RIP Rebecca Rolfe

Who is this Rebecca Rolfe you might well ask. Well, I'll reply, her birthname was Matoaka. Seeing your still vacant stare I will show you pity and inform you that she is much better known as Pocahontas.

Yes, good reader, the one of Disney fame, although the cartoon figure was just that - cartoonish, with fairly little historic truth to it. The real Pocahontas was not a princess, she converted to Christianity of her own, free will and she was about 12 years old when she supposedly saved John Smith - an exceedingly unlikely tale, knowing Smith's penchant for baldfaced lies.

In 1615, she gave birth to a son and soon after set sail with her English-born American colonist husband, John Rolfe to England. The trip was sponsored by the colonial tobacco company, hoping to convince more Englanders to go over and grow more crops, thus enriching themselves, but more importantly the tobacco company. The Rolfes headed home to Virginia in the spring of 1617, but didn't even clear the Thames when Pocahontas died of a fever. She is buried in the little town of Gravesend, on the southern bank of that river.

All pics here.

Pocahontas in bronze. If she'd had ANY idea what Disney and others have done to her reputation, she'd probably have taken an axe to John Smith's head herself.


Close-up.


St. George's church, wherein Pocahontas was buried. As the original building burned down in 1727, the exact gravesite is unknown.


Some information.


High Street in the quaint little town of Gravesend.