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Captain Samuel Argall
A reverend from a well-to-do scholarly family in England who traveled to Jamestown in hopes of converting as many members of the surrounding tribes as he could to Christianity. While captive in Jamestown and nearby Henrico, Pocahontas lived in Whitaker’s, taking daily classes in language and religion at his behest and accompanying him to his weekly Sunday services. Whitaker, Townsend posits, showed Pocahontas a measure of kindness—but fundamentally viewed her more as an experiment for his conversion tactics than an autonomous human being. Whitaker bestowed the name Rebecca on Pocahontas, hoping that she would, like the biblical Rebekah who favored her pale son Jacob over her darker son Esau, come to favor the white colonizers over her own darker-skinned people.
Reverend Alexander Whitaker Quotes in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
The Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma quotes below are all either spoken by Reverend Alexander Whitaker or refer to Reverend Alexander Whitaker. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7
Quotes
The [Biblical] name Rebecca was almost certainly Whitaker’s choice. […] By Isaac, Rebekah conceived twins […] Rebekah favored [Jacob] the pale son over [Esau] the red one [and] it is more than likely that Whitaker thought the parallel perfect. Pocahontas’s children would be by nature both Indian and Christian, both red and pale. […] If Whitaker read the story this way, however, Pocahontas likely did not. She could easily have focused her attention on the passages narrated from the perspective of Rebekah’s people, in which […] her siblings bless her for being willing to go and bear children among the enemy.
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Pocahontas became Rebecca. She would not have found the idea of a renaming traumatic: it was in keeping with her culture for her to change her name as she proceeded through her life and had new experiences. Men, in fact, said that they aspired to earning many names, and women may well have, too.
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Reverend Alexander Whitaker Quotes in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
The Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma quotes below are all either spoken by Reverend Alexander Whitaker or refer to Reverend Alexander Whitaker. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7
Quotes
The [Biblical] name Rebecca was almost certainly Whitaker’s choice. […] By Isaac, Rebekah conceived twins […] Rebekah favored [Jacob] the pale son over [Esau] the red one [and] it is more than likely that Whitaker thought the parallel perfect. Pocahontas’s children would be by nature both Indian and Christian, both red and pale. […] If Whitaker read the story this way, however, Pocahontas likely did not. She could easily have focused her attention on the passages narrated from the perspective of Rebekah’s people, in which […] her siblings bless her for being willing to go and bear children among the enemy.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Pocahontas became Rebecca. She would not have found the idea of a renaming traumatic: it was in keeping with her culture for her to change her name as she proceeded through her life and had new experiences. Men, in fact, said that they aspired to earning many names, and women may well have, too.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
