One point to which the author alludes needs to be expanded upon: Pocahontas/Rebecca's conversion to Christianity. This is a Faith which emphasizes a crucial truth about human nature: that we are being endowed with intelligence and free will, and we each face a struggle, a challenge, to become the people we were created to be: wise, just, benevolent, turthful, courageous, learning-oriented, able to reason with others and be reasoned-with by others.
The short way to say this is: Created in the image and likeness of God.
The right-reason propounded by the Christian faith was undoubtedly one of the things that attracted this excellent woman to embrace it, and encouraged her ability to live it.
“She has been involved in the study of Ayn Rand’s philosophy since 1970.”
The AUTHOR is an Ayn Rand fan. Ayn Rand was an in your face ATHEIST so sny thing Christian would be something she would NOT mention. What a pity. She missed the MAIN POINT.
Ayn Rand’s god was MONEY. She had NO TIME for God. Her life was based on money and her personal life was that of an ally cat in heat.
When she was a child she lived in a Village located on the bluffs above the site of "the three sisters" ~ which are rocks in the Potomac between Virginia and DC ~ and also a spiritual representation of "the three sisters" called Squash, Beans and Corn which sustain human life.
Smith and company met her there.
Chief Powhatan appears to have been paying tribute to the better organized Iroquois ~ and they controlled a vast swath of territory West of the Potomac and extending in places all the way to the Mississippi ("control" being a right to tribute from tributary tribes in the interior ~ a common American Indian method of influencing folks ~ also known in Siciliy for that matter).
Although European contact wasn't all that meaningful to the Powhatan Indians it did serve to push back the Iroquois ~ who would kill them if they didn't pay the required tribute. The English would just survey the land and push them aside ~ with a little payoff for their efforts in removing the brush.
Pocahontas is not the only Indian woman to marry a white guy and move to Europe. Some analysts suggest that MOST adult Indian women living in the Mid-Atlantic married a white guy and moved to Europe. At the same time Indian men in that area found it possible to gain positions as colorful and exotic "butlers" in English homes and estates ~ and did so in huge numbers.
Of course many Indian men and Indian women died early deaths in the harsher climate and poorer diet of Europe and England, but these were not stupid people who didn't understand the value of a job, a warm house, food on the table, and other benefits of civilization.