Pocahontas, 1616 (The Barbican)

Known as Matoaka (‘Flower between two Streams’), Amonute, and Rebecca (‘Mother of Two Peoples’), the woman most widely recognized by her nickname Pocahontas (‘Playful One’) arrived in Plymouth on 12th June, 1616.

She was the youngest daughter of Powhatan or Wahunsenacawh, the leader of what became known as the Powhatan Confederacy that included more than 28 Indigenous nations in what is now Virginia and beyond.

Matoaka was probably born in about 1596, so she was about 11, maybe 12 when the first English colonists arrived in 1607. They created England’s first permanent colony in America and named it after the king – Jamestown. She visited the colony several times, accompanying delegations from the Powhatan Confederacy as a sign of their peaceful intentions.

While there are stories of her possibly saving colonists from ambush and execution as relations soured, she was also kidnapped by them for political gain in 1613 and held captive for over a year. Already a wife to a Potowomac man named Kocoum and mother to their child, she was converted to Christianity, renamed Rebecca, and married to an Englishman.

Her husband, John Rolfe, had left Plymouth in 1609 on a ship called the Sea Venture. It was part of the Third Supply of ships taking people and provisions to a starving Jamestown, finally arriving in 1610. After his marriage to Matoaka in April 1614 (she would have been about 18 at the time), he wrote a letter to the colony's governor explaining that he was not led by ‘carnall affection: but for the good of this plantation [and] our countrie ... and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature’.

A year later, Pocahontas and Rolfe had a son, Thomas. All three of them, along with possibly 12 Powhatans, including her sister Mattachana and Mattachana's husband Uttamatakkomin, arrived here on 12th June, 1616. Their trip was funded by the London Company of Virginia in an attempt to secure publicity and funds for the English colonial endeavour.

While we don't know exactly where in Plymouth they landed, it seems likely that it was here at the Barbican, the town's original harbour (follow the YouTube link to get an idea of the sights and sounds that may have greeted the Powhatan contingent on their arrival, through a virtual reality recreation of the 17th century harbour). They went on to London and met the King. But it was just before their return to Virginia that Pocahontas was taken ill. She died in Gravesend in March 1617.

Her son, Thomas, was brought here to Plymouth under the care of Sir Lewis Stukley for a while. He, and his father, both returned to Virginia. They are forgotten. Pocahontas is not.