![]() During her imprisonment with the colonists, Pocahontas converted to Christianity and took a Christian name, Rebecca. In 1613, the Jamestown colonists captured Pocahontas and attempted to use her for ransom during a period of hostility between the Native American tribes and the Englishmen. Though Pocahontas saved Smith and was a symbol of peace and goodwill between the Native Americans and the colonists, Smith was not a love interest. Pocahontas did, however, in 1607 save Smith who was to be killed by placing her head on top of his, which rested on a stone waiting to be crushed. While many mistake Pocahontas for marrying John Smith, she in fact married another colonist in Jamestown. The date of her birth could not be declared from his musing because eight years later in 1616, Smith described Pocahontas again as she was in 1608, but as being twelve or thirteen. Smith believed the young girl was around 10 years old when he first met her in the spring of 1608. The exact year Pocahontas was born is unknown, but historians believe Pocahontas was born around 1596 based on a description given by John Smith in his 1608 text, A True Relation of Virginia. Though there is little known about Pocahontas's early life, such as who her mother was or if she lived through childbirth as Powhatan legend states that she died birthing Pocahontas. Though she was not a princess, Pocahontas was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the highest chief in a section of tribes in the Tsenacommacah, or the area of land that made up Tidewater, Virginia, which consisted of an alliance of roughly 30 groups and petty chiefdoms. ![]() Despite the famous Disney movie, Pocahontas was in fact a real Native American who helped foster a relationship between her tribe and the colonial settlement of Jamestown, Virginia.
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