Biography

"Reputedly the favorite daughter of the Algonquin chief Powhatan, Pocahontas contributed significantly to the early survival of the Jamestown colony and played a brief but dramatic role in English imperial propaganda. Her untimely death in 1617 cut short her successful mediation between the Powhatan Indians and the colony. Both before her intercession and long after her death, Jamestown–the first permanent English outpost in North America–was precarious, largely because of Indian hostility to the colony and its expansion.
Pocahontas’s contributions to Jamestown date from her early acquaintance with Capt. John Smith after his capture by Powhatan’s men in 1607. Her legendary rescue of the English captain on the verge of his execution was probably part of a traditional Indian adoption ceremony (misinterpreted or misunderstood by Smith), though it is possible that without her intercession he would have been killed. In any event, relations between Powhatan and the fledgling colony improved, and Pocahontas, then about twelve years old, became a frequent visitor at Jamestown and an important supplier of food for the colonists. She also became an informer for the colony, warning Smith of her father’s belligerent plans."