Quadricentennial of Pocahontas' Wedding

Today marks the 400th anniversary of the wedding of Indian princess Pocahontas to the English colonist John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia, which occurred on April 5, 1614. It was an important milestone in American cross-cultural relations, and in American history.

After her conversion to Christianity, she was baptized by Alexander Whitaker, son of the famous Puritan scholar, William Whitaker, and took the name Rebecca. John Rolfe, who was famous in his own right for being credited as the first to successfully cultivate tobacco in the New World, had lost a wife and child in Bermuda previously, but fell in love in Rebecca, and the two were married by Rev. Richard Buck, who was the first chaplain to the Virginia General Assembly.

The two lived in Virginia for a short while, and had a child, Thomas, in 1615, before they traveled to England, where Pocahontas died in the Lord in March 1617, in Gravesend, Kent, England.

Theirs was not the first marriage between a European and an Indian princess, however, nor the first Christian wedding in America. In 1566, Ernst d'Erlach, French Huguenot nobleman and survivor of the infamous 1565 Fort Caroline massacre, and Princess Issena of the Timucuan Indian tribe, were wedded at Ormond Beach, Florida, in a Huguenot ceremony.

Although Princess Issena is remembered by some, the name Pocahontas -- who is credited with saving the life of Captain John Smith and bringing peace to the conflict between his colonists and the braves of her father Chief Powhatan -- stands alongside those of Squanto and Samoset, who helped to further the cause of Christ in colonial America.

French Witness at Cape Cod

In 1647, Thomas Shepard, John Eliot and John Wilson, were sent to Yarmouth on Cape Cod on ecclesiastical business. Eliot took the opportunity to visit Indian settlements in the area, and Shepard wrote about these missionary endeavors in his 1648 work The Clear Sunshine of the Gospel Breaking Forth Upon the Indians in New-England, making an interesting reference to an earlier European visitor, p. 9:

...an aged Indian told us openly, "That these very things which Mr. Eliot had taught them as the Commandements of God, and concerning God, and the making of the world by one God, that they had heard some old men who were now dead, to say the same things, since whose death there hath been no remembrance or knowledge of them among the Indians untill now they heare of them againe. Which when I heard solemnly spoken, I could not tell how those old Indians should attaine to such knowledge, unlelesse perhaps by means of the French Preacher cast upon those coasts many years since, by whose ministry they might possibly reape and retaine some knowledge of those things; this also I hear by a godly and able Christian who hath much converse with them; that many of them have this apprehension now stirring among them, viz. "That their forefathers did know God, but that after this, they fell into a great sleep, and when they did awaken they quite forgot him, (for under such metaphoricall language they usually expresse what eminent things they meane:) so that it may seeme to be the day of the Lords gracious visitation of these poore Natives, which is just as it is with all other people, when they are most low, the wheele then turnes, and the Lord remembers to have mercy.

The French had sailed the waters of what would become Provincetown Harbour as early as 1605 under Samuel de la Champlain. Fishermen on their way to or from New France found the area to be a veritable fishing goldmine. A short-lived Jesuit mission was established on Mount Desert Island (Maine) in 1613. The "French Preacher," however, may have been one of the survivors of a 1616 French shipwreck on the shores of Cape Cod that is referred to by William Bradford in Of Plimoth Plantation, p. 119. In that instance, the local Patuxet Indians killed almost all survivors, excepting three or four, whom they tormented and enslaved (some think this was done in reprisal for the 1614 expedition from Virginia under Captain John Smith during which Thomas Hunt kidnapped a number of the Indians, including Squanto, who would later help the Pilgrims). After some time, the French were able to learn enough of the Indian dialect to communicate and the Indians took note of the French interest in a book, the Bible. They spoke about God, and one of the Frenchmen, who had acquired greater fluency than the rest, conveyed to them that God was angry with them for their cruelty, and would destroy them, and give their country to another people. They responded that they were too many for God to kill, but the Frenchman answered that God had many ways to kill them of which they were ignorant. It was soon after this that a plague struck the Indian community from 1617 to 1619, which some suppose to have been smallpox brought by the French. Two of the Frenchmen were ultimately rescued by Captain Thomas Dermer in 1619, who himself had met Squanto after he escaped from Dermer. Squanto, meanwhile, returned home after time in Europe to find his village wiped out by the disease. It was this plague which played such an important role in paying the way for the Pilgrim's arrival and survival, with Squanto's help. And the memory of the French witness to God lingered even after so many of the Indians died out. The prophecy of being removed by another people caused the Patuxet to be wary of the Pilgrims, and these events were brought to remembrance when John Eliot preached to them in 1647. God's providential hand was behind it all.

Story of Squanto

Many know the story of how the Indian Squanto helped to save the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth. His ability to speak English, his timely arrival and helpful counsel and connections all contributed to the survival of the Pilgrims after a difficult first winter (1620-1621). Cotton Mather tells the story by giving some background and reminds us to consider the providence in disposing all things for the good of his people and the glory of his name.

Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, pp. 55-56:

...our crippled planters were not more comforted with the early advance of the Spring, than they were surprized with the appearance of two Indians, who in broken English bade them, welcome Englishmen! It seems that one of these Indians had been in the eastern parts of New-England, acquainted with some of the English vessels that had been formerly fishing there; but the other of the Indians, and he from whom they had most of service, was a person provided by the very singular providence of God for that service. A most wicked ship-master being on this coast a few years before, had wickedly spirited away more than twenty Indians; whom having enticed them aboard, he presently stowed them under hatches, and carried them away to the Streights, where he sold as many of them as he could for Slaves. This avaritious and pernicious felony laid the foundation of grievous annoyances to all the English endeavours of settlements, especially in the northern parts of the land for several years ensuing. The Indians would never forget or forgive this injury; but when the English afterwards came upon this coast, in their fishing-voyages, they were still assaulted in an hostile manner, to the killing and wounding of many poor men by the angry natives, in revenge of the wrong that had been done them; and some intended Plantations here were hereby utterly nipt in the bud. But our good God so ordered it, that one of the stoln Indians, called Squanto, had escaped out of Spain into England; where he lived with one Mr. Slany, from whom he had found a way to return into his own country, being brought back by one Mr. Dermer, about half a year before our honest Plymotheans were cast upon this continent.. This Indian (with the other) having received much kindness from the English, who he saw generally condemned the man that first betrayed him, now made unto the English a return of that kindness: and being by his acquaintance with the English language, fitted for a conversation with them, he very kindly informed them what was the present condition of the Indians; instructed them in the way of ordering their Corn; and acquainted them with many other things, which it was necessary for them to understand. But Squanto did for them a yet greater benefit than all this: for he brought Massasoit, the chief Sachim or Prince of the Indians within many miles, with some scores of his attenders, to make our people a kind visit; the issue of which visit was, that Massasoit not only entred into a firm agreement of peace with the English, but also they declared and submitted themselves to be subjects of the King of England; into which peace and subjection many other Sachims quickly after came, in the most voluntary manner that could be expressed. It seems this unlucky Squanto having told his countrymen how easie it was for so great a monarch as K. James to destroy them all, if they should hurt any of his people, he went on to terrifie them with a ridiculous rhodomantado, which they believed, that this people kept the plague in a cellar (where they kept their powder), and could at their pleasure let it loose to make such havock among them, as the distemper had already made among them a few years before. Thus was the tongue of a dog made useful to a feeble and sickly Lazarus! Moreover, our English guns, especially the great ones, made a formidable report among these ignorant Indians; and the hopes of enjoying some defence by the English, against the potent nation of Narraganset Indians, now at war with these, made them yet more to court our friendship. This very strange disposition of things, was extreamly advantageous to our distressed planters: and who sees not herein the special providence of the God who disposeth all?