Pocahontas was an Indian girl in the Powhatan Tribe.  Her father was the chief of her tribe.  She was born around 1595 to her father’s wife, which was one of many!  Their daughter’s name was Matoaka, she’s better known as Pocahontas.  Pocahontas’s name means “little wanton, playful, frolicsome little girl.”

When Pocahontas was around 17, she saw white men for the first time in her entire life. The one she liked the most was Captain John Smith. According to John Smith, he was forced by the Indians to spread out his body onto flat stones, as the Indians stood up over him with clubs, they were going to beat him to death as ordered from Chief Powhatan. Suddenly, Pocahontas rushed over to protect him from death, laying HER OWN body over his. Chief Powhatan saw this behavior and declared Smith as friends with himself and his tribe, also adopting John Smith as his own son.

When Pocahontas got older, she became attracted to an English white man, John Rolfe. Eventually, they got married, and Pocahontas took an English name, Rebecca. Also, she gave birth to a boy, which they named Thomas.

When Pocahontas went to England, she became diagnosed with a deadly disease known as, Small Pox.  John Rolfe decided to take a boat BACK to Pocahontas’s tribe for her final days, so she could be with them before she died.  On the ship from England back to Virginia, scientists believe Pocahontas was diagnosed with pneumonia or tuberculosis (TB).   When Pocahontas, John Rolfe and Thomas got back to Virginia, Pocahontas laid on the shore and was slowly dying.  She comforted her husband, John, by saying, “all must die” and then she died.  She sadly couldn’t see her father, or her tribe once more.
Pocahontas is an important part of American history because she communicated back and forth between the settlers and Powhatan Indians.