Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Dromple. And we are very, very lucky because once again we are joined by the legendary Camilla Townsend. We left you in the last episode having explored Pocahontas' family. We met her father, who's a powerful Native American chief in what is now present-day Virginia, Powhatan Territory.
Now, there's another man who most people associate with the Pocahontas story, isn't there, Anita? I mean, you know, you can't say Pocahontas' name in popular culture without also mentioning John Smith. And the image that's often conjured up is kind of a Chris Hemsworth type Thor-like creature with very blonde flowing hair, crystal blue eyes. Magnificent pecs.
Jaw like a brick. I mean, what did the real John Smith look like? And who was he? So John Smith was one of the settlers who came to Virginia in 1607 in order to settle the town that they named Jamestown after the king. And he actually ended up becoming what was called president of the colony. He didn't start out that way, but was rapidly promoted to that. And he was sent
up various rivers to try to trade with the Indians in order to get more food because the English were starving. And it worked. The first couple of times he went up river, he did manage to make some trades, but the indigenous were noticing him and thinking about this. And on the third try, they actually simply captured him and took him to Wairuakomoko, the capital of Tsenomukomoko, that is where Powhatan, the king, lived.
and they questioned him. At that time, of course, they had to do all of this through signs and symbols and gestures. But Pocahontas, one of the daughters of Poetan, as we've said, was assigned to him. And because she was young, a child, she learned languages quickly. And so we know that she and John Smith were trying to teach each other something of their language. What was the age difference between them? When you say she was a child, what was the age difference?
We think she was nine, perhaps 10 years old at that time. And John Smith was in his early 30s. We don't know exactly what he looked like, but he was known to have been rather short and stocky. There is an engraving of his face, but he looks like any other bearded English gentleman at the time. Okay.
So all we really know is short, stocky, and about three or four times as old as she was. But do we not know that he had a big bushy black beard and big flowing black hair? I mean, isn't that also sort of mentioned? Or am I misremembering that? Bushy beard. And it does, in the engraving, it does look as though the artist was trying to represent it as dark hair. I'm not aware...
where did anyone ever said in a diary or letter that the hair was black but maybe but I mean he's short he's stocky and he's sort of bushy which is not the image that we have yeah and most importantly of all he's significantly older and she's a child
She's a child, right. The idea that there was anything between them in the sense of a romantic relationship is clearly utter nonsense, but given the age and given things that she is known to have said later. He did say later during an investigation of his conduct that was occurring, I'm paraphrasing here, but it's pretty close. Some people do say that when I was in my cups, you know, when I was drinking, I did paw at her a little bit. So as if he had sexually molested her a bit.
and claimed her as my woman. But I would never have done such a thing because I knew that she, although the king's daughter, was never one who was going to inherit power. Oh, my God. Yes, isn't that dreadful? He had been accused, in effect, of trying to make to
time, as we say over here in America, with this girl on grounds that if he married her, he would then be someone very powerful because he'd be marrying the local Indian king's daughter. And his defense was not that he had never touched her. Or that she was a child. Or that she was a child, right. He acknowledged, in effect, that he had pawed at her, but simply that he would never have been planning to actually establish a relationship because he, who knew the situation, knew that that would do him no good politically.
But also no truth in the kind of Disney version or the later legend that she saved his life. Not at all. It's interesting. Some historians have tried to save that legend. What we know is that he was taken prisoner when he went up river to try to secure some food from the Indians. Solo. He had no assistants, no one with him. Um,
Actually, he did, and they got shot. That's a very good question, Will. Just as in makers of modern movies, we tend to forget all about the side characters who are killed in the battle. So they were shot. He's dragged in as a prisoner and is held in their village for, I would have to check, I believe it was two months ago.
And during that time, there was gesturing and the daughter learned some language, at least according to him. And we think even in terms of what makes sense, there were some arrangements made. He was later brought back to the village and some goods were given to the Indians in exchange. And the Indians did seem to feel that they had gained some knowledge.
That is all that John Smith himself said had occurred when he first came back and wrote a report of his experiences that was sent back to London to the Virginia Company.
Many years later, when all the other principles were dead and some events had occurred that made the situation look a bit different, in effect, the Indians had risen and tried to chase the English out of the colony so that people in London had a much more negative impression of them. At that time, John Smith wrote a book, and he said in that book that the king, Poitin,
and his people grabbed him and forced him down and planned to bash his brains out, but that very fortunately the king's daughter threw herself over him to save his life and the king respected her wishes and did not kill him.
The reason nobody believes this or scholars don't believe this now is not just that he only said it years later when all the people who could deny it were dead, but also that John Smith told a similar story three different times.
In his writings, he wrote about his travels, which included travels to Russia and even to North Africa at one point after a shipwreck. He always claimed that a beautiful half-naked young girl had tried to save his life.
And that the father or the owner of the slaves, whoever it was, had not killed him for that reason. So it seems to have been a favored motif on his part, a trope. And it seems to have been something that the English readership liked. A friend of mine who is a medievalist says that apparently in quite a bit of medieval English literature, if you're a guy, you know that a young woman reads.
really loves you if she's willing to die for you. And I did ask him, does it work in reverse? And he said, no, no, no, the girls have to die for the guys. No, absolutely. So this man, like many others in the period, is a stud in his own mind and probably none of this actually happened. So what do we know? This would never happen today, I should say. Yeah.
She says wearily. But what actually did happen then? I mean, what do we know of? So he's held prisoner for two months. How does he get out of the camp? And is Pocahontas with him when he leaves the camp? John Smith leaves with an escort given to him by Poitin. He is brought back by the Indians fully voluntarily to the English camp.
This is why or part of why we have no reason to think they tried to kill him. They clearly spent the time questioning him, talking to him and setting up an arrangement. Did they just pack him off with a coat with raccoon tails and things? So he was sort of quite well taken care of. He was taken care of. Yes, he was given raccoon tails and other gifts.
Is that a very fancy raccoon tail? Is that five-star treatment? Yes, that's five-star treatment. I suppose through movies and such, every European now knows what an American raccoon looks like, but they are quite dramatic and a fringe of raccoon tails is elegant indeed, even now. So he goes back with various gifts and he, according to
Poetan's druthers, he is to give the Indians gifts in return. What Poetan really wants is a falconette, you know, a small cannon. He doesn't get that, but they do give him other gifts. It's a bit vague as to exactly what. It's very clear that Poetan, which makes perfect sense politically, is trying to set up an arrangement, a mutual gift-giving arrangement.
A giving arrangement as an alliance. So, you know, this was going to strengthen his position. You said that he's surrounded by tribes that he makes war with. But I mean, is that what he's thinking? That's exactly right, Anita. This is a very powerful man in his own context. But in order to maintain that power, he needs to be the one with a pipeline to these remarkable goods that these strangers have. Weapons, guns in particular. But also kind of agricultural instruments and things presumably would be useful for them. Yeah.
Anything made of metal because they didn't have it. So whether it was a head to tie to a stick and make a hoe out of it or a metal axe, which would work better than their stone. You know, they had flint and other stone tools and arrows, of course, but you can make a lot more progress cutting down a tree in your farm field if you have a metal axe than if you have a flint axe.
So they wanted all of these things. They had also seen muskets fired and they wanted those too, although they proved to be harder to buy from the Europeans. So in a sense, that explains why they're not just wiping the Europeans out. There's things they can get from the Europeans that make them useful neighbors as well as a threat.
That's exactly right. The indigenous tribes who have a trade relationship with these newcomers will be more powerful in their own context. And at that time, Poetan, Pocahontas' father, would have had little reason to think that these people would ever become a terrible threat.
A bit of a threat, yes, because, for example, when the Indians shot arrows at metal armor, the arrows would simply splinter. You know, they had certainly learned that the European weaponry and armor was powerful, but he would have had little reason to think that this was going to be an existential threat. There just weren't that many of them.
It took a while for them to realize how dangerous. Yeah, but at no point, I mean, it sounds like a business transaction. At no point does it sound as if they ever fell to their knees, the indigenous tribes, and say, we worship you, great Europeans. We think you're amazing. All that sort of Cortez stuff. Oh, there was none of that.
I mean, even by the English own testimonies, we don't have to look at what other indigenous people said in other situations where we have more written records to demonstrate that because not even John Smith, who was a bit of a braggart, ever claimed that they thought he was a god. Not at all. And in fact, Thomas Harriot, who went to Roanoke down in the Carolinas a generation before in the 1580s,
He, one moment said, oh, they thought we were gods. And then he corrected himself because he was a scholar, a mathematician and a linguist. And it felt like he couldn't quite put this lie in writing. He said, well, least of ways, they thought that some of our goods and equipment may have been given to us by gods. So even he, even he had to admit, maybe they didn't ever really think we were gods. So what,
point, Camilla, does it become soured, this relationship? I mean, if you're trading with someone, you want to be on friendly terms, but it doesn't always stay friendly, does it? Right. No, and it didn't. In this case, in fact, even during the girlhood of Pocahontas, things soured. The English did not, well, I should say the British because my understanding is that they were not all English there. But in any event, the people living in the fort
did not always behave themselves. They started to demand that the Indians give them corn. They were used to having read the reports of the Spaniards. They thought they would be able to really easily intimidate the indigenous into giving them food that, you know, vastly exceeded the value of whatever trinkets they were giving in exchange. And that did not turn out to be the case.
They sometimes seem to have forced sex on local girls, local women. So as a result, the indigenous people began to attack them every time they left the fort and they were left to sort of try to secure food by shooting ducks from up in the sky, flying over, you know, from within the fort, that sort of thing. And they lost a number of men who left the fort to try to get food.
So it was a state of low-intensity warfare within just a few years. And what happens in 1608? Pocahontas visits Jametown. What leads to that visit? In the midst of the skirmishing that was occurring, some prisoners had been taken, some indigenous prisoners had been taken, whom Powhatan wanted to get back.
So he sent at least one advisor. We know the name of one man, Rahunt, and he sent his daughter to Jamestown's fort. He probably sent the girl, Pocahontas, because during John Smith's captivity, she had been the one who was assigned to stay with him and try to learn the language. So she was probably there as a translator, in effect.
So they went to negotiate to get the release of these Indian prisoners, and they succeeded. After that, Pocahontas became quite a favorite of the Jamestown colonists. Several of them told stories of her sort of mischievous ways, which fits, in fact, with the nickname that we know she had. Camilla, we haven't got a portrait of Jamestown at this period. How many people are there? What sort of state is it in? Is it surrounded by a wooden palisade? What's the situation?
Jamestown was rather primitive compared to our image of it, whether we're thinking of the Disney movie or historical reconstructions. The Brits who were there had found themselves starving quite quickly. And in order to protect themselves from the Indians who were growing increasingly angry at them because of their demands for food and for women, et cetera, they had built a stockade so that they could be somewhat protected. But it was
thrown up rather rapidly. They didn't have the time, the energy, the tools, the equipment to do a very good job. There were carpenters with them, but not many, because when the English came, they expected that they would be able to make the Indians work for them in the same way that the Spaniards had managed to make some of the Aztecs. On the basis of a racial superiority, that they just thought these people were born to be their servants? Well, part
I suppose, but they also thought they had some hard evidence because they had been reading accounts written by the Spaniards of their experiences in the New World. But what they didn't understand is that the Spaniards were dealing with highly settled, densely populated, what we might call advanced civilizations. People have been farmers for a long time. So if you are an Aztec or one of the ethnicities closely related to the Aztecs,
and the Spaniards arrive, it's far easier to just pay the taxes that the Spaniards demand than to do anything else. They couldn't really run away to the woods. They needed their local temple, their local aqueduct with the running water, et cetera. Just like we couldn't really run away to the woods. But in the case of Virginia,
Pocahontas' father said that he would run away to the woods if the English kept harassing him and then eventually did so. They were semi-nomadic people, so it posed no threat to them. It was no impossible task to them. We are going to take a break soon, but just to take us up to the break, another reason for the English swagger or the British swagger would have been because they were expecting more colonists to arrive in 1609. That was the calculation that they were making, and that didn't happen. Tell us about the ship that never came. All of
the colonial ventures depended on the idea that the few men and sometimes occasional women who were being left there at this outpost of empire would soon be joined by others. But in fact, this often did not materialize. I mean, Roanoke is the most famous example. It was left
high and dry for years during the period when the Spanish Armada had attacked the British islands and there was nothing that they could do in terms of returning to the New World. Likewise, in Jamestown, they were waiting for new supply ships. At one point, things became so dire when the ships didn't come that the settlers in Jamestown packed up and were preparing to leave. And literally, as the first of them were sailing down one of the rivers towards the Chesapeake Bay and then would have gone out into the ocean,
At that moment, a little fleet headed by Lord Delaware, for whom the state of Delaware is now named, showed up just in the nick of time. Otherwise, Jamestown would have ceased to exist. As Roanoke did. As Roanoke had ceased to exist and as another colony up in Canada and another one in today's Maine had all ceased to exist. And some other little town would have become the first, quote, first British settlement in America. But
They arrived and everybody apparently happily went back to the fort and began to exchange news and unfortunately to make plans for attacking and pacifying, if you will, military pilots, the local people. Camilla, just before we break, just give us a picture though of Pocahontas in this town. She has quite a good time. Oh, does she? Oh, does she, Camilla? I mean, honestly, does she or not? What do we know? Pocahontas.
Pocahontas's first few trips to the fort clearly were enjoyable for her. She was very successful in negotiating for the release of some prisoners on behalf of her father. She returned several times with gifts for the colonists, food gifts, and the colonists spoke glowingly of this little girl who they felt had befriended them and whom they befriended. Who's still sort of age 12 or 14, how old is she now? She's growing
up, I mean, you know, a few years are passing, but right, she would have been no more than say age 12 before things disintegrated so badly that she couldn't, you know, and the skirmishing was such that she could no longer come to the fort. You know, all question of friendship is over for a while. Now later, she's going to come back to the fort under very different circumstances, but perhaps we will talk about that part of her life later. We'll take a break there.
Welcome back. Just before the break, Camilla was telling us, and it's a rather tantalizing thought experiment, that had the colonies not received these relief ships, life could have been very different. Pecanters could have gone on living with their family. They could have been happy. They could have worked the land. But the reinforcements do come. And then after that, there is a period of open hostility, is there not, between the tribes and the English?
Absolutely. Any sense that they might have had another 20 years of living their own lives, any such hopes are dashed because indeed the English with the reinforcements are determined to end this period of skirmishing and establish dominance. They hope not only to stop
the low-intensity war that has been going on. But they also hope to prevail upon the Indians to give them an annual tribute in food, food payments, such as the Spaniards were receiving from indigenous people in Mexico. That was not to be, but that is what they hoped for. So they attacked. And why on earth would the indigenous have wanted to give any food to this lot? Right. Essentially, they wouldn't have. Now, it is true that Poetin himself demanded tribute from tribes that he had conquered, but it was...
rather small symbolic tribute in effect. Raccoon tails. That sort of thing. Maybe a bit of food, but not much because these were mostly subsistence villages. Whereas the English wrongly imagined that they could actually be fully supported in grand style by indigenous villages. And again, this was because they had been reading books by the Spaniards who were finding they could do that.
And am I right in saying that the English employed a lot of the strategies that they used in Ireland to bring the locals, the natives to heel? I mean, burning villages, terror. That's exactly right. I mean, I am no expert in Irish history, but the books and articles that I have read by scholars who are certainly indicate that that is the case. And in fact, some of the
earliest English settlements, or I guess, again, I should say British settlements in Canada, were founded by some of the very same men who had led expeditions against Ireland. We should make this clear that this is a time when there is the first real aggressive colonization of Irish land in
in Ulster at exactly the same time. And this is also the time, just to put it in the context of some of our earlier series, that the East India Company is founded. So this is a period when the English are beginning to kind of flex their seafaring muscles, trying to catch up with their much richer and more successful neighbours, the Portuguese and the Spanish, and are looking in all directions to make a quick buck. I mean, it's not just muscle flexing, though. It's sword swinging. I mean, when we're talking about the terrorisation of the local people, are we talking about violence...
not just against the men of war age, but women and children as well? I mean, what exactly are we talking about? Yes, the English decided that they really wanted to establish dominance. So the first thing they did after Lord Delaware and his people arrived was go off on an expedition against the Paspahe who were near neighbors to the fort. And
After the battle in which they killed the men, they collected the children and tossed them in the air. The little babies and toddlers tossed them in the air and skewered them on swords and blades. Was this as an aggressive sort of statement of...
or was this a revenge for some earlier skirmishes? What's the thinking behind that kind of thing? Or is it just that French saying, pour encourager des autres, to make sure everybody understood what would happen to them if they crossed the English? I think it was mostly the latter.
It is true that the settlers in the fort were very angry at the local indigenous people because the Indians had stopped befriending them and giving them gifts, but instead had been expressing anger at the way the English were behaving. This wasn't what the English wanted. And so there was pent up resentment, you're right, Will, but the gratuitous violence that they exhibited, not only against the men, but I mean, this game with the babies, that's rather remarkable.
How do we know about the throwing up of the babies? I mean, is that from English sources where they say, yes, this is what we did? It is from English sources, yes. Goodness.
Isn't that something? Right. But exactly this period, again, you get that sort of hideous brutality in Ulster. And it is a time of famous horrors, which are remembered in the Irish annals as a time of terrific Elizabethan brutality in Ireland. So while all of this is going to hell in a handcart, what is happening to our heroine Pocahontas? Where is she and what's going on in her life? Right. So during the intervening years,
years that is remember she had been a little girl in the english set up camp in 1607 and she had started to come to the fort in 1608 by the time things had reached this past that we're describing now a number of years had gone by she was no longer a little girl she would have been 14 15 which was marriageable age and in fact she had married a warrior named coco
We don't know exactly which tribe he was from. It could have been any of the 20 to 30 tribes her father governed. And she lived with him for a while. We actually don't know what happened to him, but I would presume he probably died. It is true that divorce was easy and frequent in her culture. If things weren't working out, you could part.
What we know with certainty is that she was no longer married to him several years later because, well, perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. But we don't know if there were any children with this marriage. We can't be certain, but again, it seems virtually certain that there were not because later she happily enters into a relationship with the English man.
without having any children with her and without expressing any desire to go home to any children. Okay, well, let's go into 1613. And Pocahontas, we don't know what's happened to her missing husband, for sure. But she's on her own. She's staying with the Patawomek people. And what happens to her there? Because this is where her story really takes off and enters the imagination of the West as well. That's exactly right. So she's up visiting the Patawomek. Today, we call
the river that they lived on, the Potomac, it is where Washington, D.C. is. So she's up there, which is the far reaches of her father's kingdom. We don't know why. She could have been just visiting. It could be that's where her husband had been from. It also could be that she was there in effect to collect the symbolic tribute on the part of her father. In any event, these people who clearly do not love her as much as one might have hoped or she might have hoped
encourage an Englishman named Argyle, Captain Samuel Argyle, to invite her onto his ship. He's up there on the Potomac. We know for sure that it is her host that encouraged this. Well, it is in fact Captain Samuel Argyle who tells us this, but I think it is the only thing that makes any sense because she was a visitor. If it had been her own
village, then there'd be any number of reasons why she might have ended up visiting the foreigners on their ship. It seems unlikely to me that a visitor would make that decision without any discussion with the locals. But that could be a misinterpretation. So you posit the fact that this is a tributary tribe, they don't much like Pocahontas' family. They're sick of giving tribute to her father. I would guess that that is the most likely scenario. I mean, as I mentioned, it
It could well be that she was visiting, in effect, her in-laws. We don't know with certainty, but given the geography of it, they would have had reason to resent her father. Okay, so, I mean, according to Argyll, you know, he's sort of paid off to do this terrible thing, but she's invited onto the ship with honour and
It's the story that he says, look, just take a little nap. You look very tired. Is that true? Well, we don't know. That's the story, right? That's what our girl says. Take a little nap. But we don't know what really happened, except for the end. That is, he pulls anchor. I guess I don't know the nautical termination. It sounds very authentic. And sails down the river with her, in effect, prisoner on the ship.
And there are many similar stories to this in the early history of colonialism. Absolutely. In fact, there are even orders that come from London that they are supposed to look for captives, important
captives because again, as you say, that worked in so many places, including for the Spaniards, but elsewhere around the world. Get yourself a royal captive. Maybe that person can become an intermediary. Maybe they can learn the language. Maybe they can be really, you know, ransomed for something that the Europeans want.
So we have every reason to see that Argyll would have been delighted. And this happens even a century later in the South Seas, you know, Captain Cook era. You get the same sort of thing going on and all these characters being brought back forcibly to England. That's exactly right. So the English have their hostage, whatever they're going to do. I mean, you know, anyone in her place might be terrified out of their wits. But I love this about her that she says, OK,
I'm here. I can't change this. I can't get off this ship. I don't have the power. So she sort of turns herself into a de facto diplomat, doesn't she? She starts working the system. Eventually she does. I wouldn't want to imagine that she gets to that point psychologically right away. It had to be terrifying. I mean, these were people who, although she had begun to learn some English and had even been friendly with some of the men at the fort. They've kidnapped her. I mean, there's that. And for the past several years, they had been in a state of war. Now,
I will say a young woman in her culture would not expect that enemy men would kill her. What such a young woman would expect is that they would force her into a sexual relationship with one of their own warriors. That was what happened. And then the children of such unions were treated absolutely fine. They did not become permanently enslaved, what we would call chattel slaves in the history of America. So she would not have thought
that she was going to be chained in a dungeon. She would not have thought that she was going to be brutalized, you know, physically for the rest of her life. She might've thought she was going to be raped.
Yeah, absolutely. She would have expected that, frankly. Okay. So she was taken to the fort and then eventually was brought to another English settlement up River Henrico, but at first was kept prisoner in the fort. Okay. And while she is there, sort of a prisoner, I'm sure she would have rather have been with her family. But she starts, I mean, the reason I said, you know, she starts working the system is that I'm not sure whether this full declaration that she's consigned
converting to Christianity is expedient
or ecstatic and religious. I mean, she does sort of fall in with the local reverend, does she not? And she does start learning about the Bible. And she does say, okay, from now on, I'm a Christian, I'm like you. You know, yes and no, Anita. She is put in the house of Alexander Whitaker, the local reverend. That's why she's put up in the Henricus. That's where he is. And there are other women there too, which is probably also why she was imprisoned there. It's clear that the English wish to use her more as an intermediary than any kind of a, you know,
sex slave. Yes, that doesn't speak of someone that's been brutalized and raped. That speaks of someone they want to use...
As an intermediate, exactly. So she was probably treated quite well, but she's still a prisoner. I don't mean to romanticize it at all, but I guess I don't want us to imagine that she was tied by her feet in the basement. Right. So there she is, and they are teaching her English, and they're teaching her about Christianity. And here's where I sort of resisted a bit, Anita. She does not agree to convert. A year goes by, and she is still saying, no, no, thank you. No, thank you.
Are there examples of converts already at this point or not yet? I don't think there are. Let me think about that. There have been some English, I mean, some indigenous boys brought to England. It's possible. I'd have to look at the date. It's possible that one or two of the indigenous boys who had been taken off to England to learn English, et cetera, had converted over in England before this had happened. But nobody local, nobody who was still living amongst the indigenous people as part of their culture had converted.
So what happens is that the English decide that they're getting no good use out of her. She's not doing what they want. So they put her on board a ship and go up river to try to talk to her father, using her much more directly as a hostage. That is, they're threatening her father. You know, we have literally probably and certainly figuratively a knife to your daughter's throat.
Horrible things are going to happen if you don't enter into the relationship that we wish you to enter into with us, that is to give us tribute payments in corn regularly.
They send a messenger off to speak to her father, and he sends back the message, you know, not to kill her in effect. Meanwhile, something else has happened. John Rolfe, one of the settlers who apparently was one of her English teachers, has written a letter to the then governor, Dale, Thomas Dale, and we still have this letter. And he's the one who says,
He says, "I would like to marry her." And he's the one who tells us in this letter that still exists, it's in the Bodleian Library, if you want to go look at it. I'm sitting in Oxford here, I could go this afternoon. Yes, right. He says, "I know you might not approve of this because we all know she's still an unrepentant pagan. But," he says, "I promise if you let me marry the girl, I will make sure that the children born become our first Christians."
So we know she was still flipping in the bird, as we say over here, refusing to do it. So they send a message off again to the father and the father says, good. Now we have to understand it was one of the roles of nobly born girls to marry with the enemy, whether taken in war as prisoners or whether given as sort of high level gifts. It makes perfect sense that he would say yes.
And here's the thing, Anita, the next day she agrees to become a Christian. She's baptized three days later. Her father's permission. It's part of the political deal. And it's what they did. When they married with the enemy, they also agreed to worship the enemy's God. They added that God to their pantheon. They didn't replace their own gods, but they agreed. So it was clearly a deal. The timing, and we get
that timing from English records, so there's no reason to doubt it. Okay, I take that. But tell me, why does John Rolfe want to marry her? I mean, is he also looking for an expediency? Yeah, who is he? What is he and what does he want from this relationship? Very interesting guy. He actually had somehow or other gotten a hold of some tobacco seeds from South America, so probably from some Spaniards, some Spanish merchants.
He had gone on the expedition as a married man, but his ship and some others actually had foundered off of what is today Bermuda, and his wife had died after the shipwreck while they were there starving and waiting for help.
So he had been living alone at this point for several years. And again, we don't have definite proof of the following, but it seems that he was an English teacher. Somebody later asserted that, although we don't know. In some way, he had come to know Pocahontas during these years.
He wrote to the governor that Pocahontas was she, here I'm going to read it to you, was she to whom my heart and best thoughts are and have been a long time so entangled and enthralled and so intricate a labyrinth that I was even a weary to unwind myself there out.
That's lovely. That's affection, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. That's affection. Right. We cannot be certain what she felt, but she seems to at least have liked him based on the way she behaved. And he clearly felt something more than just sexual desire. Is John Rolfe the reason that she does finally come to England and become this celebrity in England? Well, once her father agrees to the marriage that was proposed while she was a hostage in
a time of peace does come to the settlement. She and John Rolfe set up a plantation, a number of indigenous people live there with them, and they work on growing the tobacco, the seeds of which John Rolfe had brought with him.
Two years later, the Virginia Company invites them, they invite Pocahontas, her husband, John Rolfe, and the baby, Thomas, that they have by then to come to England. They are going to serve as a kind of walking advertisement for the success and peace that the colony is now enjoying. A clever piece of PR, in fact. A clever, clever piece of PR. You know, the Virginia Company had been struggling because it was known back in England how much trouble there had been in the colony, even in
after the arrival of reinforcements, there was still danger of it folding if they didn't bring the violence under control. But after the marriage, that situation was at least temporarily rectified. And she and her husband were to serve as proof of that.
What did people in England think of this? I mean, it's a mixed race marriage after all, in a place where that is not the done thing. What did they think? Yes, it's kind of a curious mixture. As many scholars will tell us, in some senses, real racism as we know it didn't begin until the 18th century. Absolutely. What they would have worried about was her religious faith and she'd become a Christian.
That's exactly right. As long as she was the daughter of a, quote, emperor, that is, of a high king, and as long as she was professing to be a Christian, they didn't really mind. Now, I will say aspects of the other element of racism, a sort of
almost gut level nastiness or condescension do surface. A man named John Chamberlain wrote in his diary that people were saying that she was no fair lady, that she was dark and swarthy, etc. But you do get at this period across the early beginnings of the British Empire, whether it's in India, where Hawkins marries an Armenian straight away.
whether in Indonesia or any of the places that you get far more into marriage at this period than you ever will later. That's exactly right. And certainly there's the case in Virginia. Right, right. And did they people write about her? I mean, do we have her visit chronicled by British sources? Is it a big deal? Did they paint her? Because she, I mean, she's a celebrity. People used to do that kind of thing, didn't they? They portrayed it due to death. Yes, it's a,
It's a very big deal. And a drawing is made by Simone van der Paus from Holland, and it's turned into an engraving that still exists. With her in a wonderful ruff and a top hat. With her in a ruff and a beaver top hat. That's exactly right. And she's invited even to court at one point and sees a mask. She speaks with the Archbishop of London. She goes all over the place. She sees John Smith again. And in front of numerous witnesses says, this man do lie much. I mean, she expresses real anger at
Oh really, she calls him out. She calls him a shit in public. In public. Oh, great. Right, exactly. Serves George Smith right. Serves it right, yes. So yes, it's a very big deal. As a PR ploy, it seems to be working, shall we say. In one very interesting case, a charitable organization asks to give her and her husband money in order to help them proselytize, in order to help them secure more indigenous souls.
And John Rolfe writes the answer, but it had to have come from her because it's a very remarkable thought. In the letter written back, he says, we will take the money. Thank you very much. But only if you understand that is a thank you gift for any proselytizing we have already done.
And by no means are we promising you any more conversions. So it's rather odd that no Englishman would have made that up. That had to be from her. Do we get quite a positive view of Rolf for the letters? Is he okay? I mean, is Rolf treating her okay? Yes. Yes.
You know, I think he probably did. Now, that might be wishful thinking. But I say that because he expresses annoyance and anger at the Indigenous people he had lived with, who must have included her, as he put it, because they live so joyously. He says, yay, they run joyously headlong into the arms of the devil. Meaning, I think, they are continuing to do things that he has told them are sinful. You know, laugh at vulgar jokes.
perhaps have sex before marriage, etc. He says it as very matter-of-factly, almost without rancor, making me think that they had had arguments and discussions. It does not lead me to think that she was cowed, that she was someone who was living, you know, in shadow with her headband saying, yes, sir, no, sir, to her husband. Likewise, in England, she's perceived as
as being someone who has dignity, aplomb, who does not seem fearful. There's even around the edge of the engraving that was taken, there's a comment that only she could have made. They say this is Lady Rebecca, alias Pocahontas, the daughter of poet and king of Tsenakomoko.
not King of Virginia. I mean, the English didn't even know the word Sanocomoco. But why did they call her Rebecca? Where did the Rebecca come from? Because now we've come full circle and we've come to where we started from. Yes. Because she's going to die very soon.
and she dies as Rebecca, but where does that even come from? She's christened as Rebecca on her baptism back in Virginia when she agrees to become a Christian. Almost certainly the name was chosen by Alexander Whitaker. It could be that he gave her a couple of choices.
but most likely he simply chose it. Is it a reference to Rebecca in the Old Testament who comes to live with the people of her husband? That's exactly right. It's very clearly that. And if you read that passage in the Bible, it's actually very beautiful and gives that young woman a real starring role. My people will be your people. My people will be your people. Right. What bit of my Catholic education I'm reaching back to here at this point. Yes, exactly. Right. But then just, I mean, I,
I was under the impression that Rolf decided actually they were going to go home because I'm guessing she must have been really homesick. It's cold here. It's grey here. It's not like Virginia here. So, I mean, was there a move to take her back? And is that thwarted by sickness or what happened? What happens to her?
Right. So after a number of months, really almost a year of being paraded around as a PR message, in effect, she grows ill. A number of the party grow ill. We think it's some sort of flu or pneumonia-like condition because it lasts a long time. If it were some sort of intestinal thing, like, you know,
it would happen quickly. You're talking about a party. There are other Indigenous with her? Absolutely. This is how it was arranged. In order for this trip to make sense from an Indigenous point of view, Powhatan needed to send some key advisors, which he does, because he needs to know more about the English. It can't just be what the Virginia company wants. In that case, why would she want to go and why would she be willing and happy? She's also doing what her father wishes. So,
There are a number of indigenous people, one of whom actually accompanies her to, for example, meet with the bishop. So they're not kept back in the hotel, all of them, all the time. A couple of them are clearly there to take care of her child, Thomas. Yeah, I mean, so again, that turns the mythology on its head that, you know, she comes to England, she falls in love with everything that's English, and she sort of turns it back on her culture, her homeland, her people. That just didn't happen. Yeah.
Absolutely not. She's there on a fact-finding mission. And this illness spreads among them. So they decide to leave. And it's a bit late in the season, but they decide to leave. My guess would be that she wanted to go home. You know, when you're sick, often you believe you'll be better off at home. They only get as far as Gravesend, as you mentioned at the very beginning. And she's so sick that they have to get off. And they go to the local inn. And there she dies. She's buried by the church at Gravesend.
Her infected lungs are full of fluid, we read at this time. Yes. Now, some scholars have quarreled with me that we don't know for certain that it was a lung ailment, but we really do because her whole party is sick and they continue to be sick. If it were a digestive type thing, you know, some sort of microbiome,
The flux, as they called it at the time. The flux, exactly. It would pass rapidly through them, killing and then be over. But instead, after she dies, several of them are so sick that they leave them behind in England to continue to cough up their phlegm and try to cure themselves. She does. I mean, she sort of seems aware as well of death and her attitude to it because there is a quote that apparently she says to an Englishman just before she dies. She says that her people...
when talking about death, they held it a disgrace to fear death. And therefore, when they must die, they did it resolutely. Which means that she must have always been aware. But what I find shocking is that this is such an enormously rich life. She was only about 20 or 21 when she died. 20 or 21 at the oldest. And it's right. She had had such a significant and event-filled life already that it rather boggles the imagination. And she's buried and we know her grave. Yeah, well...
We know where because the record of her death and her burial is in the record book that is still maintained, I suppose, in the chancery of that church and graves, and I've seen it. What we don't know is exactly where she is buried because as is so often the case in England, well, anywhere, as you know, graveyards are sometimes dug up for parking lots and what have you, right? So we don't know where.
where, but her bones certainly lie somewhere near the church and graves. And just for, and finally, I mean, you're speaking to us from America.
What do Americans think of her? And what is their idea of Pocahontas, both, you know, sort of American Americans and indigenous people? I was just going to say, well, which Americans? So the classic sort of dominant culture, mostly white Americans love to love Pocahontas. That's why, you know, 400 years later, they were able to make a very successful Disney movie about her. She
represents in the American imagination the idea of the Indian who loved us, the Indian who wanted to be part of us and who welcomed the colony. And the story has always been, until the Disney movie actually, the story always was that she loved us more than she loved her own people. All colonists want at some level to be loved and want that.
the people they're conquering to look up to them, to regard them as gods and to give them their land freely. Exactly, exactly. But the indigenous people, what do they think? But the indigenous people have always sort of felt not exactly ashamed, but horribly uncomfortable with white people's adoration of her for the very reason that they recognize more clearly what
why it is that Americans love to love her. And in fact, when I was writing my book about Pocahontas and I went to the Virginia Council on Indians to ask for their help, the first reaction was very negative. - Really? - Oh no, another white woman writing another book about Pocahontas.
But I tried to convey that this was going to be different. This was going to be from her point of view as closely as we could make it so. And several of them read it. And several gave excellent, thoughtful responses that helped me shape the manuscript. And they did like it. They liked it that somebody was finally writing a book that was attempting to glean her perspective.
And we like it too. And we're so very grateful. Camilla, it's been absolutely fabulous to have you on the programme. Just let me remind you of the name of Camilla Townsend's excellent book. It's called Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you very, very much for your time. Such a great story and such a good teller. My pleasure. Thank you. So till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Durrumpel. Thank you.