Pocahontas (c. 1595-1617)
Indian Christian Princess

Pocahontas is one of the most unique heroines of the nation’s history. Let us understand the reasons for her claim to fame, as recorded in the annals of America’s original history books. She was the favorite daughter of the Emperor Powhatan of the Indians in Virginia. Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, leader of the 1607 settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, were good friends. She saved his life twice, her first allegiance being to her fellow-believers before her own family, after accepting Jesus Christ as her Savior, the Redeemer of her soul.

Pocahontas became Rebecka, and married John Rolfe.

She was baptized in 1613 and took the Christian name, Rebecka. In April, 1614, she married John Rolfe, council member of the Jamestown Colony. Her husband took her and their infant son, Thomas, to England, in the year 1616.

The famed historian Sir William Keith, in his History of Virginia, writes these lines regarding their trip and her meeting once again with Captain John Smith:

…Mr. John Rolfe, and his wife, the Princess Pocahontas, who had been baptized by the name of Rebecka, went along in the same ship with
Sir Thomas Dale, and landed at Plymouth on 12th of June. As soon as Captain Smith at London, who was then ready to sail for New England, heard that his incomparable friend Pocahontas was arrived, lest he should not have the opportunity to see her before his departure, he presented a petition to the Queen in her behalf, setting forth at large all the particular circumstances of his obligations to Pocahontas, but she, happily arriving at London before the Captain left that place, he went to visit her, and for a considerable time the good lady would not condescend to speak to him, or so much as to look towards him; for, it seems, she had been told in Virginia, that Captain Smith was actually dead; and was therefore greatly offended to find she had been so grossly imposed on; and at last, when she was prevailed with to talk to him, she upbraided him with his forgetfulness of the great friendship she had formerly showed to him, and behaved herself in every other respect, so much becoming a person of high birth and rank, that she was treated at court and everywhere else with marks of great distinction; but sometime afterwards she fell sick at Gravesend, as she waited there to embark on her return to Virginia; and after a few days’ illness, died, with all the tokens of piety and religion that became a good Christian; leaving behind her only one son, Thomas Rolfe, whose posterity, in Virginia, at this day, live in very good repute, and inherit lands by descent from her…” ¹

From the above we see that Pocahontas, whose name meant “Bright Stream between two Hills,” ² gained a new name at her conversion to Christianity, that of “Rebecka,” the godly name given to Isaac’s wife in the Old Testament Scriptures.

Pocahontas Leaves an Inheritance to her Descendants

We also learn of the great friendship she maintained with Captain John Smith, and her beautiful, Christian death. We further understand that Pocahontas left an inheritance of lands to her own descendants. This fact is quite contrary to modern-day history book accounts which decry the 1607 settlers as having taken land from the Indians by force; misusing and abusing them – even to the point of robbing them of their inheritance and culture!

To learn more, click here. (Statesmen/Heroes book)

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Bibliography:

¹

Keith, Sir William. The History of the British Plantations in America. Part I
containing the History of Virginia. London: Printed at the expense of the

Society for the Encouragement of Learning by S. Richardson, 1728, p. 129.

²

Mace, William H. A Primary History – Stories of Heroism.
New York: Rand McNally and Company, 1909, p. 63.