On April 5, 1614, in a small wooden church in Jamestown, Virginia, a young Powhatan woman named Pocahontas married an English tobacco farmer named John Rolfe. She wore a white dress decorated with pearls, and her father, the powerful Chief Powhatan, sent her uncle to witness the ceremony. The wedding stunned both the English settlers and the Powhatan people - but it brought a fragile peace to a colony that had been fighting for years.
Pocahontas, whose real name was Matoaka, had grown up among more than 30 tribes ruled by her father. She was a curious, clever kid who first met the English when she was only about 11 years old. After being captured by colonists in 1613, she lived in Henricus, learned English, and chose to be baptized with the new name Rebecca. Her marriage to Rolfe ended the First Anglo-Powhatan War and started what historians call the 'Peace of Pocahontas.'
In 1616 she sailed to England, where she met King James I and dazzled London society. Sadly, she fell ill before she could return home and died at just 21 years old. Her son, Thomas Rolfe, grew up to have descendants who still live today. Pocahontas's real story is far more complicated than the cartoon - a story of two cultures colliding, and one teenager trying to keep peace between them.
