body and thighs, nine or ten inches square and to quench the tormenting fire, he leaped over board into the river near what is now the city of Richmond.

Powhatan wanted to be a greater distance from the colonists, and towards the end of January of 1609. He moved his residence near Orapaks which was located on the upper reaches of the Chicahominy River, some fifty miles away from Jamestown.

In the spring of 1612? Capt. Samuel Argall, who was trading for corn along the river, learned that Pocahontas was nearby. Somehow he talked the natives he was trading with to invite her to dinner with him aboard his ship. Argall then took Pocahontas to Jamestown and held her as a hostage, at first to ransom the eight English men, plus many swords, and other tools her father had captured. Relations between Powhatan and the Virginians had become strained and Argall also hoped to use Pocahontas as a shield to prevent her father from burning Jamestown down and to negotiate a peace. (This date is in? due to the fact that according to the True Story, she was held as a hostage for three years by the English)

She met John Rolfe who fell in love, and asked permission to marry her. Governor Thomas Daile readily agreed as he felt it would benefit Jamestown and the colony. Her father was also pleased with the proposal and news of his daughter’s wedding. Powhatan sent her uncle; Opachisco to give her away as his deputy in the church and to see the marriage blessed. Two of Matoaka’s brothers also attended the wedding. .John Rolfe was the first gentlemen to plant tobacco in Virginia and was well respected among the colonist. Pocahontas Christian name was; Rebbeca and she were married to John Rolfe in the Anglican Church in Jamestown on 5 April 1614. Powhatan also gave the newlyweds property that included a small brick house. Today, Fort Smith is in Surry County, just across the James River and was used as a home or cottage by Pocahontas and John Rolfe when they were first married. Capt. Smith had built the small fort and used it as a military outpost in the expansion of the colony.

Pocahontas, now Rebbeca Rolfe gave birth to a son; Thomas Rolfe in 1615. Young Thomas was cared for my Pocahontas, half sister MATACHANNA and her husband TOMOCOMO. Then early in 1616, Governor Daile along with John Rolfe and his family departed for England. Matachanna and her husband Tomocomo (who was Powhatan’s priest-counselor), along with several other young Powhatan men and women went along.

Upon their arrival in England, Pocahontas and her husband were well received by the Royal court and had an audience with the King and Queen who considered her as a princess partly due to the diligent care of Gentlemen John Rolfe spelled Rolfe in England (also spelled Rolph to-day). Pocahontas deserves her due credit, as she was well liked and in every manner a lady of the Royal Court from Virginia. She did meet Capt. John Smith in England and here is where the myth comes in along with the glorified story of the Walt Disney version of the Pocahontas Love story.

The myth, Capt. John Smith wrote his memoirs after he went back to England and before Pocahontas was a smash with the Royal Court and the King and Queen. No where- in the original script is there any mention of Pocahontas saving his life by lying across his body or that he was about to be killed. Now after he meets Pocahontas again and discovering she is highly thought of, by the Royalty of England and only after she died, did he rewrite his story to include Pocahontas saving his life...I’ll let you the members be the judge of that one as, . Capt. John Smith popularity was in decline until he re-associated himself with Pocahontas. They were friends in Virginia, and she did befriend the colonist, but the story that history has accept as truth is highly questionable. Sad my friends, but a lot of our early history has been twisted to benefit the intruders of your homeland, another example of this is the story we all were taught about Thanksgiving. Native Americans give thanks for everyday and especially at harvest time, Virginia claims the first Thanksgiving was actually at; Berkeley Plantation in 1619 which is the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison and ancestral home of two U.S. Presidents. Please pardon this intrusion to the Pocahontas story, but it validates another possible error in our history books and her own people were surely associated with this great event.

Pocahontas (Rebbeca) fell gravely ill aboard ship in preparation for the return trip back home to Virginia and died on 21 March 1616. Her funeral was at Saint Georges Parish Church, in Gravesend, England. Services were given by the Rev. Nicholas Frankwell, attending the funeral were; her husband, Capt. Argall the Dept. Governor of Virginia, and Rolfe Hamor. Her grave reads as entered into the church record.

"1616 March 21, Rebecca Rolfe, Wyffe of Thomas John Rolfe Gentleman, a Virginia Lady borne was buried in ye chancel. Entered by Rev. Nicholas Frankwell."