![]() By this time, relations between the two peoples had soured because the colonists, ill-suited for the task of settlement in a foreign land, continually asked the Powhatans for food and supplies instead of providing for themselves. The Powhatan continued their relationship with Smith, sometimes more contentious than others, for two years until, wounded in a gunpowder explosion, he returned to England. Many scholars, however, claim the event could never have happened because girls – especially those as young as Pocahontas – were not allowed to take part in or witness such rituals. If it happened at all, it was most likely a ritual through which Smith was being welcomed to the tribe through a death-and-rebirth ritual in which he faced mortality, was saved by Pocahontas playing a role, and reborn as 'Chief of the Settlers' – exactly the sort of title Wahunsenacah had in mind for him as ally. (Public Domain)Īlthough this story is central to the standard Pocahontas tale, scholars agree that it either never happened or that the entire event was misinterpreted by Smith. He repeated this version, with further embellishment, in his 1624 CE work, The General History of Virginia. Smith is thrown onto a rock and a Powhatan warrior raises a club to kill him when Pocahontas intervenes, laying her head on his, and demanding his release. In his updated version, he is roughly used by Opchanacanough and ordered to be executed by Wahunsenacah. 1574-1619 CE, wife of James I of England). In 1616 CE, when Pocahontas arrived in England, a celebrity and the wife of the wealthy John Rolfe, Smith told another version of this event in a letter to Queen Anne of Denmark (l. Wahunsenacah was able to make Smith understand he wanted an alliance, that Smith was not a captive, and he was later allowed to return to Jamestown. ![]() Smith describes the event in a 1608 CE account and relates how he was taken to a number of villages before he was presented to Wahunsenacah at the capital of Werowocomoco and treated as an honored guest. In December 1607 CE, Smith was apprehended by Opchanacanough (l. Afterwards, allegedly, Pocahontas traveled to the settlement or met with Smith and they taught each other their respective cultures and languages, but this claim has been challenged. The business was concluded, and Smith gave Pocahontas "such trifles as contented her" and asked her to relay to her father how well the captives had been treated. Smith claims she arrived in the company of the warrior Rawhunt, a trusted companion of the chief, and describes her as "a child of ten years old, which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion, much exceedeth any of the rest of his people" (Smith, 34). Pocahontas first met John Smith when she was sent to Jamestown to negotiate the return of some captives who had been detained for allegedly stealing tools and weapons. As the daughter of the chief (and, according to John Smith, his favorite), she may have been given added responsibilities or could have been relieved of some of the more tedious but, whichever, greater care would have gone into watching over and protecting her. She would have been brought up to learn the traditional tasks and responsibilities of women in the Powhatan Confederacy such as building a house (known as a yehakin), planting and harvesting crops, cooking meals, weaving mats and baskets, foraging for herbs and plants, and managing financial transactions. She was a member of the Mattaponi tribe, a branch of the Pamunkey, and spoke Algonquian, as did the other tribes in the confederation. ![]() It has been suggested that her mother died in childbirth and she was raised by one of Wahunsenacah’s other wives in his village. If one accepts that Pocahontas was the actual daughter of Wahunsenacah, then she would have been taken back to her mother’s village after birth to be cared for until she was weaned at which time she would have been sent to her father.
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