Pocahontas Marries Rolfe: A Complex Union in Colonial Virginia
Pocahontas, baptized as Rebecca, married tobacco planter John Rolfe on April 5, 1614, in a ceremony at Jamestown that was as much diplomatic treaty as wedding. She was roughly 17 years old and had been held captive by the English for over a year. The marriage secured eight years of peace between the Powhatan Confederacy and the struggling colony, during which Rolfe perfected the cultivation of Caribbean tobacco varieties that made Virginia economically viable. Pocahontas traveled to London in 1616, was presented at court, and became a celebrity. She died at Gravesend in 1617, aged about 21, probably from tuberculosis or pneumonia. The peace died with her brother-in-law's attack on the colony in 1622.
April 5, 1614
412 years ago
Key Figures & Places
England
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Virginia
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Native Americans in the United States
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Pocahontas
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John Rolfe
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English people
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Virginia
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Native Americans
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Pocahontas
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John Rolfe
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Indigenous peoples of the Americas
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Colony of Virginia
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