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In 1616, Pocahontas was taken to London in a bid to attract more investment for the colonial ventures overseas and prove that the colonists had been successful in their task of converting the Native Americans to Christianity. The two wed in 1614, and it was hoped that the match would bring about harmony once again between the two cultures. While captive at the preacher’s house, Pocahontas met another English colonist, the tobacco planter John Rolfe. Pocahontas’ baptism was hailed as cultural bridge-building, but it’s also likely that Pocahontas (or Rebecca) felt she had to assume a new identity as a matter of survival. The colonists’ mission in America was to evangelize and convert the native people to Christianity: they hoped that others would follow suit if they could convert Pocahontas. While captive, Pocahontas spent time with a Catholic priest who taught her about the Bible and baptised her, naming her Rebecca. To the English, taking the chief’s daughter seemed like the perfect form of retaliation, and so Pocahontas was lured from her home onto a ship and abducted.
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Kidnapped by the EnglishĪ 19th-century depiction of a young Pocahontas. In the ensuing conflicts, several English colonists were kidnapped by the Powhatan. With Pocahontas no longer bridging peace between the two cultures, tensions erupted. With his departure, the relations between the colony and the Indians deteriorated greatly.īy 1610, Pocahontas had married one of her people and avoided the English settlers. However, Pocahontas wasn’t told of his whereabouts and assumed, after he didn’t return for several months, that he was dead. Smith was hurt in an explosion and returned to England for treatment in October 1609. Was this a genuine love story of girl meets boy? Or was Smith using Pocahontas as a means to an end? Tensions brewingīy 1609, drought, starvation and disease had ravaged the colonists and they became increasingly dependent on the Powhatan to survive. The extent of this relationship is hotly debated today, however. It was said that because of the powerful connection between the chief’s favourite daughter and Smith, the English settlement was able to coexist with Native Americans in the region.
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He is believed to have been adopted as a son of the chief and considered a respected leader. Listen Now Pocahontas and John Smithįollowing these events, Smith enjoyed a special status among the Powhatan people. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government’s auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington’s small but growing bureaucracy. Claudio Saunt joined Dan on the podcast to discuss the United States' expulsion of Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River.