Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/163

 teen plates, in the same volume of ‘Vetusta Monumenta.’

A portrait, of which the original by Mrs. Carpenter is at Hengrave Hall, has been engraved. There is also an excellent bust by R. C. Lucas, which was presented to the Society of Antiquaries. A portion of Rokewode's valuable library was sold in London on 22 and 23 Dec. 1848.

[MS. Addit. 19167, f. 265; Aungier's Hist. of Isleworth, p. 104*; London and Dublin Orthodox Journal, xv. 276; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 853.] 

ROLFE, JOHN (1585–1622), colonist, grandson of Eustacius Rolfe, of an old Norfolk family, and son of John Rolfe, who married, on 24 Sept. 1582, Dorothea Mason, was baptised at Heacham, Norfolk, on 6 May 1585. Representatives of the Rolfe family still occupy Heacham Hall. A twin-brother, Eustacius, died in childhood. Rolfe married in England during 1608, and sailed with his wife for Virginia in June 1609. On the voyage he was wrecked and cast on the Bermudas, where a daughter, who died an infant, was born to him. The parents reached Virginia in May 1610, whereupon the mother died. In 1612 Rolfe signalised himself as the first Englishman to introduce the regular cultivation of tobacco into Virginia. He was thus a leading settler, when, on 5 April 1613, whether captivated by the grace and beauty of the newly converted savage or, as his fellow-colonist Hamor wrote, ‘for the good of the plantation,’ and in spite of personal scruples, it is impossible to say, he married Pocahontas.

Pocahontas, or Matoaka (1595–1617), was a younger daughter of Powhattan, overking of the Indian tribes from the Atlantic seaboard to ‘the falls of the rivers.’ This potentate was naturally perturbed by the arrival of English colonists upon the Virginian seaboard in 1585, and he and his subjects were probably instrumental in the extermination of the early colonists, no traces of whom were ever found [see under ]. On 30 April 1607 a second colony, sent out by the Virginian Company of London, anchored in Chesapeake Bay. The fresh colonists, who settled at Jamestown, soon entered into friendly relations with the natives. One of the most prominent of their number, Captain John Smith (1580?–1631) [q. v.], essayed the exploration of the Indians' country. In December 1607 he sailed up the Chickahominy river on the second of such expeditions, was captured by the Indians and eventually taken to Powhattan's chief camp, about eighteen miles south-east of Jamestown (5 Jan. 1608). According to the account of these transactions which he sent to England a few months later, Smith succeeded in convincing the king of the friendliness of his intentions, and was accordingly sent back to Jamestown with a native escort. Eight years later, when writing a short account of Pocahontas, then in England, for the benefit of Queen Anne, consort of James I, Smith embellished this plain tale with some romantic incidents. According to this later version, first published in 1622, Powhattan, after a parley with his chiefs, decided upon the Englishman's execution, and the natives were preparing to brain him with their clubs, when Pocahontas, ‘the king's darling daughter,’ rushed forward and interposed her own head between Smith and his executioners, whereupon Powhattan ordered his life to be spared. Other writers corroborate Smith's statement that from 1608 Pocahontas was henceforward a frequent visitor at Jamestown, where she played with the children, and acted as an intermediary between the colonists and Powhattan. Smith returned to England on 4 Oct. 1609, after which her regular visits to the English camp ceased. In Smith's earlier narrative, or ‘True Relation’ (1608), Pocahontas is mentioned incidentally as a child of ten, ‘who not only for feature, countenance, and proportion’ greatly exceeded the rest of her countrywomen, but was ‘the only nonpareil’ of the country. In the later ‘General History’ (1622) she is depicted as the good genius of the settlers, warning them of hostile schemes on the part of the Indians, and sending them provisions in times of scarcity.

When, in the spring of 1612, Captain Samuel Argal, a leading colonist, was trading for corn along the Potomac, it came to his ears that Pocahontas was staying on a visit with the chief of the district. Through the agency of this chief's brother, whom Argal alternately threatened and cajoled, the princess, now about sixteen years of age, was lured on board Argal's vessel, and taken, as a hostage for the good behaviour of the Indian tribes, to Jamestown, where she arrived on 13 April 1612. In the following year she was converted to Christianity, and christened Rebecca. Powhattan appeared flattered when his daughter's projected marriage with Rolfe was announced to him, and it was hoped that the match would cement a friendly alliance between the planters and the Indian potentate. It was followed by an exchange of prisoners and other overtures of good-will. In 1616 Sir Thomas Dale, who was acting as governor of the colony, carried Pocahontas, with her husband and child, to