FAMOUS INDIAN PRINCESS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8846, 26 August 1907, Page 7

FAMOUS INDIAN PRINCESS.

Three hundred years ago Captain John Smith and his fellow-adventurers lauded on American soil at the spot Which is now covered by the City of Jamestown. The name of Pocahontas,

the beautiful Virginian Princess, is 4 in<ujsaiely associated with this landit was through her timely iuHWentiou that the gallant English was saved from death. Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhattaii, the most powerful chief of the Indians of Virginia. John Smith's story is that "when Pocahontas, the king's dearest daughter, whom no entreaty could prevail, got Hi is head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him from death, the emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets and her ibells. beads aud coper." Auother story is that Pocahontas went to Captain Smith's eucampmeut by night aud warned the Englishman that he aud his party would be massacred unless they speedily made their ■escape. What is certain is that the Indian Princess, after saving Captain Smith's life, married John Rolfe in 1613, while she was being held as a hostage by the Colonists. Rolfe bolonged to an old Norfolk family, and accompanied Sir Thomas Dale, one of the earliest Governors of the. colony, -td>JMfgiuia. He was previously marrie™iu IMS. In the following year, on their voyage to Virginia, the ship was wrecked, and Rolfe, his wife and little daughter were cast npou the Nearly a year after they reached the cud of their journey, but iv the same year the wife died. Pocahoutas, wheu she married Rolfe, was baptised into the Christian faith under the name of Rebecca, and this forms the subject of one of the priucipal decorations of the Capitolßuildings at. Washington. On arriving in England, in company with her husbaud and their baby boy, the Princess was well received, aud presented to King James I. In Loudon she met Captain Smith, whom she believed to be dead. On her wav back to Virginia she died, it is said" of small-pox. before the King's ship was out of. the river, and was buried at Gravesend.