A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Pocahontas
POCAHONTAS,
The daughter of Powhatan, a celebrated Indian chief of Virginia, was born about the year 1594. According to a custom common among the Indians, of bestowing upon their children several symbolic names, she was sometimes called Matoaka. When the well-known and adventurous Captain John Smith went to America for the purpose of promoting its settlement by the English, while exploring the James river, he was taken prisoner by some of the warriors of the tribes under Powhatan, and brought before this powerful chief to be disposed of. The fame and exploits of Smith had reached Powhatan, and he was considered too dangerous an enemy to be permitted to live. A council was called, and his fate decided; he was condemned to be bound and placed upon the earth, with his head upon a stone, and his brains beaten out with clubs. Pocahontas, though but a child of twelve or thirteen years, was present at this council, and heard the sentence; but when it was about to be executed, yielding to the generous impulses of her nature, she flung herself upon the body of Smith, beneath her father's uplifted club, and protected his life at the risk of her own. Touched by this act of heroism, the savages released their prisoner, and he became an inmate of the wigwam of Powhatan, who soon after gave him his liberty.
About two years later, the Indians, alarmed at the extraordinary feats of Smith, and fearing his increasing influence, began to prepare for hostilities, and laid a plan for entrapping him. When on the ere of effecting their object, while Smith was on a visit to Powhatan for the purpose of procuring provisions, he was preserved from this fate by the watchful care of Pocahontas, who ventured through the woods more than nine miles., at midnight, to apprise him of his danger. For this service. Smith offered her some trinkets, which, to one of her age, sex, and nation, must have been strongly tempting; but she refused to accept anything, or to partake of any refreshment, and hurriedly retraced her steps, that she might not be missed by her father or his wives.
For three or four years after this, Pocahontas continued to assist the settlers in their distresses, and to shield them from the effects of her father's animosity. Although a great favourite with her father, he was so incensed against her for favouring the whites, that he sent her away to a chief of a neighbouring tribe, Jopazaws, chief of Potowmac, for safe keeping; or, as some suppose, to avert the anger of her own tribe, who might be tempted to revenge themselves upon her for her friendship to the English. Here she remained some time, when Captain Argall, who ascended the Potowmac on a trading expedition, tempted the chief by the offer of a large copper kettle, of which be had become enamoured, as the biggest trinket he had ever seen, to deliver her to him as a prisoner; Argall believing, that by having her in his possession as a hostage, he could bring Powhatan to terms of peace. But Powhatan refused to ransom his daughter upon the terms proposed; he offered five hundred bushels of corn for her, but it was not accepted.
Pocahontas was well treated while a prisoner, and Mr. Thomas Rolfe, a pious young man, and a brave officer, who had undertaken to instruct her in English, became attached to her, and offered her his hand. The offer was communicated to Powhatan, who gave his consent to the union, and she was married to Rolfe, after the form of the church of England, in presence of her uncle and two brothers. This event relieved the colony from the enmity of Powhatan, and preserved peace for many years between them.
In the year 1616, Pocahontas accompanied her husband to England, where she was presented at court, and became an object of curiosity and interest to all classes; her title of princess causing her to receive much attention. Though the period of her conversion is disputed, It is generally believed that she was baptized during this visit to England, when she received the name of Rebecca. In London, she was visited by Captain Smith, whom, for some unknown purpose, she had been taught to believe was dead. When she first beheld him, she was overcome with emotion; and turning from him hid her face in her hands. Many surmises have been hazarded upon the emotion exhibited by Pocahontas in this interview. The solution of the mystery, however, is obvious; the dusky maiden had no doubt learned to love the gallant soldier whom she had so deeply benefitted; and upon his abandonment of the country, both the colonists and her own people, aware of her feelings, and having some alliance in view for the furthering of their own interests, had imposed upon her the tale of his death. Admitting this to be the case, what could be more natural than her conduct, and what more touching than the picture which this interview presents to the imagination?
Captain Smith wrote a memorial to the queen in her behalf, setting forth the services which the Indian princess had rendered to himself and the colony, which secured her the friendship of the queen. Pocahontas survived but little more than a year after her arrival in England. She died in 1617, at Gravesend, when about to embark for her native land, at the age of twenty-two or three. She left one son, who was educated in England by his uncle, and afterwards returned to Virginia, where he became a wealthy and distinguished character, from whom has descended several well-know families of that state.
Pocahontas has been the heroine of fiction and of song; bat the simple truth of her story is more interesting than any ideal description. She is another proof to the many already recorded in this work, of the intuitive moral sense of woman, and the importance of her aid in carrying forward the progress of human improvement.
Pocahontas was the first heathen who became converted to Christianity by the English settlers; the religion of the Gospel seemed congenial to her nature; she was like a guardian angel to the white strangers who had come to the land of the red men; by her the races were united; thus proving the unity of the human family through the spiritual nature of the woman; ever, in its highest development, seeking the good and at "enmity" with the evil; the preserver, the inspirer, the exemplar of the noblest virtues of humanity.