Pocahontas

In 1608, Captain John Smith, one of the leaders of the English settlement at Jamestown in Virginia, was captured by Indians.  According to a book Smith wrote in later years, he was about to be clubbed to death when Pocahontas, “the king’s dearest daughter…got his head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him from death.”

No one knows for sure if Smith’s story is true.  Yet there is no doubt that Pocahontas was a young princess of the Powhatan tribe who befriended the settlers, helped them in many ways, and convinced her father, the chief, to give the foreigners food during the harsh winter.

Relations between the Indians and the settlers were not good, however.  In 1613, Pocahontas was taken hostage by the settlers.  During her stay in the colony, Pocahontas learned English and became a Christian.  Her marriage to John Rolfe, a tobacco planter, resulted in an eight year truce between Indians and settlers.

In 1616, Pocahontas traveled to England with her husband.  She was treated like royalty by the English, who found her charming and beautiful.  But before she could return to Virginia in 1617, she was taken ill and died at the age of 22.

Pocahontas’ real name as Matoaka.  “Pocahontas” was a nickname meaning “the playful one.”  After she was married, Pocahontas was known as Lady Rebecca Rolfe.

The Navajo

More than 500 years ago, a group of people migrated southward from Canada and Alaska to the present-day American Southwest. These newcomers, the Navajo, soon became the dominant tribe in the region.

Today, they are the largest Native American tribe in the United States.
When Spaniards and Mexicans arrived in the area in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Navajo fought to remain free. But the intruders changed the Navajo way of life. Sheep, introduced by the Spanish, became an important source of food, their wool was used in the weaving of colorful blankets and rugs. Horses allowed the Navajo to travel long distances. And Mexican silversmiths taught them how to make beautiful turquoise and silver jewelry.

When the U.S. acquired the region in 1848, the struggle over Navajo lands grew intense. Years of warfare and forced resettlement resulted in the death of thousands. Finally, in 1868, the government signed a peace treaty with the Navajo that returned a portion of their homeland.

Over the years, the tribe began to benefit from oil, gas, and coal that were found on its land.

Today, 150,00 Navajo live on a reservation that covers 25,000 square miles. The reservation is three times the size of Massachusetts! They maintain a strong sense of tribal identify while continuing to play an important role in the live of America’s Southwest.

1682

The year 1682 was an important one for two adventurous Europeans – French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and William Penn, an English Quaker.

La Salle had set out from Canada in 1689, searching for a great river described by the Indians. In 1682-1682, he traveled down the full length of the Mississippi. When he reached the Gulf of Mexico in April, 1682, he claimed all the land that the Mississippi flowed through for France. La Salle named the vast territory Louisiana, in honor of his king, Louis XIV.

As a Quaker, William Penn was persecuted and jailed in England for his religious beliefs. In 1681, he received a grant of land in America from the English king in settlement of a debt owed to his father. Penn immediately sent agents to the New World to begin building a settlement. The next year, he went to America himself and issued the colony’s frame of government. Penn’s guarantee of religious freedom and his easy terms for buying land attracted many settlers to his colony – “Penn’s Woods,” or Pennsylvania.

Also in 1682 – One of America’s first best-sellers was published in 1682. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God was Mary Rowlandson’s account of her capture by Wampanoag Indians in Massachusetts in 1676.

The painting with this post is titled LaSalle at the Mouth of the Mississippi. The artist is George Catlin. It was painted sometime in the 1840s.

1492

On August 3, 1492, three small ships – the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria – set sail from Palos, Spain. Christopher Columbus, the daring captain of the expedition, was convinced that he could reach Asia by sailing westward across the Atlantic. Up to that time, the only way for European traders to reach Asia was by ship to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and then by caravan across treacherous deserts and mountains. Columbus hoped to find an easier route to Asia and to the jewels, silks, and spices that Europeans valued so highly.

As Columbus’ ships sailed day after day across the choppy ocean, his men grew discontented and fearful. But on October 12th, they sighted land. Columbus went ashore on a small island and claimed it for Queen Isabella of Spain, who had financed his voyage. He named the island San Salvador, or Holy Savior. He believed the island was one of the Indies off the coast of Asia, so he called the natives Indians.

In reality, Columbus had landed in the Caribbean Sea, in the group of islands now known as the Bahamas. A huge continent, now called North America, was just 50 miles to the northwest. Instead of finding a sea route to Asia, Columbus had discovered the New World.

Christopher Columbus made three more trips to the New World before his death in 1506, but he died believing that he had discovered an unknown region of Asia.

Use this link to find logs, letters, and journals written by Christopher Columbus.

For an extensive listing of Christopher Columbus images check this Library of Congress page.

1676

In 1676, a bloody war between Indians and white settlers raged in New England. And to the south, in Virginia, colonial farmers rebelled against the British government.

The leader of the warring Indians in New England was chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet, whom the colonists called Philip. Angry over the settlers’ treatment of the Indians and their encroachment on Indian land, Metacomet and his allies began a series of fierce attacks on frontier settlements in 1675. Metacomet was a son of Massasoit, the Indian chief who lived in peace with the Pilgrims when they arrived in the New World.

Many settlements were completely destroyed, and hundreds of colonists were killed. But in 1676, the settlers counterattacked, and the Indians were defeated. Some 600 colonists and 3,000 Indians were killed during King Philip’s War, the bloodiest of the seventeenth-century wars between American colonists and Indians.

Meanwhile in Virginia, a planter named Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising of farmers against the British governor. The farmers were angry because of high taxes and because the government was not protecting them from Indian attacks. Bacon’s men captured Jamestown, and the governor fled. But when Bacon suddenly fell ill and died, the leaderless revolt collapsed. It would be 100 years before American colonists again defied Britain.