Transcription
Hi everybody, welcome to this timeline documentary. My name is Dan Snow, and here I am in a Lancaster bomber cockpit, one of the few remaining Lancasters from the Second World War, to tell you about my new history channel. It's called History Hit. It's like Netflix for history, hundreds of history documentaries on there, and interviews with many of the world's best historians. Follow the information below this film or just search online for History Hit, and make sure you use the code 'TIMELINE' to get a special introductory offer. Now, enjoy this show!
An epic adventure in the New World. English settlers arrive, desperate to establish a colony. Two worlds collide in Virginia. The Native American princess Pocahontas is entranced with one Englishman, but marries another. She rescues the colonists who take her hostage. Her fate leads her all the way to the English royal court. Many see her as a symbol of peace between different cultures. This is a 400-year-old story of love, betrayal, and death.
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At the beginning of the 17th century, the Spanish Habsburgs rule the world's oceans. They already control Central and Southern America and are fast extending their power base along the coast towards the North. British ruler James the First needs to act quickly if he hopes to found his own colonies in North America. The Virginia Company have the royal contract to settle the New World. The colonists set out four months ago. After a detour through the Caribbean, they head for the coast of Virginia, named after the Virgin Queen Elizabeth the First.
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On a spring day in 1607, the Susan Constant and two smaller sailboats finally reach a peninsula at the base of the mighty James River. In search of a suitable place to settle, they travel 100 miles upriver through the Chesapeake Bay. They believe this sheltered peninsula would be the perfect place to establish a colony.
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Bound in chains as Captain John Smith. He organized a mutiny during the crossing and now has just minutes to live.
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But Captain Newport, the commander of the expedition, can't order his execution yet.
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First, he must read aloud the official guidelines for the new colony, given to him by the Virginia Company.
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These orders have remained sealed until now.
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"By the grace of God, we have survived our journey, and now we must follow the instructions of our King and the Virginia Company. We are to harvest the riches of the New World and find a passage through it to the East, and above all, claim this land for fair England. And here among the councillors is Captain John Smith. He must be set free and be in charge of our military here at Jamestown. So, set him free, man!"
Years later, John Smith chronicled his wild life. Who was this adventurer and author whose statue stands at the site of the original landing? Arrogant and disrespectful, tactless and brutal, bursting with strength and worldly experience, John Smith fashioned his image as the ideal colonist through his writings. But was the co-founder of America really an uncouth braggart?
If we judge John Smith by today's standards, he was culturally insensitive. If we judge him compared to his peers, he comes out pretty well. He was a rather remarkable person because he had extraordinary experiences, experiences long before he he even came to Virginia's 27, um, in 16 and 1607. But he had had adventures all across Eastern Europe.
At the age of 16, the young man from a good family leaves home. He is desperate for adventure and finds it fighting as a mercenary against the Spaniards and the Turks. He soon becomes a legend for his courage, audacity, and savagery in battle. He mercilessly decapitates three Turkish officers in a duel, one after the other. Knighted by his employers, he is given his own coat of arms which sports three severed heads. While serving the Habsburgs in Hungary, Smith is captured by the Turks and sold as a slave to the Tartars. Assigned as the personal servant of his master's favorite mistress, Smith kills his master and manages to escape. After many months of danger and adventure, he finally returns to England. His swagger and belief in himself seems perfect for the New World. The Virginia Company hires him.
"By the time he comes to Virginia, he's seen a lot. He's seen a lot of different people and different ways of life, and he's much more sensitive than than than most people were. He came in in a very strategic, military sort of way. He wanted to know: what's the landscape? What are the resources? What are the numbers? Who's in control? How are we going to be able to get from point A to point B? Travel, resources, food, military – those are the areas that Smith is particularly interested in."
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"He was very brash and outspoken. He generally thought that he was the best man in any room, and in most cases, he probably probably was. But he had lots, he offended a lot of people, uh, in English society."
It's not the first English attempt to found a settlement in Virginia. Sir Walter Raleigh failed miserably many years before with an expedition which ended in disaster.
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It is clear to the Virginia Company that in order to survive, finding a strategic location is vital. Spanish forces patrol the coastline. Building a fort upriver, out of sight and range of Spanish guns, may be the answer. "The first group was very fortunate in that they had been given very detailed instructions from the Virginia Company as to the site of their location to settle. They were supposed to settle on a river that bent in, went inland, and bent toward the northwest, because the English knew already at this point that Spain and Portugal were controlling southern routes to the riches of the Orient, which was one of their ultimate aims. They wanted to tap what was here in the New World, but they also wanted to get to the to the East Indies, and they couldn't go to the south. So they had this notion in their heads already of a northwestern route, the Northwest Passage theory to the Orient. So they were supposed to look for a river that bent toward the northwest. They were to settle on a location about a hundred miles inland. Don't plant your major settlement at the mouth of the river because the Spanish, who are further down in Florida, could come up and wipe out your settlement."
The colonists believe they have found the ideal site: a peninsula with a narrow land bridge which should be easy to defend. This will be Jamestown, their new home. The fact that the peninsula is totally uninhabited seems to be a great advantage. They only discover why when it is too late. In the summer, the level of the James River drops. Salt water floods the peninsula, creating a boggy swamp, the perfect breeding ground for fever-carrying mosquitoes.
At first, the Native Americans quietly observe the settlers. The colonists try to settle into their new home, but life is grim. No one considers exploring anymore. Trade is out of the question. Leaving the fort alone can be fatal. Fever and diarrhea weaken the settlers. Their supplies are soon exhausted. The water, undrinkable. The colonists start to starve. Despair spreads like a disease.
Scientists today are able to build a detailed picture of the life of the men who, in the face of disaster, created the nucleus of the United States of America we know today. Archaeologist Bill Kelso never believed, like some, that the last remains of the fort were swept out to sea by the James River. In 1994, he made a huge breakthrough: he unearthed Jamestown. "Jamestown is coming out of this sort of earthen shroud, I say. It's been, it's been covered up, and places like Plymouth and and New Amsterdam, which came to New York, and and they're they're major cities now. So, uh, you know, their their history has been taken more seriously, whereas Jamestown, by the time you get to the 20th century, is pretty much just a quiet little park, you know. It's not a, it's not a thriving city. But underneath the ground, we can show that it was a major city. You actually have to go to the place, and you'll experience, you know, that you'll get a whole different perspective on on the beginning of what it turns out to be the British Empire. This is the first colony of the English out of the British Isles. It's number one. I think it starts here, that whole idea of, you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, you know, I mean, it's, it's certainly that that comes in with the British at that."
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Bill's archaeological team unravels the mystery of who the men were who risked all to settle in a strange, unknown world. Artifacts are reassembled and catalogued in the laboratory near the excavation site. Everyday items, weapons, and tools, bones are carefully analyzed. The team discovers objects from all corners of the world: Spanish olive pots, Italian daggers, German clay jugs, Turkish jewelry, even Chinese porcelain. The settlers were not just simple farmers and craftsmen. Some were gentlemen, officers, and aristocrats, used to a life of luxury. "There were a number of gentlemen, and in the past, they've been blamed for all the, the colony almost not surviving. You know, we always hear about the lazy gentleman, but the thing was that many of them had just come from the wars in the Low Countries where they were fighting the Spanish. They were well-trained military individuals, so they came with their equipment, and their job was to protect the craftsmen, the specialists, while they went about their jobs at making money. So that they signed on not with the idea that they would actually have to do the work. I mean, as it turned out, they did because so many people died and they were short-handed, so there was a lot of grumbling. But yes, we had many second and third sons from the highest rungs of society, and we see indications of that in signet rings and heraldry that are personal items that are showing up here. They were to, um, not to spend their time in agriculture to feed themselves. That was not the kind of settlement this was going to be. They didn't have women. They came as as a group of men to try to exploit the resources to make money. There were mostly young men aged between 20 and 30; some were even younger."
Based on bones they discover, the archaeologists can determine exactly what the settlers looked like. Comparisons with the DNA of the settlers' descendants even mean the identities of some of the skeletons can be revealed. Bartholomew Gosnold was one of the colony's leaders. He died just four months after his arrival.
Death is rife in the colony. After less than five months, only a third of the settlers are still left alive. The survivors are weakened by hunger, diarrhea, and fever, and worn down by constant Native American attacks. There are no women or children to help absorb the growing aggression. Mistrust among the men is everywhere. All feel betrayed. Every man looks out for number one. At the beginning of December, life in the colony hits rock bottom. John Smith decides to leave the protection of the fort with some soldiers to seek contact with the Native Americans. He hopes to trade copper jewelry for food, but if needs be, he plans to take the supplies by force. The men follow the river deeper into the wilderness. They are used to confronting adversaries who stand before them on the battlefields of Europe. Here, their enemies hide.
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The slightest noise terrifies the young soldiers.
"So, Smith was probably identified very quickly by the Powhatan peoples as being a leadership figure. And because of that, in terms of Powhatan warfare, uh, they separated him out from his men. And, uh, this was partly because of his position with the English, but partly because they also wanted to devise what information Smith had. What was, what was his plan? What were the English up to? Why were they in Virginia? Why were they in this territory? Uh, so the priests were brought in at different points to conjure over Smith and to devise, you know, to divine what, uh, what, what type of plans the English had, whether their intentions were harmful, whether their intentions were, uh, for peace, where they were in, indeed, just here for a short period of time and then moving on, whether they were expected to be trading partners. What exactly was it that John Smith and his Englishmen were up to? 'Me, Messiah, what a strange world. What will they do to me? Will they let me live?'"
During the next weeks, Smith is taken on a tour from village to village. He proves to be a great curiosity in each village. "I expected to be executed, but they treated me with great kindness." "Another reason why they took him around to the other and showed them off to other villages in the Powhatan nation was to show the, the average Powhatan person that Captain John Smith wasn't as powerful as they may have thought that he was. 'Look, we captured him. We can contain him. He's not as powerful as you thought he was.'" Finally, he arrives at the village of Werowocomoco, the central power base of Powhatan, the Chief of the Chiefs.
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It's here that Smith most likely first laid eyes on Matawaka, or Pocahontas, as she is called by everyone around her. Smith is captivated. He later describes Pocahontas as fearless. "Pocahontas was simply a nickname which has been translated as meaning something like 'little wanton,' 'a little plaything,' which tells us something about her, particularly how young she was at the time that she first met the English in 1607. She was only 12 or 13. And she was, she was, she was playful, engaging." Pocahontas has fascinated artists, authors, and filmmakers for hundreds of years. Depending on the audience, their story is usually rewritten and embellished. A mythological cloud has descended on the real person. One thing that is certain is that her father loved her dearly. Her mother died giving birth to her, and so Werowance Powhatan, one Seneca, transferred his love to his daughter and then and kind of lived through her, and so she was very special to him. "Well, she was a very active, very lobby little girl and always laughing, and, uh, she was very bright because her father taught her all things, and people liked her. Everyone liked her."
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This is the moment John Smith has dreaded. He has learned a few words of Powhatan language, Algonquian, but he doesn't understand what is happening.
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Blood-curdling cries, razor-sharp tomahawks. Is this the end? John Smith has stared death in the face many times, but this is different. He has no idea what is happening around him. His blood runs cold.
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"There is something that needs to be taken care of, some way that Smith needs to be brought into, uh, Powhatan society, brought into Powhatan domain, control. So they sense that there is an element of danger if Smith is left out of control. So, but they, they don't seem to sense that that is, uh, something that they can't be dealt with, something that can't be resolved. And so part of what their solution to that probably is to incorporate him into the kinship structure, into the social structure, into the political structure. And in so doing, because of his leadership position as the head of the English, and that way they're bringing the English into that same manner, amen, and bringing them into that same type of manifold or manifest or same type of organization. In some way, they're socially bonding, they're unifying, in some way making a political partnership, and therefore with the expectation that Smith and his men and all the English would then reciprocate and share in the same Powhatan ideals."
Was John Smith really rescued by a young girl in love, or did he undergo a Powhatan ritual to assimilate a stranger into their world? "The Southern states have a different take on the story than the one often subscribed to in the North. So there's a lot of pride in Virginia in, in Pocahontas. Um, you know, one of the great murals in the in the U.S. Capitol, uh, was given to a Virginia painter, and, and of course, he painted a Pocahontas, a Pocahontas scene. There are some letters written beginning in 1862 between two Northern historians, Charles Dean and Henry Adams, saying that if you really want to hurt the Virginians, just attack this, this Pocahontas-John Smith story. That's the, you know, if you want to throw a rock, that's going to, that's going to cause more problems than anything. And so they did. And it's really from that point on that people have questioned whether or not Pocahontas really did rescue John Smith. That had been accepted pretty much as as the truth for several hundred years until that point. Whether this really is a tale of romance between a Native American princess and an English soldier is still disputed today. Many consider such a notion mere folklore. The facts speak both for and against a love story. We do know that, um, after this point, there is a relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith. So something happens, um, and, and maybe the question, uh, it, it maybe it's, it's a moot point because we know that that, uh, 13 months later, Pocahontas rescues John Smith a second time when he's at Werowocomoco trying to steal corn from Powhatan, and Powhatan's had enough and decides to kill him, and Pocahontas comes in the middle of the night and warns him that that, that her father once wants to kill him. That's well documented. No one's ever contested that story."
It is also undeniable that after this event, John Smith enjoys a special status among the Powhatan people. He becomes a 'werowance,' an adopted son of the chief, and is considered a respected leader. Smith spends many hours with Pocahontas. Each learns the other's language. Both are hungry to discover all they can about their different worlds.
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"John Smith had very nice things about to say about Pocahontas, saying that she was something about 'the fairest one of her country.' You know, he thought she was very attractive. He held her in high regard. And whether, whether it was all sort of a friendship and a, a younger girl's crush on an older man, who knows? But I think there is a motion there, especially you can see it on her side. He's kind of blustery, he wouldn't admit to anything like that, I don't think, quite. But, um, you know, I think, you know, it's betrayed by her, her reactions, um, the tenderness that was between them. I doubt seriously that there was any relationship other than it was somebody she respected. He was a werowance in the Powhatan society. It would probably been like how she would have felt towards an uncle, that type of relationship. That love story, I think that's something about human, about human nature. It's about the human condition, because that story could have been told if we were in Japan. It could have, could have been told if we were in Germany after World War II. It could have been told if we were in America in the Civil War. It's about boy meets girl, love gained, love lost. It's about that continuing, repetitive story that's been going on since the beginning of recorded history in time. It's what humans, it's what humans like to produce in terms of the way they see themselves and see their lives, and Pocahontas is no different to fall into that category."
Their growing relationship proves to be a blessing for the English. The attacks stop. The settlers can leave their fort in safety and explore their surroundings.
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The Native Americans even save the colonists' lives during the severe winter months. Many settlers have little sense of how to survive, and their leaders haven't thought to set aside supplies to see them through the winter. As the Powhatan approached the fort with food, Pocahontas runs ahead to show the Englishmen that they have come in peace. From that day, the settlers see a salvation in Pocahontas, a misunderstanding which continues to contribute to the romanticism of a life story today.
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Having survived their first winter, the colony flourishes. Ships arrive loaded with new settlers, among them women and children. The peaceful coexistence with the Powhatan people allows the settlement to thrive. During the following months, Pocahontas spends much of her time with John Smith. Many Native Americans come and go freely. Other women live with English settlers. The chief's plan to integrate the foreigners within his federation of tribes seems to be working. John Smith and Pocahontas's time together comes to a sudden end. Smith is hurt in an explosion and returns to England for treatment. "John Smith leaves, uh, Jamestown in the fall, October of 1609. He's injured, slightly injured, in a gunfighter explosion, and, um, he's suddenly just gone. And, and she isn't told. She knows nothing about it. This was apparently, uh, of concern to her later. She just assumed that he was dead. Suddenly he was gone, and relations between the, the colony and the Indians deteriorate greatly at that point because this, this back and forth between Pocahontas and and John Smith can't continue."
Following Smith's sudden disappearance, Pocahontas stops visiting the settlement. The period of harmony between the settlers and the Powhatan people ends. The colony falls into a sharp decline. People go hungry. Many die from fever. Supply ships carrying new settlers and urgent food supplies are long overdue. The colonists have no way of knowing a hurricane in the Caribbean has severely delayed the English fleet. The mood changes dramatically. Some settlers openly suggest using violence to force the Native Americans to help them. Among the Powhatan people, warriors gain the upper hand. They believe the settlers should simply disappear. Angry warriors surround the fort. Whoever leaves must die. "They would get fed, they would have food provided to them by the Indians. This was the plan. So they brought with them lots and lots of glass trade beads. We have found thousands of those and pounds and pounds of scrap copper. Both things were highly desired by the Indians. So it was a good plan, and it worked for a while. But unbeknownst to the colonists, they came at a time of tremendous drought in the area. It was the worst drought in a thousand years, between the years 1606 and 1612. We do have evidence of the kinds of things the survivors said they had to eat. Three out of four of the individuals died in the fort. Survivors said they had to eat rats that come over on the ships, the cats they brought to catch the rats, dogs, which they wouldn't kill because they're useful for hunting and also for protection militarily. The worst thing they had to eat was their horses." Graves unearthed in Jamestown bear testament to this bleak period in the colony's history. "One of the, uh, discoveries was this burial of the 19-year-old Englishman who died of a gunshot wound in his leg, bled to death, and we just almost blew his leg off."
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"So you've got all kinds of ways of dying here. You can starve to death, uh, you can eat, drink bad water, you can, you die with wars with the Powhatan, and you can either accidentally be shot by your own weapons – friendly fires, it was a problem, I'm sure – or the people were, when times got desperate, I'm sure people were fighting over things like food and other things."
The colony seems doomed. Less than 100 settlers from a peak of 500 are still alive, and most of them are severely ill. On June the 7th, 1610, the settlers decide to give up and go back home to England. But to their surprise, just 10 miles downstream, they see English nobleman Thomas West, the Baron De La Warr, sailing straight towards them. West has been appointed Governor of Virginia and brings new settlers, a physician, and food. Eventually, West persuades the settlers to return to Jamestown.
"The English had been very aggressive towards the Powhatan Indians for food. The Powhatans were less willing to trade because all of them were in the midst of a horrible drought, so there was not that much food, and the Powhatans were not willing to trade. The English were taking their food from them, setting up a bad situation." A bitter war ensues. Soldiers murder indiscriminately, burning everything to the ground. When the Powhatan warriors get hold of a settler, they take bloody revenge. "The English, in retaliation, had went, you know, picked back at the Powhatans. During this period of warfare, about four years or so, the Powhatans stole tools, weapons, took English prisoners. There was a lot of thought of that on both sides. But the English were angered to the point of wanting to get at least their prisoners back." To the English, taking the chief's favorite daughter hostage seems to be the perfect form of blackmail. Pocahontas is lured from her home by the Potomac River onto a ship and abducted.
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Pocahontas, now a wife and mother, suffers a period of loneliness and despair. She is kept under guard and cannot leave the fort. Her father partially relents to the kidnappers' demands. Powhatan attacks subside. All English prisoners are released, but they refuse to return the captured weapons. Being separated from her child must have been terrible for Pocahontas. However, the situation was not new to her. During the continuous wars, it was customary for Native Americans to integrate captured women into their communities. Assuming a new identity was a matter of survival for these women. For Pocahontas, it must have been a sad matter of course to become a member of the English tribe. "Well, part of the whole mission that was part of the package of the English colonists was to Christianize the native people of this land. However, they didn't go out and tried to do that on a mass scale. They got the idea of, 'Let's Christianize Pocahontas. We've got her in captivity, so let's, let's convert her to Christianity, and then maybe the other Powhatan people will follow suit.'" Pocahontas spends much of her captivity in the home of a preacher. He teaches her the Bible and finally baptizes her with a new name: Rebecca. Her baptism is transformed repeatedly over the years into a symbol of cultural bridge-building by white Americans. A painting by John Gadsby Chapman, hanging in the rotunda of the Capitol Building in Washington, suggests a peaceful, voluntary conversion, but the artist also includes defiant tribe members who reject the ceremony.
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While in the preacher's house, Pocahontas meets another settler who will have a profound effect on her life: John Rolfe. The combination of Rolfe's entrepreneurial spirit and the tobacco plant has a dramatic effect on the colony. Rolfe arrived with a third group of settlers, having lost his wife and daughter in a shipwreck. The widower recognizes the potential of tobacco straight away, and he knows how to use Native American knowledge to his advantage. They advise him to bury a fish as fertilizer beneath every seedling of tobacco. The Native Americans in Virginia have cultivated tobacco for hundreds of years to use in religious ceremonies, but the local plant is far too strong for English tastes. Rolfe wants to send a milder, sweeter strain of tobacco back home. His answer: a new crop. He has managed to buy seeds illegally from Spaniards in the Caribbean. The Spanish are desperate to monopolize tobacco production; selling seeds to foreigners is punishable by death. Rolfe's Virginia tobacco is a huge success. Great riches lie in store, but cultivating tobacco is very labor-intensive. A few decades later, the first slaves from Africa are forced to work on the tobacco plantations. "He introduced a strain of tobacco that worked. The local tobacco was very harsh, not at all sweet. Spanish had a virtual monopoly on the tobacco trade. He was able, somehow, not easy to do, to get some seeds of the good tobacco, we think, from Trinidad, somewhere in the in the Caribbean, and brought that back to Virginia, um, and, and produced a crop. Um, this, this tobacco had nicotine in it, which was part of the reason it's sold so well in London, and everyone was addicted to it that smoked it. And that changed the economy of, um, of Virginia. Tobacco quickly exhausts the soil, so there is a constant demand for new farmland. But clearing it proves too much work for the settlers, so instead, they take the land from the Native Americans. Tobacco became a cash crop. It turned out that against the advice of the natives, the, the colonists turned every tillable piece of soil into the, into tobacco production, and even the, the streets were, uh, were planted with tobacco at the expense of planting the staples that they would need to survive. And it turned out that the natives provide food, provided food to the settlers when they had the wherewithal to plant the crops, but instead they planted tobacco. So in one sense, the teaching the settlers had a cure, uh, tobacco, how to raise it, uh, was their very undoing because it became such a cash crop. It began to generate income for the Virginia Company and other investors. So, so that says that kind of was, was a nail that was driven that said, 'We're here to stay,' and the settlers, uh, I must say, have been here ever since." The settlers can barely keep up with the insatiable demand for tobacco from Europe. Until now, the colony has been dependent on aid. The economic success tobacco brings gives them strength and independence. Anyone can plant tobacco. The leaves even become a form of currency.
John Rolfe becomes a respected figure, and the widower falls in love again with Pocahontas. Was she in love too? Perhaps. Among the Native Americans, marriage between enemy tribes was a tried and tested method of establishing peace. "The evidence of her entire life suggests, um, that she was very interested in bringing about harmony between the people, the two, the two cultures. And, um, so it is possible that one reason she, she, she decided to become essentially an English woman was that that would bring peace, and indeed it did bring peace." Pocahontas's father consents to her marriage and sends a delegation of dignitaries to the ceremony. But will the union of an English businessman and a Powhatan princess bring peace? "John Rolfe and Pocahontas were married, and within a year or so, they had a son. And Thomas Dale, who was the Lieutenant Governor in charge in the colony at the time, decided that a good strategy would be to take the Rolfe family to England, show people in England what could be done with a Virginia Indian in the way of civilizing and converting her, and thus perhaps gaining more, more folks who are willing to invest in this venture. That was what was, what it was all about. The Virginia Company constantly struggled getting people to invest in their, in the colony."
On her arrival in England, Pocahontas becomes a great celebrity. Her grace, poise, and entourage gain her entrance into high society. Lords and ladies of the court are desperate for her company. When Pocahontas meets King James by chance at a masquerade, he is so unremarkable she doesn't realize who he is. For his part, the King treats her like a member of the high nobility, but he disapproves of the marriage of a princess with the untitled Rolfe. Is the commoner pursuing a political goal with the marriage? Is he plotting high treason? Rolfe writes to the King to assure him neither he, his wife, nor his descendants entertain any aspirations to take the throne of Virginia. Pocahontas has a wealth of new experiences in England. She is overwhelmed, but the English courtiers are not unanimous in their welcome. Some make crystal clear their self-perceived cultural superiority. Does Pocahontas sense what that means for her people? The only contemporary painting from the period shows a serious young woman wearing a fine English dress, staring the viewer proudly in the eye. But Pocahontas is not used to the life in court and soon becomes ill. Rolfe believes her sickness is due to pollution in London. He's convinced fresh country air will revive her. For a time, it does.
While living in the country, something unexpected happens: Pocahontas meets John Smith again. Smith has long known that Pocahontas is in England with her husband, but hasn't sought a meeting with her. We can only surmise why he did not. Had Pocahontas been nothing more to him than a means to an end during their time together in Virginia? "My Lady Rebecca Pocahontas is deeply disappointed in him. Had her father not saved his life, adopted him as a son? Did her people not share their food with the English during their first bitter winter? And they taught each other their languages and cultures. Hadn't they trusted each other? He was to be her older brother, and he had a responsibility to her. It's about reciprocity. Smith was brought into the lineage from Pocahontas's perspective. He had responsibilities as an older brother, and he didn't fulfill them. She felt like he had betrayed her people, that he had lied to her. He had lied to her father. But from an English perspective, there's no way he could have disavowed his allegiance to the British King and been a subject to the Powhatan figure. So he was in a very precarious position."
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As Pocahontas learns more about the English, she fears what will happen to her people in the future. Her carefree attitude adds a deep seriousness. She, her son, and her entourage become sick. Pocahontas is especially ill, possibly suffering from pneumonia or tuberculosis. After nine months in England, Pocahontas wants to return home. She begins the journey back to Virginia with her husband, son, and aids. The party have barely traveled 20 miles down the Thames when John Rolfe lowers anchor off the small town of Gravesend. Pocahontas and her son are too weak to continue.
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John Rolfe must fear the worst. He has already lost one wife and child.
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The days pass with no sign of improvement. Rolfe does not move from his wife's side. Pocahontas dies in Gravesend on March the 21st, 1617, in her husband's arms. The princess is only 22 years old. Her last words are believed to be, "Everyone must die." Her son survives and goes on to have children of his own and found a plantation dynasty in Virginia.
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"I met a, an older woman who told me she was a descendant from Pocahontas. Now, I thought she was making up the story. She didn't look like a Native woman. She had nothing to rem, no symbols of of American Indian culture. But she told me that there was a book available, and I found this book, and it lists all the descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. This is great big book. It's added to continually. But what is interesting, all these people are in, um, Anglo society, in white society, and they are not in the native populations. The lineage became a white lineage in Virginia and an aristocratic lineage. Her descendants became the people of rank in the early Virginia society, including the current Lieutenant Governor."
400 years later, only a few descendants survive the once mighty federation of tribes led by Powhatan, Pocahontas's father. They live on in small reservations like the Mattaponi Indians. "I think it may be one of the underlying reasons why this story stays with us, why it resonates with us, why it appears to be on one level a love story, but at its core, it's about the creation of new people, about bringing old and and new together. It's a, it's about hope, even where I think colonialism has such, uh, a bad history, a horrible history, and that in reality, it's about the destruction of one society by another, the destruction of Native societies. The fact that we hold this one story out, it almost saves the rest of us from the ugliness of the colonial history. The people living in the reservation feel like direct descendants, even if their family tree is not in any books there. Pocahontas has not been idolized or glorified."
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Would her experiences in England have helped spare her tribe or the fate of the Native American people? That we will never know.
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The Europeans came to North America with a military superiority and a determination to bring everything under their control. They simply took what they wanted. It is doubtful Pocahontas would have been able to stop their desire for domination. Today, 400 years later, faces which reflect the entire ethnic breadth of the United States of America are found in the Mattaponi reservation.
[Music]
A pluribus unum, from many, the one, reflecting the hope expressed in the motto of the Great Seal of the United States of America.
[Music]