9. Pocahontas
Before her life became enshrouded in legend Pocahontas, which was not her real name, enjoyed celebrity in Britain. The daughter of the Principal Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy of tribes in Virginia, she was addressed as Amonute. How she obtained the name of Pocahontas, which loosely translates to English as “playful one”, is disputed among historians. In 1613, during a war between the colonists and Powhatan, the former captured her and held her for ransom. During her captivity, she adopted Christianity and the name Rebecca. Following her marriage to John Rolfe (which helped cement a period of peace), she was known to the English as Rebecca Rolfe. In the spring of 1616, Rebecca and John Rolfe sailed for England at the behest of the Virginia Company, which intended to use her to demonstrate the company’s success at converting the Indians to Christianity.
Pocahontas found herself the target of immediate celebrity in London. For the King and his court, she was regarded as a member of the nobility. Officials of the Church of England accorded her courtesies as well. But to the common people of England, especially in the Middlesex village of Brentford where she resided, she was considered simply an oddity. The following spring Rolfe and his wife prepared to return to Virginia, where he was one of the more successful planters. While they were still in the Thames, with the ship working its way toward the ocean, Rebecca was stricken by an illness of an unknown nature. Brought ashore at Gravesend, she died shortly afterward and was buried there on March 21, 1617.