Pocahontas was on her way home, "sorely against her will," when she was smitten with illness on board ship and taken ashore at Gravesend. There she died, March 1, 1617, sustained by the faith and hope of the true Christian. She was interred in the chancel of St. George's Church; the exact spot of burial is, however, not known.
Before she left England her portrait was painted by an unknown artist, and presented to Mr. Peter Elwin, a relative of the Rolfe family, by Madame Zucchelli. As Zucchero was a painter of the time, the name Zucchelli might have been mistaken for his. Zucchero painted a beautiful portrait of Queen Elizabeth with a marvellous jewelled stomacher, but without the monstrous fanlike wings of gauze at the throat with which we are familiar.
Royal Palace, Whitehall.
John Rolfe left his son in England to be educated, and he found his "match" once more, and married the daughter of a rich man at Jamestown. Pocahontas's son married also, and was the progenitor of some of Virginia's most distinguished citizens and statesmen. He visited his uncle Opechancanough and his aunt "Cleopatre" after he returned to Virginia. He was not ashamed of his Indian relatives! Nor are his descendants. The names of Pocahontas, Powhatan, and Matoaca are still borne by them.
It has been said that Pocahontas died of smallpox. We know nothing from printed record or parish register except that she was buried in the chancel of the church at Gravesend in the County of Kent; that the church was destroyed by fire in 1727, and a new church, St. George's, erected upon the site of the old one; and that the Rev. John H. Haslam, later rector, placed a commemorative tablet in the chancel recording all that careful investigation has yielded of the spot where her ashes lie. One could wish that she might have found her last resting-place under the skies of her native country; that from her "unpolluted flesh violets"—the lovely wild violets of Virginia—might "spring" with every return of summer.
The infant son of Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe, was placed under the care of Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice Admiral of Devon; and here again the story of the Indian girl touches that of Sir Walter Raleigh.[82] It was this Stukely who afterwards basely betrayed his friend, Sir Walter, and by this treachery covered himself with infamy. The son of Pocahontas did not long breathe the atmosphere polluted by this traitor. He was removed to London and educated by his uncle, Henry Rolfe.
Thomas Rolfe's immediate descendants married into the families of Bolling, Randolph, Gay, Eldridge, and Murray. No trace of the Indian in feature or character survives in those highly esteemed Virginia families. The haughty, vindictive spirit of the cruel Powhatan may have burnt itself out in the veins of John Randolph of Roanoke, who left no descendants.
Pocahontas will always be interesting to the student of colonial history. The story of her life was a strange one, and stranger the story to its end. Her father and her kindred were consigned to the tomb with the rites and lamentations of the savage, and with wild heathenish invocations to the Devil of their imaginations. She, alone of all her tribe, simply as a consequence of one noble act, received Christian burial, in hallowed Christian soil, and is embalmed forever in grateful Christian hearts.