Program Information

One of the most famous love stories in history is that of Pocahontas and John Smith. There’s only one little problem with that romantic tale. It never happened. "Jamestown: A Fruitful Soil" provides a historical overview of the people and events of 17th-century Virginia.

Transcript

One of the most famous love stories in history is that of Pocahontas and John Smith. There’s only one little problem with that romantic tale. It never happened.

I’m Steve Clark with Jamestown: A Fruitful Soil, a celebration of Virginia’s Quadricentennial sponsored by Jamestown Settlement, a living history museum in the Williamsburg area of Virginia.

When John Smith first encountered Pocahontas, she was only ten years old... hardly a candidate for romance. They probably met in 1607 when the Englishman was captured and brought before her father, Powhatan, the supreme chief of the Powhatan Chiefdom. Smith later asserted that the girl had intervened at the chief’s headquarters at Werowocomoco and saved him from execution, but about this there is much historical dispute. After Smith left Virginia in 1609 Pocahontas was not seen again among the English until 1613.

In that year the settlers heard she was visiting Indians on the Potomac River, and they kidnapped her in order to ransom English prisoners (as well as some stolen tools and weapons) being held by her father.

Powhatan didn’t return everything that had been taken, so the settlers kept her… probably up the James River at the Henrico settlement. There she was tutored in English customs and religion, and there she met tobacco entrepreneur, John Rolfe. In 1614, after Pocahontas was baptized with the name Rebecca, the two were married, and the next year she gave birth to a son, Thomas.

In 1616, the Rolfes, accompanied Sir Thomas Dale and a delegation of Indians to England to seek financial support for the colony. She was presented at court to King James and Queen Anne, but while in London she also became ill. Convalescing in the countryside, Pocahontas was visited by her old friend John Smith. She died on the River Thames as the Rolfe’s began their trip home to Virginia, and is buried today at St. George’s Church, Gravesend, England.

To learn more, visit history is fun dot org.

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