The Double Life of Pocahontas

The Double Life of Pocahontas is a biography by Jean Fritz for young readers that traces the life of the Powhatan Indian girl Pocahontas from her childhood in early 17th-century Virginia through her kidnapping, conversion to Christianity, marriage to an English colonist, and early death in England.

Around 1607, Pocahontas was about 11 years old and the favorite daughter of Chief Powhatan, the powerful ruler of a confederacy of Algonquian tribes in Virginia. She lived in the village of Werowocomoco, greeting the Sun each morning, dancing, and romping with other children. She knew that coat-wearing strangers had visited her father's kingdom before, but three years had passed without their return. Unknown to her, three English ships carrying 104 men were approaching Chesapeake Bay with instructions from the London Company, a group of investors financing the venture, to find gold, locate a route to the Pacific Ocean, convert the natives, and produce profitable goods.

The settlers arrived riven by internal conflict. John Smith, a 27-year-old adventurer, clashed with Edward Wingfield, the first president of the governing council. They established Jamestown on a peninsula along the James River, marveling at Virginia's abundance while mistaking worthless rocks for gold. Over the summer, nearly half the colony died of starvation and disease. The survivors removed Wingfield as president, and Smith was put in charge of activities beyond the fort.

In December 1607, Pamunkey Indians ambushed Smith's exploration party and captured him. He was marched across the country for weeks before being brought to Werowocomoco to face Powhatan. In the chief's longhouse, Smith was forced to lay his head on stones while warriors stood over him with raised clubs. Pocahontas rushed forward, cradled his head, and begged for his life. Whether this was a prearranged adoption ceremony or a spontaneous act, Smith was spared. Through the ritual, Pocahontas became Smith's sponsor and considered him her brother, with Powhatan as father to both. Powhatan declared Smith an adopted chief and requested two cannon and a grindstone as gifts.

A fire soon destroyed most of Jamestown, but Powhatan began sending food, with Pocahontas serving as a special ambassador. She moved freely between her father's world and Smith's settlement, racing English boys, learning to turn cartwheels, and exchanging words in both languages. She taught her sisters and friends the English phrase "Love you not me?" This period marked the beginning of her double life, belonging to two worlds at once.

Tensions grew as the English and Powhatan jockeyed for advantage. When the London Company sent a copper crown and gifts to make Powhatan a subject ruler under King James, Powhatan refused to kneel for the coronation and gave only a worn deerskin mantle and seven bushels of corn in return. Afterward, he forbade his people from trading with the settlers and ordered Pocahontas to stop visiting Jamestown, declaring the English their enemies.

Pocahontas struggled with this command, unable to erase the kinship her father had created. When Powhatan invited Smith to visit in January 1609 with a promise of corn, it was actually a trap. That night, Pocahontas slipped away and ran through the dark woods to warn Smith that her father's men planned to kill him, possibly with poisoned food. Tears streaming down her face, she refused the presents Smith offered, saying her father would kill her if he saw them. Smith escaped the next morning.

Smith stabilized the colony briefly as its sole surviving council member, but in the fall of 1609, a spark ignited his gunpowder bag, severely burning him. Stripped of authority by rivals, Smith returned to England for treatment. The settlers told the Indians he was dead, and Pocahontas believed it, reasoning Smith loved Virginia too much to leave voluntarily.

Without Smith, the Indians besieged Jamestown. The winter of 1609-1610, known as the Starving Time, reduced the colony from 500 people to 60. Pocahontas, now 14, tried to put Smith's world behind her and married an Indian man, possibly to help her forget her grief. The survivors boarded boats to abandon Jamestown, but Lord De La Warre, the newly appointed colonial governor, arrived from England with fresh settlers and supplies, reversing the evacuation at the last moment.

Under the harsh new governor Sir Thomas Dale, the colony expanded aggressively, attacking Indian villages and building new settlements. In spring 1613, Captain Samuel Argall, an English colonial officer on a trading mission, discovered 17-year-old Pocahontas staying in the Potomac country and kidnapped her as a hostage to force Powhatan to return stolen weapons and release English captives. She was taken to a parsonage near the settlement of Henrico, where Reverend Alexander Whitaker instructed her in Christianity. The English dressed her in tight-waisted gowns and told her that Okee, the deity her people worshipped, was a devil. Powhatan responded to ransom demands by sending back only seven broken muskets, devastating Pocahontas, who felt her father valued his weapons above her freedom. Her loneliness and sense of abandonment gradually opened her to Christian teachings.

John Rolfe, a 28-year-old widowed tobacco planter, began visiting Pocahontas at the parsonage and fell in love. Pocahontas studied hard, and in spring 1614 she was baptized with the Christian name Rebecca. On April 5, 1614, she and Rolfe married in the Jamestown church. Powhatan, relieved that his daughter was no longer a hostage requiring his surrender, quickly agreed to peace. The period that followed became known as the Peace of Pocahontas. A son, Thomas, was born about a year later.

In 1616, the colonial administration brought Pocahontas and her family to London to revive English interest in Virginia. Upon arriving, Pocahontas learned that Smith was alive, but months passed without a visit from him. Londoners praised her regal bearing, but Pocahontas sensed she was being displayed as proof that Indigenous people could be converted and civilized. She heard English plans to convert her people en masse and knew these schemes would provoke conflict.

Smith finally visited near the end of winter 1617. Anger and grief overwhelmed Pocahontas, and she turned away, unable to speak for hours. When she composed herself, she rebuked him for neglecting her and insisted on their kinship, declaring, "I tell you then I will, and I will bee forever and ever your countrieman" (80).

Pocahontas, increasingly ill with what was likely tuberculosis, begged Rolfe to let the family remain in England, fearing the conflict awaiting them in Virginia. Rolfe refused, eager to return to his tobacco fields. When the family boarded ship, Pocahontas grew too sick to continue after only 25 miles down the Thames River. She was brought ashore at the town of Gravesend and died at age 21, showing no fear and telling Rolfe, "All men must die" (81). Young Thomas was left with Rolfe's brother in England and did not return to Virginia until he was 20, by which time he was thoroughly English.

Fritz traces how Pocahontas's fears about English overreach proved correct. Powhatan died around 1618, and his successor Opechancanough launched a massive surprise attack in March 1622 that killed over 350 settlers. The Virginia colony survived nonetheless, sustained by tobacco profits and an ever-growing English population. Smith never returned to Virginia and died in London in 1631. In the long run, the Indians were steadily pushed back until no room remained for them.