Last Updated on September 16, 2022
The book Who Did Pocahontas Mary is an excellent resource to learn about the legend and her life. The book gives both the oral and written history. Native customs consider Pocahontas a young adult at age fifteen or sixteen. However, she was already a mother and wife when she was kidnapped. After a conversion to Christianity, she married a man named John Rolfe and became a Christian.
John Rolfe
John Rolfe, the man Poccahontas married, was an English captain. The English believed that Indians should be respected and not enraged because the settlement would survive only if the natives cooperated. However, because Pocahontas was a captive, her marriage to Rolfe caused controversy. King James I of England was highly critical of Rolfe’s actions.
There are numerous myths about Pocahontas, including the romantic relationship with Rolfe and voluntary Christian conversion. However, there is no historical proof that Pocahontas ever converted to Christianity. Her wedding jacket had shellfish embroidered on it, and 70 volunteers embroidered the 130 creatures on it. A red suit worn by John Rolfe, the man Pocahontas married, looked disco-esque. During the wedding rehearsal, three Native American men in tanned buckskin and wearing raccoon mantles were seen adorning themselves with red and blue body paint.
In later years, the settlers treated Pocahontas better than the natives. She was a symbol of the natives becoming Christian and willing subjects of the English. In that way, she became more valuable to the English than to the Indians. Moreover, her marriage cemented the relationship between the Indians and the settlers and proved vital to the success of the colony. Pocahontas, however, died only three years after the wedding ceremony.
Mattachanna
One of the major myths about the Native American princess is that she was taken captive by the English. While this was common practice for the Native American tribes, it is not entirely clear. It is unknown exactly what caused her to become depressed and cling to life. Some accounts claim that her captors were fearful of her life. Others believe that she was simply mistreated and that she eventually married Mattachanna. In any case, it is clear that she suffered a nervous breakdown and was ultimately married to her sister.
While there are varying accounts of how the two met, it is generally accepted that the two were not lovers and were married for other reasons, although some scholars believe the two may have been romantically involved. It is not known who the other parent was, so this is a speculation, but it is possible that Pocahontas married Mattachanna because she was Powhatan’s favorite wife.
She died of TB in March of 1617, just months before the family was supposed to return to Virginia. The death of Pocahontas is still a mystery, but her condition worsened in the months before the family sailed to the New World. As a result, Pocahontas’ family wanted to bury their daughter in their homeland, but Rolfe and Argall took her body to England. Her father was devastated.
Kocoum
In the movie, Pocahontas married Kocoumm, a Native American man who is the second in command of the tribe. As Chief Powhatan’s strongest warrior, Kocoum fought against the Massawomecks and was once described as fierce. In the film, Kocoum is described as serious and rarely smiles, but he later becomes a good husband and builds Pocahontas a sturdy house. While he may not be the most romantic of men, Kocoum is described as loyal and caring and is a good partner for the young woman.
The Martin family had an oral tradition that a member of the tribe had married a Native American. This person was presumably the brother of the Chief of the Wahunsenaca. Kocoum was a good warrior and probably met Pocahontas at a powwow. The two of them later got married and Pocahontas gave birth to a son, named Thomas.
In 1610, Pocahontas married Kocouam, another member of the Patawomecks tribe. The pair lived in Potowomac, where they settled when the First Anglo-Powhatan War broke out. However, Pocahontas was captured by the English during the war. English settlers tricked her into boarding a ship and held her for ransom. In return for the English settlers releasing the prisoners and returning their stolen English weapons, Pocahontas demanded her father’s release.
Whitaker
The English held the princess captive and refused to return her to her people. The Indians were politically powerless and the white men viewed her as a foreign princess. As a result, they tried to convert Pocahontas to Christianity. The evangelists believed that Native Americans were descended from Jews. Pocahontas was crushed by this situation. In response, Whitaker tried to convert Pocahontas to Christianity.
She chose a Christian man named Alexander Whitaker and learned English from him. Whitaker baptized her, giving her a new Christian name, Rebecca. Rebecca may have a reference to the Bible’s story about Rebecca. She is the mother of two nations. However, violence broke out in March 1614 between the English and the Powhatan men. In an effort to avoid violence, the English allowed Pocahontas to speak to her relatives, which may have been a diplomatic maneuver. However, she preferred to remain with the English.
William Whitaker was born in Surry, England in 1618. He was an English Anglican theologian who settled near the Jamestown colony. He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses for a period of five years and became a planter. This earned him the nickname “The Apostle of Virginia”.
Richard Bucke
It is known that Richard Bucke, the man Pocahonas married, may have been a minister in Virginia. He was a minister there at least twice, and his wives are known only from several documents. In addition to his wife Pocahontas, Bucke may have also been the minister who opened Virginia’s first legislative assembly in 1619. Bucke was born in England but spent ten months in Bermuda. It is unclear when he died, but he is believed to have died around 1624.
Although the Reverend Richard Bucke was a priest at the time of the wedding, it is unclear who officiated the marriage. Some scholars have argued that a priest named John Heacham was the best candidate for the marriage. He was a man of high rank and a loyal servant, so it is likely that he could have married Pocahontas. However, the Reverend’s son Thomas was not present at the wedding.
It is believed that the ceremony took place at the base of the original mud-walled chapel. This chapel was where Pocahontas was married on April 5, 1614. In 2010 at Historic Jamestowne, researchers discovered that the chapel’s perimeter matched the dimensions of the church’s interior described by William Strachey, the secretary of the English colony in the New World.
Smith
John Smith claimed that Pocahontas saved his life during a four-day ceremony that was part of his journey to become a werowance. He wrote about the event in his Generall Historie, written in 1624. Most historians believe that Pocahontas was playing a scripted role. It is still unclear why she chose Smith as her husband, but her actions were largely based on his words.
As for the dates of the wedding, historians have been puzzled by two statements by Strachey. The first states that Pocahontas married Smith in 1609, while the second says that she married Kocoum after Smith left the island. Some scholars have suggested that the marriage took place in 1612, which means that Pocahontas was fifteen years old. However, Native traditions would have considered her an adult. By 1614, Pocahontas had already become a mother and wife. She later married a man named Rolfe and had a son, Thomas.
In 1616, Pocahontas and her husband met in London, where the English were attempting to discredit them. She also met Sir Walter Raleigh, who was freed from the Tower, and Ben Jonson. While in England, she was reportedly ill, and died in the town of Gravesend, near London. Today, her name is synonymous with Pocahontas. She was believed to have been a Christianized Indian. She died from pulmonary tuberculosis after a voyage back to Virginia.
About The Author
Alison Sowle is the typical tv guru. With a social media evangelist background, she knows how to get her message out there. However, she's also an introvert at heart and loves nothing more than writing for hours on end. She's a passionate creator who takes great joy in learning about new cultures - especially when it comes to beer!