Tsenacomoco: My World

As I hold you in my arms, my son, I wonder if you will ever experience the world of your Powhatan ancestors. Let me tell you, Thomas, of my own childhood in Virginia, before and after the English came…

I was born the daughter of a mighty Indian chief, Powhatan. My father controlled many of the native tribes in the eastern part of the land the English call Virginia. Although I am now called Rebecca in the English world, in our Indian world I was first known as Amonute (ah-moh-NOO-tay). According to our custom, I spent my first years with my mother and her relatives, but my father often visited us. Our family ties were strong. Every morning, we rose early to greet the sun. We offered prayers of thanksgiving for the new day and bathed in the cold river. We children wore little. When we were hungry, we ate corn bread and a meat and vegetable stew that was always kept warm in a pot on the fire.  

During the day, I helped with planting, weeding, and harvesting the crops — corn, beans, and squash. With the other girls and women, I gathered wild berries, nuts, and greens. This was our work. The boys hunted and fished with the men and practiced to become warriors.

Women also built our homes. We bent young trees — saplings — into a frame, then covered it with mats that we wove from reeds. Our homes were movable. We carried them from place to place during deer hunting season. The other girls and I learned to weave, because we needed new reed mats every few months.

Inside our home, our yehakin, it was dark and snug. We stored our belongings in baskets that hung from the walls. The fire in the center kept our home warm in the winter, and the smoke kept out bugs in the summer. We slept on platforms covered with deerskins and other furs. 

I was never lonely as a child, for there were always family members around. We did everything together.

In the evenings, our elders shared stories and songs. Often, we danced late into the night. I learned much through listening, watching, and working with my mother and her family.

When I was about 8 years old, I went to live with my father (your grandfather), Chief Powhatan. I soon became my father’s favorite daughter. I had grown into a strong, sturdy girl, with an independent streak. My father nicknamed me Pocahontas, which means “little mischievous one.” In my father’s village, I observed the coming and going of important people. Powhatan often hosted large feasts, which I helped prepare.  

When I was 11, the English came to our land. They had traveled across the great water with the hope of finding a new land filled with riches. Instead, they found many hardships. Without enough food and supplies, they suffered greatly from hunger and sickness. Many of them died. That was the English year 1607.

My father was unsure if the English were friends or foes. They brought no women or children, as if they planned to make war. And they built a fort around their settlement. It was a dilemma for my father — should he consider the English his friends, or go to war against them?

I first met Captain John Smith when my father’s warriors captured him. He was a powerful leader of the English, and our people respected him for his bravery. The Powhatan holy men declared him to be our friend. During a special ceremony, Captain Smith came to believe that I saved him from being put to death by my father. In fact, it was Powhatan who made the decision to treat Captain Smith as an adopted son. (As a young girl, I had little power over what happened to anyone.) Captain Smith was released, and my father gave food to the settlers. He helped them survive.

Though I was but a child, and Captain Smith was a grown man and a foreigner, we became friends. He treated me kindly and gave me gifts of beads. But when I visited the Jamestown settlement, I didn’t go to see Captain Smith — I mostly spent time playing with the young boys there.  

As time passed, the friendship between my father and the English began to fall apart. Captain Smith did not act the way an adopted son should; he went against my father’s wishes and continued to build his settlement, called Jamestown. It was now clear to Powhatan that the English wanted his land for their own. In the year 1613, the English captured me. They held me against my will for one whole year, hoping to make my father change his mind. But it didn’t work.

During that year, I fell in love with your father, an Englishman named John Rolfe. Though I already had an Indian husband, John asked my father for his permission to marry me. When Powhatan agreed, it was the end of my life as I had known it. John Rolfe and I were married in 1614.

I see now that the English changed the way of life for my people. There is less land for the Powhatan people to farm, so they cannot always sustain themselves in the old ways. They have begun to depend on the English for food and trade goods. Sickness and death have done terrible things to my people, the result of diseases brought by the English. I fear that the world of my childhood is gone forever.