Who was Pocahantas/Rebecca's husband?

Question

Just watched the movie "The New World," which is wonderful. But a very odd thing is I don't think they ever mentioned the name of the guy she eventually married. He seemed like a nice guy, and because she was received by the king and queen, his name is obviously on record. Who was he?

Answer 1

John Rolfe

Answer 2

Pocahontas (c. 1595 – March 21, 1617[1]) was a Native American woman who married an Englishman, John Rolfe, and became a celebrity in London in the last year of her life. She was a daughter of Wahunsunacock (also known as Chief or Emperor Powhatan), who ruled an area encompassing almost all of the neighboring tribes in the Tidewater region of Virginia (called Tenakomakah at the time). Her formal names were Matoaka and Amonute[2]; 'Pocahontas' was a childhood nickname referring to her frolicsome nature (in the Powhatan language it meant "little wanton", according to William Strachey[3]). In her last days she went by Rebecca Rolfe.

Pocahontas's life has formed the basis of many legends. Because she never learned to write, everything now known about her was transmitted to later generations by others, so that the thoughts, feelings, and motives of the historical Pocahontas remain largely unknown. Her story became the source of much romantic myth-making in the centuries following her death, including the 1995 Disney movie Pocahontas and the 2005 Terrence Malick film The New World.

Answer 3

Pocahontas married John Rolfe....

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John Rolfe was born in the spring of 1585, the descendant of an old Norfolk family. His emigration to Virginia in 1609 was interrupted by a shipwreck on the newly discovered island of Bermuda. A child born to Rolfe's wife died while they were stranded in Bermuda. After almost a year the couple landed in Jamestown, Va.; the colony was in desperate condition. Apart from the danger of disease, which claimed Rolfe's wife shortly after their arrival, the province had no staple product, and there were constant threats of attack by the indigenous population.

Conceptions regarding colonization had proceeded no further in Rolfe's time than to think of plantations as trading ventures, places where quick returns might be won from a minimal investment. Finding neither precious metals nor other resources that could be exploited easily, the sponsors of Jamestown experienced continuing expense coupled with disappointment. The colony's settlers found the Native Americans growing and using tobacco, but its commercial possibilities seemed limited because the leaf tasted bitter.

Rolfe started to experiment with the cultivation of tobacco. In 1612 he planted seeds of tobacco plants that had been found originally in the West Indies and Venezuela and that offered a milder smoke. He also developed new methods of curing the leaf, thereby further enhancing its flavor and facilitating its shipment to England. Rolfe's experiments were very successful, and his first shipments to London in 1614 were the foundation of the staple production that underlay the southern economy before 1800.

Given the importance of Rolfe's contribution in the cultivation of tobacco, it is unfortunate that his fame is largely associated with his marriage in 1614 to Pocahontas, daughter of the chief Powhatan. Although Rolfe's marriage to Pocahontas grew out of mutual love, contemporaries also observed that it initiated an eight-year period of relative peace. A triumphant tour of England by Pocahontas and her entourage in 1616, during which she was received as a visiting princess, ended sadly in her death from consumption.

Rolfe's last years were busy and fruitful. He served as secretary of Virginia and as a member of the council, writing important letters describing the problems of Virginia. He was killed during the massacre of March 22, 1622, which was said to be perpetrated by the Native Americans. He left a third wife and daughter, as well as his son by Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe.