This document provides a lesson plan about Pocahontas for middle and high school students. The lesson uses primary and secondary sources to explore the historical relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith, and whether she actually saved his life. Students analyze Captain John Smith's letters from 1608 and 1624, watch a biography video, learn about Pocahontas's early life with the Powhatan people, her interactions with English settlers, capture by colonists, marriage to John Rolfe, and death in England. The goal is for students to practice sourcing and contextualizing historical documents to determine what really happened between Pocahontas and John Smith.

1. Pocahontas
U. S. History, grades 6th-12th
JEN CHRISTIE
EME6053: INTERNET IN EDUCATION

2. Reading like a Historian
 In this lesson, students use evidence to explore whether Pocahontas
actually saved John Smith’s life, and practice the ability to source and
contextualize historical documents.
 Caption: Powhatan Indians

3. Bellwork

Today we are going to talk about a topic in history that you’ve probably
all heard about. What do you know about Pocahontas?
 Write student answers on the board.

4. Pocahontas biography video
 http://www.biography.com/people/pocahontas-9443116
 Pocahontas was a Powhatan Native American woman, born around 1595,
known for her involvement with English colonial settlement at Jamestown,
Virginia. In a well-known historical anecdote, she saved the life of
Englishman John Smith, by placing her head upon his own at the moment
of his execution. Pocahontas later married a colonist, changed her name
to Rebecca Rolfe and died while visiting England in 1617.
 Caption: John Smith, a friend of Pocahontas

5. EARLY LIFE
 Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the leader of an alliance of
about 30 Algonquian-speaking groups and petty chiefdoms in Tidewater
Virginia known as Tsenacommacah. Her mother’s identity is unknown.
 Historians have estimated Pocahontas’ birth year as around 1595, based
on the 1608 account of Captain John Smith in A True Relation of
Virginia and Smith’s subsequent letters. Even Smith is inconsistent on the
question of her age, however. Although English narratives would
remember Pocahontas as a princess, her childhood was probably fairly
typical for a girl in Tsenacommacah.

6. Pocahontas timeline
Map showing Powhatan County (Virginia)

7. Powhatan
 Like most young females, she learned how to forage for food and
firewood, farm and building thatched houses. As one of Powhatan’s many
daughters, she would have contributed to the preparation of feasts and
other celebrations.
 Like many Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians of the period, Pocahontas
probably had several names, to be used in various contexts. Early in her life
she was called Matoaka, but was later known as Amonute. The name
Pocahontas was used in childhood, probably in a casual or family context.
 Caption: the houses of the Powhatan Indians

8. primary and secondary sources
Explain the difference between primary and secondary sources
 Primary source: original materials that have not been altered in any way, which may be used
by historians. In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also
called original source) is an artifact, a document, or other source of information that was
created at the time under study.
 Secondary source: artifact or document, created after the fact, that does not have first-person
knowledge
 Answer the questions for each source in this lesson:
1. Who wrote the document?
2. Why did they write it?
3. What else was going on at the time?

9. Pocahontas Historical Documents
Document A: Captain John Smith’s Letter (1608)
“True Relation” (Modified)
Arriving in Werowocomoco, the emperor
welcomed me with good words and great
platters of food. He promised me his friendship
and my freedom within four days. . . .He asked
me why we came and why we went further with
our boat. . . . He promised to give me what I
wanted and to feed us if we made him hatchets
and copper. I promised to do this. And so, with
all this kindness, he sent me home.
Source: Smith’s own words, from A True Relation of such
occurrences and accidents of note as hath happened in Virginia
Since the First Planting of that Colony, published in 1608.
Caption: Captain Smith’s first voyage map 1608

10. POCAHONTAS SAVES JOHN SMITH’S LIFE
 Pocahontas was primarily linked to the English colonists through Captain John
Smith, who arrived in Virginia with more than 100 other settlers in April 1607. The
Englishmen had numerous encounters over the next several months with the
Tsenacommacah Indians. While exploring on the Chickahominy River in
December of that year, Smith was captured by a hunting party led
by Powhatan's close relative Opechancanough, and brought to Powhatan's
home at Werowocomoco.
 The details of this episode are inconsistent within Smith’s writings. In his 1608
account, Smith described a large feast followed by a talk with Powhatan. In
this account, he does not meet Pocahontas for the first time until a few months
later. In 1616, however, Smith revised his story in a letter to Queen Anne, who
was anticipating the arrival of Pocahontas with her husband, John Rolfe.
 Caption: An 1850s painting of John Rolfe and, wife, Pocahontas

11. Pocahontas Primary source
Document B: “General History” (Modified)
They brought me to Meronocomoco, where I
saw Powhatan, their Emperor. Two great
stones were brought before Powhatan. Then I
was dragged by many hands, and they laid my
head on the stones, ready to beat out my brains.
Pocahontas, the King’s dearest daughter took
my head in her arms and laid down her own
upon it to save me from death. Then the
Emperor said I should live.
Two days later, Powhatan met me and said we
were friends. He told me to bring him two guns
and a grindstone and he would consider me his
son.
Source: From Smith’s later version of the story in General History of
Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles, published in 1624.

12. Pocahontas captured by colonists
 Pocahontas befriended Smith and assisted the Jamestown colony.
Pocahontas often visited the settlement. When the colonists were starving,
"every once in four or five days, Pocahontas with her attendants brought
him [Smith] so much provision that saved many of their lives that else for all
this had starved with hunger."
 In late 1610, Pocahontas was captured by the English the
following year.
 Caption: Jamestown Settlement, Virginia

13. Pocahontas Documents Worksheet
Complete the
worksheet
independently
or in in
groups of 3
Review students’
claims/
hypotheses as a
class.
Caption: replica
of John Smith’s
boat

14. CAPTIVITY AND LATER LIFE
 Pocahontas' capture occurred in during the First Anglo-Powhatan War.
Captain Samuel Argall and his indigenous allies tricked Pocahontas into
boarding Argall's ship and held her for ransom, demanding the release of
English prisoners and supplies held by Powhatan. When Powhatan failed to
satisfy the colonists’ demands, Pocahontas remained in captivity.
 Little is known about Pocahontas' year with the English. It is clear that
Pocahontas spoke English.

15.  In March 1614, the English permitted Pocahontas to talk to her father and
other relatives as a diplomatic maneuver. According to English sources,
Pocahontas told her family that she preferred to remain with the English
rather than returning home.
 Pocahontas met and married John Rolfe during her year in captivity,
and had a son.
 Caption: Pocahontas in England, known as Rebecca Rolfe

16. Pocahonatas dies in birthplace of
Virginia
 In March of 1617, the Rolfes boarded a ship to return to Virginia. The ship
had only gone as far as Gravesend when Pocahontas fell ill. She was taken
ashore, where she died, possibly of pneumonia.
 She is one of the best-known Native Americans in history, and one of only
a few to appear regularly in historical textbooks.

17.  Pocahontas became of symbol of Indian religious conversion, one of the
stated goals of the Virginia Company. The company decided to bring
Pocahontas to England as a symbol of the tamed New World "savage.”

18. Sources
 Pocahontas. (2014). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved
from http://www.biography.com/people/pocahontas-9443116
 Stanford University (2014). Pocahontas. The Stanford History Education
Group. Retrieved from http://sheg.stanford.edu/pocahontas