Social Change, Colonial: Pocahontas

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Similar content addressed in SOLs: VS.1a-i; VS.2d; VS.3f, VS.3g; USI.1a-h; USI.4b; USI.5a

  • How they took him prisoner in the Oaze, 1607This image shows the Powhatan tribe fighting John Smith and the settlers.  In late 1607, the Powhatan tribe took Smith prisoner briefly, but soon released him. 
  • Pocahontas saving the life of Capt. John Smith / New England Chromo. Lith. Co.In his recollections written nearly a decade after his released, Smith claimed that his release was largely due to the efforts to Chief Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas.   The veracity of those stories have been questioned by numerous historians, but never completely verified nor refuted.  Regardless of the cause of Smith’s release, the event did initiate a brief period of stability between the Powhatan tribe and the English settlers.
  • John Smith recounts his capture and release from the PowhatanHere John Smith recounts his capture and release from the Powhatan.  He notes Pocahontas as a driving force both promoting his release and preventing his execution.  He also credits the Powhatan tribe with saving the settlers from starvation, as he claims that "had not the Savages fed us, we directly had starv'd."  Smith's account here remains as one of the only written pieces from the period on his release.  No such documents from the Powhatan documents are known to exist. 
  • Pocahontas. (Bust). Engraving by Compton Holland in John Smith, The generall historie of Virginia ..., 1624, after Simon Van de PasseThis print depicts Pocahontas in 1616, dressed entirely in English clothes. Around the distinctly anglicized portrait appears the name "Rebecca," the Christian name given to her after her marriage to John Rolfe.
  • Portrait of Pocahontas, from painting by Wm. SheppardThis image of an anglicized Pocahontas explicitly mentions that she had been "converted and baptized in the Christian faith."