July 21, 1991
Pocahontas Story Rooted At Charlotte Harbor
TIMUCUA INDIAN PRINCESS - here portrayed by the French Artist LeMoyne in 1564, is being carried to her wedding. Scantily clad and heavily tattooed, she probably resembled Ortiz' savior.
Click HERE for related chapter in "Boldly Onward."
The story of an Indian princess named Pocahontas saving the life of Capt. John Smith at Jamestown, Va., in 1607 is charming – but totally false.
It was lifted from a true incident that occurred 79 years earlier at Charlotte Harbor.
To understand the real events, we must first set the record straight about Pocahontas.
The name of the maiden - who supposedly threw herself over the prostrate body of Capt. Smith as an executioner was about to bash his brains out - was Matoaka. "Pocahontas" was a nickname meaning "playful one."
It was an apt description for at age 12, and naked as all other Indian children, she amused the first English colonists by turning cartwheels on the fort's parade ground.
Relations between the English and Powhatan Indians generally were good. When quarrels did occur, captives were held for ransom. They never involved killing and always ended amicably. Capt. Smith, for example, was detained on one occasion until ransomed for a grindstone.
There certainly was no romantic attachment between Pocahontas and Smith. Nonetheless, she was a friend of the settlers. She smuggled a few bushels of corn to them during the terrible winter of 1609 when many starved and one man ate his wife to stay alive.
The colonists fell into dire straits when Capt. Smith returned to England to recover from an injury incurred when he warmed his backside in front of a fireplace. He forgot that he had a pouch of gun powder in his back pocket.
Without Smith's stern discipline, the colonists failed to lay aside enough food for the winter.
That same year, Pocahontas married an Indian named Kocoum. We do not know the outcome of that marriage, but in 1612 she was kidnapped by Capt. Samuel Argall and held hostage at Jamestown for the return of some English prisoners held by her father, Wahunsonacock, chief of the Powhatan.
During her captivity, Pocahontas embraced Christianity and adopted the name of Rebecca. She also met John Rolfe who fell madly in love with her. Two years later they were married.
Rolfe carried his bride to England to meet his well-to-do family. There she entranced Londoners, was presented to King John I, and bore a son named Thomas. She and Rolfe in March 1617 boarded a ship - ironically commanded by the same Capt. Argall who had once kidnapped her - for a return to America.
Sadly she was suffering with pneumonia. The ship halted at the little town of Gravesend on the Thames River below London. There Pocahontas died at age 22. Her last words to her distraught husband were, "Do not grieve. It is enough that the child liveth."
Pocahontas was buried beneath the floor of the church at Gravesend. The suckling infant Thomas was left with Rolfe's aunt and uncle with whom the boy lived until as a teenager he joined his father in America.
Rolfe returned to his plantation where he introduced the cultivation of tobacco which finally made the colony prosperous. He married again years later but was killed shortly afterward by an uncle of Chief Powhatan.
It is significant that neither Pocahontas, Rolfe nor Smith ever mentioned a threatened execution or a plea by her for mercy. This tale was adapted by The Rev. Richard Hakluyt from the true adventure much earlier of a young Spaniard named Juan Ortiz.
Rev. Hakluyt wrote several pamphlets promoting English colonization, and he admired Capt. Smith. The Pocahontas story was such a good one - in character with the swashbuckling commander of Jamestown - Capt. Smith let it stand.
Ortiz was a member of the Panfilo De Narvaez expedition to Florida. The Narvaez fleet was storm-driven prematurely to what is now St. Petersburg in 1527. Ortiz was sent to Havana with the wives of Narvaez' officers under instructions to return farther north a year later with supplies.
The expedition made its way under relentless Indian attack to what is now St. Marks south of Tallahassee. There the starving survivors ate their horses and constructed crude barges with which they hoped to escape the country. Only four members of the expedition survived. The rest, including Narvaez, were drowned at sea.
Ortiz' story was recorded by "A Gentleman of Elvas," a survivor of the 1539-42 expedition of Hernando DeSoto. Shortly after DeSoto landed - first at an abandoned seaside village (Boca Grande), then at the occupied village of Ucita (Charlotte Harbor Town) - Ortiz was reunited with his countrymen. Writes Elvas:
"When Baltasar de Gallegos came into the open field, he discovered 10 or 11 Indians. Among them was a Christian, naked and sunburnt, his arms tattooed after their manner, and he in no respect differing from them.
"The Christian, seeing a horseman coming upon him with a lance, began to cry out, 'Do not kill me, cavalier. I am a Christian.' He had been 12 years among the Indians, having gone into the country with Panfilo De Narvaez, and returned in the ships to the Island of Cuba, where the wife of the Governor remained.
"By her command he went back to Florida with some 20 or 30 others, in a pinnace. Coming to the port in sight of the town they saw a cane sticking upright in the ground, with a split in the top, holding a letter.
"This they supposed the Governor had left there, to give information of himself before marching into the interior. They asked it be given to them, of four or five Indians walking along the beach. They, by signs, bade them come to land for it. Ortiz and another did so, though contrary to the wishes of the others.
"No sooner had they got on shore, when many natives came out of the houses and, drawing near, held them in such a way that they could not escape. One, who would have defended himself, they slew on the spot. The other they sized by the hands and took him to Ucita, their chief. The people in the pinnace, unwilling to land, kept along the coast and returned to Cuba.
"By command of Ucita, Juan Ortiz was bound hand and foot to four stakes and laid upon scaffolding. Beneath it a fire was kindled that he might be burned. However, a daughter of the chief entreated that he might be spared. 'Though one Christian,' she said, 'might do no good, certainly he could do no harm; also, it would be an honor to have one for a captive.' To this the father acceded, directing the injuries to be healed.
"The Indians are worshipers of the Devil. It is their custom to make sacrifice of the blood and bodies of their people, or of those of any other they can come by.
"The girl who had delivered Ortiz from the fire, told him (three years later) how her father had the mind to sacrifice him the next day. Consequently he must flee to Chief Mococo who she knew would receive him with regard. She said she had heard that he had asked for him and would like to see him.
"As Ortiz knew not the way, she went half a league out of town with him at dark to put him on the road, returning early so as not to be missed."
Ortiz was treated well by Mococo and spent the next eight years as a trusted messenger.
We are reasonably sure that Ucita - the Indian village commandeered by DeSoto for his base camp - was the large Timucua Indian mound east of Mill Creek at Charlotte Harbor Town. For more details see our book "Boldly Onward."
Ortiz was invaluable as an interpreter, but he died of a "fever" at Mobile, Ala., the following year.
To the Florida maid, whose name we do not know, belongs the compassion that played an important part in the European settlement of America.
Author: Lindsey Williams
