Pocahontas Courses

Pocahontas, also known as Matoaka, was a Native American woman notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, which encompassed almost all of the Tidewater region of Virginia. In a well-known historical anecdote, she saved the life of an Englishman, John Smith, in 1607 by placing her head upon his own when her father raised his war club to execute him. Pocahontas is known for her diplomatic efforts to create peace between the English colonists and the Algonquian Native Americans. Though none of her actions extended beyond the Virginia Colony, she was key in the departure of the English from the area without hostility. She was presented to English society as an example of the "civilized savage" in hopes of creating a strong relationship between the English and Native American peoples. Pocahontas’s exact birth and death dates are unknown; however, she must have been born around 1596, and she died in 1617. She married English colonist John Rolfe in April 1614 in Jamestown, Virginia and had one son, Thomas Rolfe. Pocahontas has become an icon of American folklore, and her heroic efforts to bring peace between two vastly different groups of people have become legendary. Her life and the events surrounding it remain a topic of much speculation and romanticization.