Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

In April of 1614, Pocahontas publicly declares herself a Christian, accepts the name Rebecca, and marries John Rolfe. Pocahontas picks a significant moment to accept baptism—she was likely waiting until a declaration of peace, her and her father’s goal, had been made. Whitaker and Dale each believe, Townsend says, that they’ve “won”—they had no idea, most likely, about the strategies and political moves which factored into Pocahontas at last submitting to Christianity.

The name “Rebecca,” Townsend says, was likely chosen by Whitaker. It is symbolic: the biblical figure of Rebekah gave birth to twins after marrying a man from a foreign land. Esau came out red, while his brother, Jacob, come out holding Esau’s heel. Rebekah favored Jacob, and eventually helped him trick his father Isaac into bestowing upon him the ritual blessing meant for the eldest son. Another perspective of Rebekah’s story, however, shows Rebekah’s people blessing her for bearing the children of her people’s enemy. Pocahontas, upon receiving her new name, reveals that her old name was Matoaka—the colonists are surprised she’d never shared it before, and when asked why, Pocahontas apparently says she simply “had not felt like sharing it.”

After her wedding to John Rolfe, Pocahontas moves with her husband to the land given to him by the Virginia Company, just across the river from Jamestown. As an intrepid agriculturalist, John Rolfe has begun to grow a Caribbean variety of tobacco and export it back to England—his farm is a major source of financial stability for the entire colony. By 1618, the colony would be exporting 40,000 pounds a year, breaking the Spanish monopoly on the plant. Pocahontas, Townsend asserts, is instrumental to the tobacco boom—she likely teaches John Rolfe her people’s methods of growing, cultivating, and drying the plant.

Jamestown has, at last, begun to thrive in earnest. Rolfe and Pocahontas are contented, spending their days teaching each other about their cultures, with Rolfe coming to believe that “the Indians [held] a just and lawful title” to their lands. Rolfe remains somewhat “condescending” in his attitudes toward the Indians, but Townsend asserts that Pocahontas’s vitality and relative independence widens her husband’s worldview. In the midst of the bitter winter of 1615, Rolfe brings Pocahontas some news: the leaders of the Virginia Company have invited her to cross the sea and visit London as an honored guest.