Pocahontas

Matoaka, also known as Pocahontas, grew up in coastal Virginia among a confederacy of Algonquian-speaking Powhatan people overseen by her father. After John Smith and other representatives of the Virginia Company of London established a settlement at Jamestown, she promoted their peaceful relations with her people. Yet in 1613, an English sea captain kidnapped and ransomed her for corn, guns, and prisoners. While in captivity, Pocahontas was converted to Christianity, took the name Rebecca, and married the tobacco farmer John Rolfe. Their son, Thomas, was born in 1615.
Eager to publicize Pocahontas’s apparent assimilation as a means of attracting investors, the Virginia Company transported her to England, where she arrived in June 1616. This painting, based on an engraving from that time, depicts Pocahontas as an affluent Englishwoman. Inscriptions proclaim her elite lineage, Christian religion, and marital status (confusing her son’s name with her husband’s). Pocahontas took ill and died nine months after arriv-ing in England. Over the next four hundred years, her brief life inspired tributes and legends, including a fictitious romance with John Smith.