Matoaka's Story/Part 9 Matoaka and Pocahontas

The Mattaponi River, upstream of its confluence with the South River. Antepenultimate, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mattaponi_River_20170218.jpg

Everyone knows the name Pocahontas, but her story is usually remembered in pieces. Most people will guess that Pocahontas saved John Smith from being executed by her father and that they were married, bringing peace between the English and the Powhatan Nation. This is the residue of a more detailed myth, that Pocahontas recognized the superiority of the English society and enthusiastically chose to marry an Englishman, convert to Christianity, and renounce her own people. This legend was created to glorify one culture, and justify the conquest of another. 

As the English colonies that would become the United States grew, they created laws that helped them control Native, Black, and mixed-race people. These laws excluded them from voting, from juries, from owning property, and above all, from socializing with or marrying White people. It is darkly ironic then that the descendents of John Rolfe would long celebrate their relation to Pocahontas, the “Indian Princess.” As wealthy Virginia elites, they were immune to the stigma of Indian blood that marked so many in their community as outsiders and subhumans. 

The true story of Matoaka is short and tragic.

Matoaka’s father, Wahunsenaca, made Captain John Smith a werowance in an attempt to assimilate the English into the Powhatan Nation. She was a frequent visitor to Jamestown when she was between 10-13, accompanying delegations that brought food to the colonists. She learned English from Smith and others, probably most from the English boys left with her people to learn their language and customs. As relations between the Powhatan and the English soured, she became a target for abduction. She married a young Patawomeck man named Kakoum and lived with his people in the north of Tsenacomoco. They had a son together. In 1613 she was kidnapped by Captain Samuel Argall. 

Argall coerced the Patawomeck werowance into helping him and demanded as her ransom, the return of all English weapons and prisoners from Wahunsenaca, as well as large amounts of corn to feed the fort. Though Wahunsenaca agreed to these terms, the colony’s governor, Thomas Gates found excuses to claim it was not paid and kept Matoaka prisoner. After an initial captivity in Jamestown, Matoaka was sent to Henrico where the Reverend Alex Whitaker instructed her in Christianity and urged her to convert. The tobacco planter John Rolfe assisted Whitaker with teaching her English here. Rolfe claimed to have fallen in love with Matoaka and proposed to marry her. The colony’s governors forwarded his proposal to her father, while also threatening war with him if their demands for a regular supply of food were not met. Wahunsenaca consented to the marriage, hoping to secure his daughter’s safety and a beneficial peace with the English. Matoaka and John Rolfe had a son named Thomas. Most sources claim the child was Rolfe’s, conceived soon after their marriage. However the Mattaponi Oral History records that Matoaka revealed to her sister she was raped soon after being taken hostage. The Mattaponi therefore suspect that Thomas Rolfe was not John Rolfe’s biological son, and that his marriage to Matoaka may have been orchestrated by the colony’s governors. 

Once the tentative peace had been agreed to, Matoaka converted to Christianity, took the name Rebecca, and married Rolfe. Hostilities continued to erupt. Colonists raided for food in lean times, and took land Native people had cleared for crops along the riverbanks as opportunities arose. Those who strayed from the forts were often robbed and murdered. Outright war, though, was averted. 

In 1616, the Virginia Company sent Matoaka and Rolfe to England to publicize the colony and present an image of peaceful relations with “civilizable” Indians. Matoaka and her entourage became minor celebrities in London. She was entertained in the homes of English elites, met King James I and Queen Anne, attended a Royal Masque, and had a last meeting with Captain John Smith, who she scolded for breaking the bond he had entered into with her Father in 1607 when he was made werowance of the English.

As the party prepared to set sail back to Virginia, Matoaka became ill. Most sources note only that Matoaka began feeling ill, some say it was only her, others that all of the Powhatans were suffering from sickness. The Mattaponi Oral History records that Matoaka told her sister that she believed she was poisoned while dining with Rolfe and Captain Argall, and that she died on the ship. Most sources claim she died at an inn in the town of Gravesend, where the ship stopped. All agree she was buried at St. George’s church nearby.

It is tempting, especially this far removed from the events, to rewrite Matoaka’s story yet again. To cast her as a shrewd victim of circumstance, who attempted to sacrifice herself to bring peace between her people and an invading tribe. However, no one can know Matoaka’s thoughts, or her motivations. The little documentation we have of her life comes from other, mostly European, sources. Filling the empty spaces in that story with drama and speculation without acknowledging the lies and uncertainties does her memory further disservice. 

Camille Townsend ends her book, “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma,” with a sobering thesis that I believe avoids the common overreaches of most histories: 

“The destruction of Virginia’s Indian tribes was not a question of miscommunication and missed opportunities. White settlers wanted the Indians’ land and had the strength to take it; the Indians could not live without their land. It is unfair to imply that somehow Pocahontas, or Queen Cockacoeske, or others like them could have done more, could have played their cards differently, and so have saved their people. The gambling game they were forced to play was a dangerous one, and they had one hand, even two, tied behind their backs at all times. It is important to do them the honor of believing that they did their best. They all made decisions as well as they could, managing in what were often nearly unbearable situations. There is nothing they could have done that would have dramatically changed the outcome: a new nation was going to be built on their people’s destruction– a destruction that would be either partial or complete. They did not fail. On the contrary, theirs is a story of heroism as it exists in the real world, not in epic tales. Their dwindling people did survive, against all odds.”

Sources:

Images of a Legend - PBS
Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend- National Parks Service

Matoaka’s Story 

Bibliography

Custalow, Linwood “Little Bear” and Angela L. Daniel “Silver Star.” The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History. Downloadable ebook. Chicago: Fulcrum Publishing, 2007.

Downs, Kristina. “Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La Malinche and Pocahontas.” Western Folklore 67, no. 4 (2008): 397–414.

Freund, Virginia, and Louis B. Wright. The Historie of Travell into Virginia Britania (1612), by William Strachey, Gent. Hakluyt Society, Second Series, v. 103. London: Taylor and Francis, 2011.

Gilliam, Charles Edgar. “His Dearest Daughter’s Names.” The William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine 21, no. 3 (1941): 239–42.

Hamor, Ralph, Thomas Harriot, George Percy, and John Rolf. Virginia; Four Personal Narratives. Research Library of Colonial Americana. New York: Arno Press, 1972.

Heuvel, Lisa. “The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History. By Linwood ‘Little Bear’ Custalow and Angela L. Daniel ‘Silver Star.’” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 31, no. 3 (June 1, 2007). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8pq8q3m8.

Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

Kupperman, Karen Ordahl, and Karen O. Kupperman. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia Ser. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

LeMaster, Michelle. “Pocahontas: (De)Constructing an American Myth.” Edited by Camilla Townsend, Helen C. Rountree, Paula Gunn Allen, and David A. Price. The William and Mary Quarterly 62, no. 4 (2005): 774–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/3491451.

Lopenzina, Drew. “The Wedding of Pocahontas and John Rolfe: How to Keep the Thrill Alive after Four Hundred Years of Marriage.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 26, no. 4 (2014): 59–77. https://doi.org/10.5250/studamerindilite.26.4.0059.

Rountree, Helen C. “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Barely Saw.” Ethnohistory 45, no. 1 (1998): 1–29. https://doi.org/10.2307/483170.

Strachey, William, Silvester Jourdain, Louis B. Wright, and Alden T. Vaughan. A Voyage to Virginia in 1609: Two Narratives. 2nd ed. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013.

“The True Story of Pocahontas-C-SPAN.Org.” Accessed February 8, 2024. https://www.c-span.org/video/?202747-2/the-true-story-pocahontas.

Townsend, Camilla. “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma.” New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.

Wood, Karenne. “Prisoners of History: Pocahontas, Mary Jemison, and the Poetics of an American Myth.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 28, no. 1 (2016): 73–82. https://doi.org/10.5250/studamerindilite.28.1.0073.

Working, Lauren. Review of Review of Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia, by Karen Ordahl Kupperman. The William and Mary Quarterly 77, no. 1 (2020): 138–43.

April 26, 1865- John Wilkes Booth Killed

John Wilkes Booth. Black & Case of Boston back mark. Date unknown. Public Domain.

John Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland in 1838. His father, Junius Brutus Booth, was an English actor who immigrated to the US in 1821 with his mistress and John’s mother, Mary Ann Holmes.

Booth began acting in his youth and went on to have a successful career. Critics often remarked on his good looks and energetic performances. After the election of Abraham Lincoln, southern states began seceding from the US. Booth earned praise from some quarters, and scorn from others for his passionate support of the Confederacy. 

As the war turned in the Union’s favor, Booth began plotting with a small group of sympathizers to kidnap the president. Their attempt was thwarted by a last minute change to Lincoln’s travel plans. Soon after Booth learned that the Lincolns  would be attending a performance of “Our American Cousin,” at Ford’s Theatre, a venue he had performed at and knew well. 

On April 14, Booth slipped into the president’s box and shot him in the back of the head. He leapt from the box down to the stage, injuring his leg in the process, and cried out “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” a famous line from the play Julius Caesar meaning “thus always to tyrants.” He escaped DC with one of his co-conspirators, David Herold. The 2 evaded Union soldiers for 12 days before being cornered in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia on April 26, 1865.

Herold surrendered, but Booth refused, demanding that the soldiers move back and allow him to come out and fight with his knife and pistol. Eventually, Sergeant Thomas Corbett fired into the barn hitting Booth in the neck. Corbett claimed he shot after Booth raised his pistol to fire on them, but several other soldiers disputed this claim. Booth died several hours later on the porch of a nearby house.

Sources:

Material Evidence: John Wilkes Booth- Ford’s Theatre

Who was John Wilkes Booth before he became Lincoln’s Assassin?- NPR

Matoaka's Story/Part 8 The Powhatan Wars and the End of tsenacomoco

“The manner of their attire and painting them selves when they goe to their generall huntings or at theire solemne feasts.” Watercolor. John White. 1585. Public Domain.

John Rolfe returned to Jamestown a widower for the second time. He soon remarried and became a leading figure in the colony. He is one of the sources who wrote about the first enslaved Africans brought to an English colony in North America in 1619. They were seized from a Portuguese slave ship by Dutch privateers and sold as indentured servants in Jamestown. Rolfe died in 1622 but the cause is unknown. It is possible he was killed in what became known as the “Indian Massacre” of the same year, but that has never been verified.

Wahunsenca abdicated the role of Paramount Werowance soon after learning of Matoaka’s death. The Mattaponi Oral History records that her abduction had thrown him into a deep depression that left him increasingly indecisive about how to proceed against the English. He could no longer lead and died in April of 1618, roughly a year after his daughter. His brother Opitcham became the official Paramount Werowance, but Opechancanough (O-pee-ken’-can-oo), the Powhatan War Werowance, began to take a larger role in the Powhatan Nation’s governance. He maintained the official peace with the English, though disputes over land and trade, as well as violent incidents, continued. But secretly, Opechancanough was planning a concerted assault on nearly all of the colonies. On March 22nd, 1622, multiple parties visited English settlements and forts as usual, but at an appointed time, began executing English men, women, and children. Jamestown itself was secured in time to stave off a direct assault thanks to Native people, some Powhatans, some of other tribes, who warned them just in time. 

The 1622 Massacre killed a quarter of the colonists in Tsenacomoco (350-400). Another 400 would die in the following year as food became increasingly scarce. One of the retaliatory tactics of the English was to burn Native crops and villages. Guerrilla warfare raged on and off for the next 10 years. Opechancanough sued for peace in 1632, citing starvation among the Powhatan. Hostilities officially ended, but Anglo-Native relations were much more tense and micromanaged afterward. Most colonists were forbidden from trading or socializing with the Natives. All communication was to be handled by the governing council and their agents. Native people were required to carry an official pass to travel through English territory.

In 1644, the now elderly Opechancanough launched another concerted offensive against English settlements. Though they inflicted more casualties than in 1622, there were so many more English colonists by this time that it had less of an impact. The fighting went on for a year until the War Werowance himself was captured and brought to Jamestown to be imprisoned in public. He was soon shot in the back by one of his guards. 

In the aftermath of this last war, The Powhatan Nation began to collapse. Famine and disease hastened the process as its member tribes struggled to adapt to a new reality. Some tribes died out altogether, their surviving members seeking refuge with neighbors. Some allied with the English, some maintained hostilities, but eventually all were subjugated to English rule. 

Thomas Rolfe, Matoaka’s son, returned to Tsenacomoco as a teenager in 1635 to take up his father’s lands. He requested permission to visit his Powhatan relatives, including Opechancanough. It is unknown if any such meeting took place. Ultimately, Thomas chose the side of the British. It was the only world he truly knew, and by this time the world of his mother’s people had suffered drastic decline. Thomas was assigned to man and lead Fort James in the Chickahominy territory and fought against various Native tribes. By 1646 he held the rank of lieutenant and was rewarded with more lands surrounding the fort that he spent his life cultivating. He married Jane Poythress and had several children, many who would count among the colony’s future elite. The circumstances of his death are unknown.

The history of the English and the peoples of Tsenacomoco is one of scattered, broken sources, myths, and distortions. It is very much like the history of most colonial encounters. Regardless of the smaller players' intentions and actions, the larger powers behind the colonists were attempting to administer a project of wealth creation that depended on appropriating the land and labor of others. While officially forbidding violence against the Native peoples, they explicitly instructed their colonial agents to aggressively negotiate the Natives’ land from them, make their political leaders vassals of their own monarchs, and subject them to unequal trade and labor relations. The idea that these programs would be implemented without resulting in violence was ludicrous. Once the Powhatan had attacked the English in their homes, outright warfare was authorized and the security of Native people throughout the region, regardless of affiliation, was critically jeopardized. 

Next week, we’ll conclude Matoaka’s Story with a look at the legacy and memory of this most famous Powhatan woman.

Sources:

22nd March 1622- History Pod

Primary Source: De Bry's "A weroan or great Lorde of Virginia"- Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation

Weroansquas and Four Centuries of Female Powhatan Leaders- Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation

Virginia Company- Virginia Encyclopedia

April 19, 1927- Mae West Arrested

Mae West in "Go West Young Man", a film directed by Henry Hathaway 1936. Public Domain.

Mae West was an actor, singer, and playwright who courted controversy during her career. She was mostly known for salacious scripts and provocative outfits, but she also wrote plays with gay characters which drew fire from many quarters.

West’s career started in Vaudeville. She eventually made it to Broadway, but continued performing in night clubs as well. In 1926 “Sex,” a play she wrote, produced, and starred in, premiered and had a successful but controversial run. The New York “Society for Suppression of Vice” was not pleased and petitioned city officials and police to shut the show down.

On April 19, 1927 West was arrested with the cast of the play and sentenced to 10 days in jail for “corrupting the morals of the youth”. She served 8 days and was released for “good behavior.” West continued performing on stage and broke into films in the 30s. While they were successful, her work was scrutinized closely by censors as the film industry grew.

One of West’s most famous quotes was “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.”

Sources:

The Self-Created Immortality of Mae West- Criterion

Her Perfect Refuge- Life

Matoaka's Story/Part 7 The Death of Matoaka

“Princess Pocahontas.” Base of statue by William Ordway Partridge. Memorial at St. George Church, Gravesend, England. Photo: Tracy Jenkins, Art UK. CC.

The Virginia Company’s publicity tour had been a success. Plans were made to send more colonists to Jamestown and to establish schools for religious and English instruction among Native children in Virginia.

Arrangements were made for the party to return to Virginia in the spring of 1617. As the ship set sail, Matoaka and John dined with Captain Argall in his quarters. She became sick soon after. Argall docked the ship at the town of Gravesend. Matoaka died at the Gravesend Inn and was buried at the nearby Church of St. George. Many myths have grown up around her last words, but nothing is known for certain. The party held a funeral for her at the church before setting sail again. Fearing he would not survive the journey, John Rolfe left their son Thomas with relatives.

The Mattaponi Oral History records a different version of the events. It claims that shortly after the dinner with Captain Argall, Matoaka told her sister Mattachana that she thought “the English” put something in her food. Mattachanna tried to care for her, but her condition worsened. She left to get Rolfe and when she returned, Matoaka was dead. The Oral History records that Mattachanna and Uttamatomakkin told Wahunsenaca that Matoaka had been in good health in England, and had not become sick until boarding the ship to return home.

It is impossible to know the whole truth of Matoaka’s final days. Oral traditions were long seen by Western scholars as mere folklore without reliable information. That has changed somewhat, but even scholars who argue for their indispensability point out that they are a different kind of history that, taken out of their oral medium, lose much of their nuance and meaning. As the authors of “The True Story of Pocahontas” state, “There are attributes of oral traditions that are not obtainable in a written format… There is a living connection between the oral historian and his or her ancestors.”

The lethality of eastern diseases to indigenous Americans is well documented and so European and American historians have rarely questioned the circumstances of Matoaka’s death. More skeptical writers have speculated that she may have soured on supporting the Virginia Company’s plans for large-scale conversion of Powhatan children to Christianity, or that her experience in London had not made her the enthusiastic advocate of “civilization” they had expected. Perhaps with her tour of London completed, she was no longer seen as crucial to the company’s plans. Like so much of Matoaka’s life, her death is impossible to be certain about. 

Back in Tsenacomoco, the tenuous peace between the English and the Powhatan would endure for a few more years. But the death of Matoaka left Wahunsenaca stricken with grief. He turned over the leadership of the Powhatan Nation to his brother, Opitchapum. He died in 1618, roughly a year after his daughter.

Sources:

Pocahontas and Gravesend Jamestown/Yorktown Museums

“Indian Princess” sculpture- Pocahontas Archive

April 12, 1861- Fort Sumter Captured by the Confederate States of America

Original flag of the Confederate States of America

When did the Civil War begin? This question can and should spark hours of conversation. 

Since the creation of the United States, its political leaders orchestrated a delicate balance of admitting new states to the union as the country expanded westward. This balance was maintained by keeping the number of “free” and “slave” states equal as the country grew. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 discarded this practice and attempted to replace it with the mechanism of “popular sovereignty,” whereby the citizens of a territory would vote to decide if slavery would be prohibited. This compromise provoked fierce opposition on both sides and led to widespread voter fraud and political violence throughout the Kansas Territory. This saga of terrorism became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

As the decade wore on both major political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, split over the issue of slavery’s future in the West, leading to the creation of the Republican Party. Central to their agenda was prohibiting slavery’s expansion. While there was a small abolitionist fringe that advocated a complete elimination of slavery, the majority of the new party declared they had no intention of abolishing it where it already existed. However, pro-slavery politicians declared on many occasions that stopping the expansion of slavery ensured it would be eradicated where it already existed, and so was in fact, an attack on the southern states. 

When the Republican Party ran Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860, southern politicians began threatening secession immediately. After his victory, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida soon followed. Between Lincoln’s election in November and his inauguration in March of 1861, all federal forts and armories in the seceded states were seized without a fight by Confederate forces, except Fort Sumter. 

Once in office, Lincoln was immediately embroiled in managing the secession crisis. The Upper-South states, most critically Virginia, had not yet seceded and most Republicans still believed war could be averted. The official stance of the Republican Party was that secession was unconstitutional and illegal, thus they refused to recognize it officially. They claimed that what the Union faced was not a civil war, but a domestic insurrection. While this may seem like semantic nonsense, it all had real consequences about how the conflict would unfold. The Lincoln Administration worked to avoid war, but also, to prepare for it. In order to preserve the loyalty of the Upper-South, and the public generally, Lincoln believed it was critical that the North not be seen as firing the first shot. When he informed South Carolina officials that he intended to resupply the men of Fort Sumter with food and provisions, many believe he was maneuvering the Confederacy into striking first.

On April 12, 1861, as the supply ship approached, Confederate cannons opened fire on Fort Sumter. The attack lasted 34 hours and ended with the Confederate Flag flying over the fort. The only casualties of the battle occurred after the surrender. The Union troops were permitted to conduct a 100 gun salute before leaving. In the process, Private Daniel Hough’s gun malfunctioned and exploded in his hands, killing him and mortally wounding Private Edward Galloway.

Soon after the battle, 4 more southern states seceded: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. While most Americans, particularly in the border states were thrown into chaos, many hardliners on either side of the issue of slavery celebrated that the war had finally begun. 

Sources:

Fort Sumter- National Parks Service

Flags of Ft. Sumter- National Parks Service

Fort Sumter Animated Map- American Battlefield Trust

Civil War Timeline- Library of Congress

Matoaka's Story/Part 6 A Powhatan Lady in London

Inner Court of the Bell Savage Inn. 1889. Public Domain.

The Virginia Company hoped that keeping Matoaka among them would secure some form of peace with the Powhatan until they could increase their numbers in Virginia. However they also had concerns back in England. The company was involved in several lawsuits against past investors over various sums of money. With Rolfe’s latest tobacco crop being favorably compared to the Spanish product, the company was ready to aggressively pursue new investors. To this end, as well as putting a sunny face on Anglo-Indian relations, they planned to send Matoaka and Rolfe to England along with Thomas Dale and other company officials. Approximately 10 other Powhatan people accompanied Matoaka, including her sister Mattachanna and her husband, Uttamatomakkin, a high-ranking quiakro. Company officials were notoriously stingy when it came to expenses, so it seems likely that the additional Powhatans were insisted on by Matoaka, possibly acting on her father’s wishes. Uttamatomakkin was quoted by several sources as declaring he was instructed by Wahunseneca to count the Englishmen he found across the sea and provide information about their country.

The Virginia Company worked to make Matoaka a celebrity in London- a model of the “civilized Indian” they planned to reproduce throughout Virginia. In England, she was paraded before crowds, introduced at numerous homes, and invited to an audience with the King and Queen. She and Rolfe attended a Masque called “The Vision of Delight” where they were “well placed,” meaning their seats were near the King’s, ensuring a superior view of the performance. The Rolfe’s stayed at The Bell Savage Inn in the heart of London, a crossroads of high and low society, where players and performers often gathered and caroused. Uttamatomakkin was also a highly-sought dinner guest among Englishmen interested in the customs of Virginia’s Native cultures. He was described as happy to answer questions and demonstrate some of his protocols, warning his hosts that he was too old to convert, and that their efforts would be better spent on Powhatan children. Captain John Smith wrote about an exchange with him wherein he expressed disbelief that the man he had met was King James, as the sovereign had offered him no gift. Powhatan elites, like many other Native American societies, used the custom of gift-exchange to demonstrate prestige and cement peaceful relations between groups and individuals.

The Virginia Company commissioned an engraved portrait of Matoaka that they mass produced and circulated as widely as possible. This portrait remains the most credible likeness of the adult (19-21) Matoaka, as most other depictions of her were crudely Europeanized. The artist, Simon Van de Passe drew her with high cheekbones, dark hair and dark eyes. She wore a felt hat, long-sleeved gown, and lace collar, epitomizing the Puritan English middle-class wife. Most English Lady’s portraits depicted them looking to the side or down. In Van de Passe’s portrait, Matoaka stares boldly out of the frame to meet the viewer’s gaze. In a ribbon surrounding the portrait, the engraved words translate to:

“Matoaka als [alias] Rebecca, daughter to the mighty Prince Powhatan, Emperour of Attanoughskomouck als [alias] Virginia, converted and baptized in the Christian faith and wife to the worthy Mr. John Rolfe” (Attanoughskomouck was likely a mispronunciation of Tsenacomoco).

Engraved portrait of Matoaka. Simon Van de Passe. 1616. Public Domain.

After spending several months in crowded London where the air did not agree with Matoaka, the Virginia Company relocated her lodgings to a country setting in nearby Brentford. It is here that Captain John Smith called on her. In response to his greeting, Matoaka “turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented.”* Smith, Rolfe, and a few unnamed others excused themselves for 2-3 hours, after which Matoaka rejoined the party and addressed Smith directly:

“You did promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you, you called him father being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I doe you.”*

Smith interrupted to say he could not allow her to address him as such, being that she was the daughter of a “King,” referencing the strict class culture of Europe. Matoaka scoffed in reply:

“With a well set countenance she said, Were you not afraid to come into my fathers countrie, and cause feare in him and all his people (but mee) and feare you here I should call you father, I tell you then I will, and you shall call me childe, and so I will bee for ever and ever your Countrieman.”*

Smith did not comment on this exchange with Matoaka in his publication; he briskly moved on to describe his conversation with Uttamatomakkin. Though it supported some of the claims made in his Virginia stories, it did not cast him in the favorable light of most of his writings. And yet it was long held up as evidence of Matoaka’s romantic infatuation with him. Modern readers, less likely to buy into the colonial mythology, tend to see it as a clear rebuke of a man she believed had broken an oath to her father. Her parting words suggest her time in London may have left her less than enthused about English intentions towards her homeland.

“They did tell us alwaies you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plimoth, yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seeke you, and know the truth, because your Countriemen will lie much.”*

Sources:

Images of a Legend- PBS

The Virginia Company of London- Encyclopedia Virginia

*Circular of “A Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles…”- John Smith, HathiTrust

April 5, 1815- Mount Tambora Erupts

Tambora volcano on Indonesia's Sumbawa Island. NASA Landsat7 image (worldwind.arc.nasa.gov) Public Domain.

On April 5, 1815 Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa exploded in the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. So much ash and smoke were shot into the atmosphere that it cooled the entire planet.

10,000 people were killed almost instantly and an estimated 82,000 died of starvation and disease throughout the region in the following months.

In England, the following year was known as “the year without a summer.”

Weather patterns worldwide were dramatically affected over the next 3 years.

Sources:

Volcano: Tambora- Science Museum of Virginia

The Eruption of Mount Tambora (1815-1818)- Climate in Arts and History, Smith College

Matoaka's Story/Part 5 Captivity and Second Marriage

Haupt, Joe. "John Rolfe Tobacco." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified February 16, 2021. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/13445/john-rolfe-tobacco/

Who was John Rolfe, the Englishman who would be Matoaka’s second husband?

He was from a middle-class merchant family in England, and his goal was to make his fortune by joining the Virginia Company as a trader. Tobacco was one of the many resources the Spanish reaped from their Caribbean conquests and sold throughout their empire. Rolfe, like many Englishmen, sought to create a competitive English trade. He and his recently married wife joined the ship that wrecked in the Caribbean with Sir Thomas Dale and arrived with him to find Jamestown in ruins. They were among the dismayed colonists who decided to return to England, only to be turned back by the arrival of Lord De La Warre and his reinforcements. Rolfe’s pregnant wife (name unknown) gave birth to a daughter in Bermuda. The child, named after the island on which the colonists had found refuge from the storm, did not survive. Not long after settling in Jamestown, Rolfe’s wife died as well. The cause was not recorded, but the ordeal of her pregnancy at sea and miscarriage on a small island, had likely left her too weak to survive the hardships of life in the colony.

In addition to his agricultural work, Rolfe became the colony’s secretary, and assisted the Reverend Alex Whitaker in teaching Matoaka English and the bible. The letter wherein he revealed his love for Matoaka and requested permission to marry her from the colony’s new governor, Thomas Dale, is the main primary source that mentions their relationship. It was largely a defense of his feelings for a non-Christian woman wherein he sought to refute any assumption that he acted from lust, and declared that his motivation was for the good of Matoaka’s soul and the prosperity of the colony. 

We have no such documentary evidence from Matoaka herself. Some scholars have argued that she was awed by English civilization and rushed to embrace it, while others have claimed she was simply forced to convert and marry an Englishman by the colony’s governors for their own ends. Modern readers truly interested in the answer can only read the sources and retellings and speculate for themselves what may have happened. 

Most indigenous women throughout the Americas were raised with knowledge that they might be targeted by other tribes for kidnapping and could possibly have to resign themselves to an “adoption.” Matoaka’s situation was no different. Her “willingness” to learn the language, religion, and customs of her captors were measures of survival. She may have hoped to contribute to peace between her people and the English, or she may simply have been making the best of her own circumstances. 

In 1614, Thomas Dale resolved to confront Wahunseneca and force the Paramount Werowance into recognizing the English as an independent regional power and renewing tribute in corn from Powhatan villages. The region had suffered a drought and the English were finding it harder and harder to coerce food out of their neighbors, by both trade and force. There were simply not enough resources to meet the demand. Argall ferried Dale and an armed force up the river again, taking Matoaka and John Rolfe along. The Mattaponi Oral History claimed that the expedition was largely designed to convince Matoaka that her father had abandoned her in favor of keeping English weapons and continuing his policy of starving the colonists out. 

Argall’s ship was heckled throughout its journey by Native warriors eager for a fight. Matoaka witnessed the burning of several villages. At the town of Matchut, Dale sent a message demanding the unreasonable amount of corn, any remaining English prisoners and arms, as well as Rolfe’s marriage proposal. Rolfe himself, along with translator Rob Sparkes, carried the message to Wahunseca’s brother Opechancanough, who consented to the marriage on his brother’s behalf. He also committed to delivering the demanded corn and any remaining arms. Any English prisoners, he reported, had either died or ran away. Declaring themselves victorious, the English sailed back down the river to Jamestown.

Wahunsenaca agreed to the union, but did not attend the wedding himself, believing the English intended to take him prisoner as well. Instead he sent several of Matoaka’s uncles to represent him. 

In the legend of Pocahontas, she was dismayed that her father would not pay the ransom and came to love the English even more. In reality she likely knew the ransom was impossible to meet. It is telling that Matoaka did not convert to Christianity until after the truce between her people and the English was reached, despite having been a prisoner at Henrico, receiving instruction from Reverend Whitaker for over a year. Far from being awed by English religion and technology, she may have been seeking to play her part in binding the English to her people, either independently, or in concert with her father.

There are several primary sources that record colonial governors and their messengers conducting business with the Paramount Werowance after this point, wherein he mentions that his “dearest daughter” lives with the English. They also record Thomas Dale’s request to marry another of his daughters, Wahunseneca’s refusal, along with his displeasure that the English refused to meet unarmed or to leave any Englishmen in his village as they had in the past. These exchanges depict one side of diplomatic discussions and do not provide any insight into Wahunseneca’s thinking, but they do imply a tense and fragile peace very different from the sunny reports most of the colonists sent back to England. Did he genuinely hope Matoaka’s marriage to a colonist would create a lasting peace? Was he simply buying time? Or was he crushed by indecision, seeing no way to secure his daughter’s release, or his people’s position in the region in the long run as the colonists’ numbers grew?

The Mattaponi Oral History recorded Matoaka’s captivity and marriage very differently. Again, this information was derived from the testimony of her sister Mattachanna. Early in her captivity, Matoaka became so depressed that Gates requested Wahunsenaca send a few of her relatives to comfort her. When her sister arrived, Matoaka told her she had been raped and that she believed she was pregnant. 

The Oral History contends that Rolfe was likely not the father at all, and that Matoaka was sent to Henrico where there were no Native people, unlike Jamestown where many Native women lived with Englishmen, in order to hide her pregnancy while her conversion and marriage were arranged. 

The name of her attacker was either not revealed, or not shared in the 2007 transcription of the oral history. But the fact that her mixed-race son was named Thomas has led some to speculate that Thomas Dale, Gate’s right hand man who ruled Jamestown under martial law when Matoaka was imprisoned there, may have been the boy’s biological father.

Matoaka was renamed Rebecca after her baptism, a name likely suggested by the Reverend Whitaker, referring to a biblical story wherein a woman gives birth to twin sons of different “nations,” ultimately favoring the fairer-skinned child. Rolfe’s tobacco venture was eventually successful, almost certainly as a direct result of his marriage to Matoaka, after gaining knowledge in curing the plant from her or her relatives. Once his product could compete with Spanish tobacco, the colony could make a credible claim to its investors that their money was sure to earn dividends. Predictably, colonists raced to plant their own and get in on the profits. The governing council mandated that they plant food for their own sustenance before the new cash crop. The tobacco trade flourished in Virginia, but due to the toll it took on farmland, it produced as many losers as winners in its economic boom. Nevertheless, the Virginia Company now had a product to ensure its future growth throughout Tsenacomoco.

Sources:

John Rolfe- Historic Jamestown

Pocahontas’ Marriage and Death- Henricus Historical Park