Christoph Bull is a very energetic speaker and enthusiastic about his subject. He gave a lively presentation about the life and times of Pocahontas, who he rightly said we will all know of.
But what do we know about Pocahontas? Christoph asking questions of his audience established what we jointly remembered about her. That she was a native American. Yes! That she saved Captain John Smith’s life, probably. Captain Smith married Pocahontas. The room was at two minds about this, some suggested her husband had been John Rolfe. She was brought to London where she died from disease and she is now buried at Greenwich. Yes! Christoph said, there are many inaccuracies and downright lies that have been passed down to us purporting to be historically correct. She actually married John Rolfe not John Smith. The facts about her saving the life of Captain Smith are unreliable. John Smith wrote several romances in which the heroine throwing herself across the hero to save his life is a customary theme; did that happen to him in real life?.
But how can we find the truth? Christoph said If we wanted facts then we should not bother watching the Disney film about Princess Pocahontas. Whilst it will entertain the family it is total fiction. As for being a Princess, her native American tribe, the Algonquin people, had no concept of nobility. They only recognised the Powhatan, their senior Chief. He was Pocahontas’s father and ruled a vast empire from Canada down the East coast of the USA. The Powhatan [this was not his personal name but a title] had many wives and children. Custom was that they did not all live with him. However, Pocahontas appears to have done so and was reputedly a favourite daughter. Or as Christoph asked. Was she? Her father appeared to go along, without a fuss, with the marriage to John Rolfe and the subsequent ‘kidnap’ to England. He thinks that trade offered by the Europeans was particularly enticing to her father. Tobacco plantations having been established in the area.
What did Pocahontas look like? Christoph showed several photos reputedly of Pocahontas but none of them agreed and some appeared to be artist’s impressions. Some depicted her as being light skinned, undoubtedly due to the political correctness of the times. She and her tribesmen are often depicted in clothing we associate with native Americans as in Cowboy and Indian films. But the Indian tribes, such as the Sioux and the Cheyanne, lived on the Plains and were nomadic. Their dress and customs being relatively different from the Algonquin people who lived along the East coast and farmed. Hence, Pocahontas did not live in a wigwam, as shown in several images of her. Her people lived in more permanent hut like structures, albeit made from skin and sticks as wigwams are.
Christoph gave us an outline of the history of the times in which Pocahontas lived. Queen Elizabeth I was monarch when Sir Walter Raleigh founded Roanoke, and named the state Virginia after the Virgin Queen. Not many of us remembered much about the Roanoke settlement which was a failure.
In 1607, in the reign of James 1 & VI, Jamestown was set up. Also, not much is remembered about that settlement because in 1620 the Pilgrim Father’s arrived. Christoph said it was largely political, from the Civil War period, that the third community became the initial settlement in the history of the USA. However, the latest archaeological findings are enabling historical facts to be corrected.
Pocahontas or Rebecca Rolfe as she became after her marriage and conversion to Christianity, was taken to England. It was always thought willingly but now it is wondered if she was coerced to go on board and they upped anchor and sailed off with her.
In London she was reputedly introduced to King James. There are even paintings of the occasion but Christoph said that never happened. As Christoph said King James abhorred tobacco and would not ever meet anyone who smoked. But it is pretty certain that she did meet the Queen. At the start of her return journey to North America, she became ill and died. She was put ashore at Greenwich and buried in St George’s church. The exact site was lost during the 18th century reconstruction of the church.
Today many family historians claim her and her son Thomas Rolfe as ancestors.
Report by Tricia Baxter