According to Strachey, a good authority, the Indians had several different names given them at different times, and Powhatan called his favorite daughter when quite young, Pocahontas, that is, "Little Wanton," but at a riper age she was called Amonate. According to Stith,[121:B] her real name was Matoax, which the people of her nation concealed from the English, and changed it to Pocahontas from a superstitious fear, lest, knowing her true name, they should do her some injury. Others suppose Matoax to have been her individual name, Pocahontas her title. After her conversion she was baptized by the name of Rebecca, and she was sometimes styled the "Lady Rebecca." The ceremony of her baptism has been made the subject of a picture, (by Chapman,) exhibited in the rotundo of the Capitol at Washington.
Of the brothers of Pocahontas, Nantaquaus, or Nantaquoud, is especially distinguished for having shown Captain Smith "exceeding great courtesy," interceding with his father, Powhatan, in behalf of the captive, and he was the "manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit," Smith ever saw in a savage.
Of the sisters of Pocahontas two are particularly mentioned, Cleopatre and Matachanna. Strachey has recorded the names of the numerous wives and children of Powhatan, the greater part of which are harsh and guttural, and apparently almost incapable of being pronounced by the vocal organs of civilized man.
Smith says that Pocahontas, "with her wild train, visited Jamestown as freely as her father's habitation." In these visits she had to cross the York River, some two miles wide, in a canoe, ("quintan" in the Powhatan language,) and then walk some ten or twelve miles across to Jamestown. She is described as "being of a great spirit, however her stature;" from which it may be inferred that she was below the middle height.[122:A] She died at the age of twenty-two, having been born about the year 1595. Her infant son, Thomas Rolfe, was left for a time at Plymouth, under the care of Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice-Admiral of Devon, who afterwards, by his base treachery toward Sir Walter Raleigh, covered himself with infamy, and by dishonest and criminal practices reduced himself to beggary. The son of Pocahontas was subsequently removed to London, where he was educated under the care of his uncle, Henry Rolfe, a merchant.[122:B]
Thomas Rolfe came to Virginia and became a person of fortune and note in the colony. It has been said that he married in England a Miss Poyers; however that may have been, he left an only daughter, Jane Rolfe, who married Colonel Robert Bolling. He lies buried at Farmingdale, in the County of Prince George.[122:C] This Colonel Robert Bolling was the son of John and Mary Bolling, of Alhallows, Barkin Parish, Tower Street, London. He was born in December, 1646, and came to Virginia in October, 1660, and died in July, 1709, aged sixty-two years. Colonel Robert Bolling, and Jane Rolfe, his wife, left an only son, Major John Bolling, father of Colonel John Bolling and several daughters, who married respectively, Col. Richard Randolph, Colonel John Fleming, Doctor William Gay, Mr. Thomas Eldridge, and Mr. James Murray.
Censure is sometimes cast upon Captain Smith for having failed to marry Pocahontas; but history no where gives any just ground for such a reproach. The rescue of Smith took place in the winter of 1607, when he was twenty-eight years of age, and she only twelve or thirteen.[123:A] Smith left Virginia early in 1609, and never returned. Pocahontas was then about fourteen years of age; but if she had been older, it would have been impossible for him to marry her unless by kidnapping her, as was done by the unscrupulous Argall some years afterwards—a measure which, if it had been adopted in 1609, when the colony was so feeble, and so rent by faction, would probably have provoked the vengeance of Powhatan, and overwhelmed the plantation in premature ruin. It was in 1612 that Argall captured Pocahontas on the banks of the Potomac, and from the departure of Smith until this time she never had been seen at Jamestown, but had lived on the distant banks of the Potomac. In the spring of 1613 it is stated, that long before that time "Mr. John Rolfe had been in love with Pocahontas, and she with him." This attachment must, therefore, have been formed immediately after her capture, if it did not exist before; and the marriage took place in April, 1613. It is true that Pocahontas had been led to believe that Smith was dead, and in practising this deception upon her, Rolfe must have been a party; but Smith was in no manner whatever privy to it; he cherished for her a friendship animated by the deepest emotions of gratitude; and friendship, according to Spenser, a cotemporary poet, is a more exalted sentiment than love.
Pocahontas appears to have regarded Smith with a sort of filial affection, and she accordingly said to him, in the interview at Brentford, "I tell you then, I will call you father, and you shall call me child." The delusion practised on her relative to Smith's death would, indeed, seem to argue an apprehension on the part of Rolfe and his friends that she would not marry another while Smith was alive, and the particular circumstances of the interview at Brentford would seem to confirm the existence of such an apprehension. Yet, however that may have been, the honor and integrity of Smith remain untarnished.
FOOTNOTES:
[112:A] Smith, ii. 19. There appears to be a mistake in affixing William Parker's name to the account of this visit, for it was evidently written by Hamor.