The American Tribune@TAmTrib
One particularly interesting part of the Pocahontas story is that she chose to stay with the English, to convert, to adopt English culture, and to marry John Rolfe...and did so because her own people betrayed her repeatedly
First they sold her for a copper kettle, then her dad abandoned her for a few rusty swords. She was infuriated, and rejected her people for the English for that reason
Benjamin Woolley tells the story of what happened next in his Savage Kingdom, noting:
When Dale first received Rolfe’s letter, the young girl had been with the English nearly a year. During that time no word had come from her father or her people enquiring of her welfare, or offering terms for her return. If she now married Rolfe, she could no longer be used as a hostage. So, before Rolfe’s relationship was allowed to develop any further, Dale resolved that the time had come ‘to move [the Indians] to fight for her’. In a fleet of frigates and boats, led by Argall in the Treasurer, he set off with Pocahontas, Rolfe and one hundred and fifty soldiers for Werowocomoco (which the English still believed to be Powhatan’s capital). Cruising up the Pamunkey river for a day or two, he eventually saw a small group of warriors standing on the bank. Dale went ashore with some of his soldiers, making sure that Pocahontas was visible on the deck of the Treasurer.
He announced to the warriors that he had come to deliver Princess Pocahontas back to her father. In return, he expected all previous demands for the return of weapons and renegades to be fully met. Dale especially insisted upon the return of one Simons, ‘who had thrice played the renegade’, and was accused of practising ‘lies and villainy’ among the Indians. If these conditions were not met, his men would ‘fight with them, burn their houses, take away their canoes, break down their fishing weirs, and do them what other damages we could’.”
In fact, it was during this journey that Pocahontas appears to have split from her people, and during which she decided to integrate with the English, rather than her people, who she saw as having scorned her. Woolley continues:
“The next morning, two of Pocahontas’s brothers appeared. English accounts of their reunion with their sister suggest an emotional and awkward confrontation. Fearing that she had been badly treated, they ‘much rejoiced’ at her being in good health. Pocahontas, however, was furious. She told her brothers ‘that if her father had loved her, he would not value her less than old swords, pieces, or axes; wherefore she would still dwell with the Englishmen, who loved her’. Perhaps taken aback by her anger, they promised that they would ‘undoubtedly persuade their father to redeem her’.
"The two brothers were then taken aboard the Treasurer, and Dale selected two men to go and negotiate direct with Powhatan. One was Robert Sparks, who had had previous dealings with the Indians during an expedition with Argall. The other was John Rolfe. They returned a day later with the news that they been denied an audience with Powhatan, but instead had been taken to Opechancanough…”
In fact, it was out of her frustration with her people that Pocahontas chose to go along with being baptized, to join the English…and thus to marry Rolfe. She chose to embrace the English life willingly, as her people had proven cold and treacherous. As Woolley notes:
“The English sailed back to Jamestown, and Pocahontas was returned to Henrico. There is no record of her response to these events. She may have felt her father had betrayed her, or that she had been sacrificed as part of some greater plan, or that political considerations were overcome by her personal feelings towards Rolfe. Whatever her reaction, she now embraced a new life with her captors.
"She was taken to Henrico church, and, leaning over a pail or trough, allowed Reverend Whitaker to wash away her former identity as princess of the Tsenacomoco, daughter of Powhatan and child of Ahone with a trickle of water. She emerged baptized Rebecca, after the wife of Isaac, son of Abraham. The choice of name was portentous, rich with hopes and anxieties about her new role. In Genesis, Rebecca becomes pregnant with twins, and God tells her, ‘Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people.’ The Biblical Rebecca had given birth to Esau, a ‘cunning hunter’, and Jacob, ‘a plain man, dwelling in tents’, two brothers who would be perpetually engaged in a struggle for primacy one over the other. After the christening came the banns of marriage, the public declaration before the congregation of Henrico of John Rolfe’s betrothal to ‘Rebecca’.”
