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Depicting Pocahontas
The fat visage of Henry VIII has stayed with me throughout the centuries in Basilius Loggia: The Book of Kings. As I flipped through the 1618 edition, another inscribed portrait popped up in front of me—a New World princess from Virginia. Despite the regal gleam of Pocahontas' steely eyes, she couldn't be more different from the rest of the royal family. The Jacobean pipe hat and lace frills could not disguise her non-Anglo origins. Is it the face that spawned a thousand myths? ” National Portrait Gallery Director Wendy Wick Reaves responded, “What do we know about Pocahontas? Yes. This one of Pocahontas.” "The engraving is the oldest known piece of the NPG's 18,000-piece collection," Reaves continued.
The Portrait Gallery also holds a more recent image, an oil painting of Pocahontas completed more than a century later by an unknown artist who may have worked on the engraving. The myth has begun to work its subtle magic on her face: the complexion is fairer, more Ingrid; the high cheekbones no longer appear so prominent. The hair is European brown instead of Native American black; the eyes are less intense. Anyone trying to find a reasonable resolution between the dry history and the Disney version quickly discovers that none of the details of her real life were her own. Historians have pieced together her life from the accounts of others, most notably her friend Captain John Smith, whose veracity of details and recollections is, to put it mildly, questionable. In the intervening four centuries, others instilled in her many virtues. Poets and writers from Thackeray to Hart Crane hailed her charm. Recently, rock singer Neil Young sang "I'd Give You a Thousand Skins... to See How She Feels." Now, we have Disney’s animated Eco-Warrior Princess. Needless to say, many of the legendary stories about her are fictional. Foremost among them was her saving Captain John Smith from execution, romanticized in the eternal stone sculpture of the United States Capitol. Their famous romance may also have never happened. We do know that Pocahontas was born in Matoka and was a favorite of Powhatan, a powerful chief of the Powhatan Tidewater confederation of Algonquian tribes. "Pocahontas" is a pet name meaning "playful." In 1607, when she was about 12 years old, she first saw 104 Jamestown colonists on a low-lying peninsula on the James River ( now an island) struggled to survive. Virginia's sweltering summers and swamps fostered disease, and the colony had few workers skilled in basic survival skills (by the end of the first summer). By this time, more than half of the population had died) living in fear of random Indian arrows. The British and Powhatans killed each other in periodic skirmishes and retaliations. Powhatan was far from a peaceful Indian leader. , instead attacking and torturing his way to power, he even hired Indian mercenaries to massacre his opponents, and the British could not have behaved better by royal decree. Twice prayed for the "Plantation," declaring its goal to "show the banner of Jesus Christ, even where the throne of Satan is..."
Pocahontas managed to visit in sporadic moments of peace Colonial Secretary William Strachey described the little girl as "dissolute" as she rode around "all over the fort" naked with the young colonists. >
One Englishman, Captain John Smith, proved an exception to the general misfortunes of the small colony. Smith, a man of action and a veteran of foreign wars, believed that Pocahontas was the gateway to the Indians. A possible bridge to the people, and perhaps the key to the colony's survival, no one in Jamestown will forget that 116 English colonists from Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony disappeared without a trace in 1587. . Smith learned the vocabulary and customs of the Algonquian language from Pocahontas, and her friendship brought tangible benefits to the English language.
< p> And the part that tells how Smith fell into Powhatan's ambush is also true. The Indians killed his comrade, imprisoned him, and brought him to Powhatan, who intended to treat him to a meal. Whether as a condemned man's last meal or as a celebration of honor remains a matter of debate. Years after the rescue, Captain Smith oddly wrote his story in the third person in his general's history, recalling the Indian warriors as being. how to bring out "the two great stones." . . So he laid his head on the ground, "preparing to smash it with their sticks, when Pocahontas took it in her arms and placed her own." in him and save him from death. ”
Many historians doubt that Smith’s life was ever in danger.
One popular theory, based on weak evidence, is that Smith inadvertently participated in an adoption ceremony, a ritualized death that brought symbolic rebirth to Indians. "Nightclubs," says ethnohistorian Helen Rowntree, "were a punishment for disobedience, not a treatment for foreigners." "Slow executions of torture and whipping, burning and dismemberment were supposed to be the fate of Smith's opponents. Regardless, Powhatan gave Smith the Indian town of Capahosik to rule, called him a son, and left him unharmed The land was returned to Jamestown.
For a time, Powhatan provided food to the colonists, often brought back by Pocahontas when relations soured. , trying to explain the feelings of both parties. Perhaps the most daring act of her life was to warn Smith of her father's impending treachery, possibly saving his life. ensuring the colony's survival he later wrote to Queen Anne that Pocahontas "is. . . an instrument that protected the colonist from death, famine, and utter chaos. "The colonists repaid her kindness by kidnapping her to obtain concessions from her father. By this time, Smith had returned to England.
Pocahontas married the founder of English tobacco cultivation in Virginia, John Rolfe, a widower, eased relations between the Indians and the colonists. As a capable student of English, she was baptized and given the name Rebecca. Eventually, the patrons of the Jamestown Colony saw that. The market potential of this noble, converted, English-speaking princess lured new colonists to Jamestown, and it was hard to find investors for the cause better than Pocahontas. The "Poster Lady" In the spring of 1616, Pocahontas, Rolf, their young son Thomas, and an Indian retinue set sail for England. Pocahontas was granted the title of King James I and the court of the United States. The first celebrity. The poet and playwright Ben Jonson met her, asked her a few questions, and then stared at her without saying a word for 45 minutes.
But the damp British weather and the smoke from London's coal fires began to affect her health, and several coughs forced her to bed seven months later, although Pocahontas was seriously ill. Ready to sail back to Virginia. Pocahontas wanted to return to Virginia to gain more support and royal support, but she paid a heavy personal price as the ship anchored. She was about 22 years old when she died of tuberculosis or pneumonia in Greyfinder. After the funeral, Rolf was informed that their youngest son would not survive the journey, and he left Thomas behind with an uncle. Together, they sailed back to the colonies and never returned. Sometime during Pocahontas's stay in England, 21-year-old Simon van Gogh, son of the famous Dutch sculptor, De Passe painted her portrait on a copper plate.
Prints were sold to curious people eager to cast their gaze upon the exotic princess who had so bravely aided the colonists
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