Posted on 11/03/2013 3:30:17 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Historian Tony Horwitz tries to separate the truth from the myths that have been built up about the Jamestown “princess”
Pocahontas is the most myth-encrusted figure in early America, a romantic “princess” who saves John Smith and the struggling Jamestown colony. But this fairy tale, familiar to millions today from storybook and film, bears little resemblance to the extraordinary young woman who crossed cultures and oceans in her brief and ultimately tragic life.
The startling artwork (above), the oldest in the National Portrait Gallery collection, is the only image of Pocahontas taken from life. Made during her visit to London in 1616, the engraving depicts a stylish lady in beaver hat and embroidered velvet mantle, clutching an ostrich feather fan. Only her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes hint at her origins far from London. The inscription is also striking; it identifies her not as Pocahontas, but as “Matoaka” and “Rebecca.” In short, there seems little to link this peculiar figure, peering from above a starched white ruff, with the buck-skinned Indian maiden of American lore. So which image is closer to the woman we know as Pocahontas?
She was born Matoaka, in the mid-1590s, the daughter of Powhatan, who ruled a native empire in what is now eastern Virginia. Powhatan had dozens of children, and power in his culture passed between males. But she did attract special notice for her beauty and liveliness; hence Pocahontas, a nickname meaning, roughly, “playful one.” This was also the name she was known by to the English who settled near her home in 1607. John Smith, an early leader in Jamestown, described her as beautiful in “feature, countenance, and proportion” and filled with “wit and spirit.”
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Virginia history is the history of much of the early population of North Carolina, including the part of NC that was ceded to form Tennessee in 1796. Many of your own early Texas settlers and historical figures arrived via that same route over two centuries, VA to NC to TN to TX. I have many distant cousins in TX, my line stayed, been in NC since the mid-1700s, VA and MD before that. The TX bunch descend from several younger brothers who struck out for the NC backcountry and over the Blue Ridge into what became TN in 1792.
I’ve often wondered if any of my ancestors actually knew her, since the oldest one that we can trace arrived on First Supply. But, I think that one died (disappeared,at least) and his daughter from England came over to assume his estate and established the line from there.
“Rolfe, who “much lamented” her death, returned to Virginia and later married an Englishwoman. His son by Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe, inherited his father’s plantation, married a colonist and joined the militia, which vanquished his mother’s people when they rose up a last time in rebellion.”
Rebellion, in the sense of “Attempted genocide” aka “the Indian massacre of 1622”, where they arrived with trade goods and foods to share, and for breakfasts, and then proceeded to slaughter approximately 1/4 of the population of the Jamestown colony in a highly coordinated attack through the whole penninsula. It was only because of a last-minute warning that they had been blocked from passing beyond the wall protecting the town-proper before the attacks began. It was originally thought the slaughter was even worse, as many women and children were taken into slavery and only discovered as having survived in captivity more than half a year later.
I am pretty sure that Opechancanough was Pamunkey — and definitely not a pretty story there. Our offshoot of the Powhatan were the “mean” ones who killed off a lot of the settlers (including women and children), rather than helping them :)
Nicely written. I too have fond memories of Virginia woodlands.
Beautiful. Few things rival Virginia forests in the autumn. There’s certainly nothing like it in southern California.
“I would give a thousand pelts,” Neil Young wailed in his ballad “Pocahontas,” to “find out how she felt.”
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Wow! This is the final sentence of the piece at the link. Under that is a blurb about the author that mentions that he has written 7 (I think that was the number) books.
Seven books written, yet he chooses to conclude his piece with this reference. I do not know which one I am more embarrassed for — the idiot Neil Young for writing that stupid line or this idiot writer for quoting it.
Oh, well, Smithsonian...what was I expecting?
“I would give a thousand pelts,” Neil Young wailed in his ballad “Pocahontas,” to “find out how she felt.”
&&&
Wow! This is the final sentence of the piece at the link. Under that is a blurb about the author that mentions that he has written 7 (I think that was the number) books.
Seven books written, yet he chooses to conclude his piece with this reference. I do not know which one I am more embarrassed for — the idiot Neil Young for writing that stupid line or this idiot writer for quoting it.
Oh, well, Smithsonian...what was I expecting?
I think that’s the “Song of Hiawatha”
Look, just because Neil Young can barely play guitar, and can’t sing, and his songs are preachy and lyrically amateurish doesn’t mean that, wait, what? ;’)
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