[Verginius Rufus]

I caught part of a C-SPAN rebroadcast of a talk by Avery Chenoweth, author of Empires in the Forest: Jamestown and the beginning of America. I missed the beginning, but he seemed to be saying that without Pocahontas, the settlement at Jamestown wouldn't have survived, and thought that Pocahontas had saved John Smith's life. It sounds like a valuable book. He said there are plans to make a movie based on it.

[VegasBaby]

That’s useful info. Thanks! I’m quite fascinated with the dynamics of the Jamestown settlement. I wish there was more documented history of what actually occurred there since there seems to be a plethora of speculation and a sometimes gross distortion of what actually went on there (e.g. Hollywood’s version of events).

I, too, have read that Pocahontas did, in fact, save Smith’s life, but I know there are conflicting accounts of that as well. What little is known about her seems to support that she was instrumental in helping the Jamestown settlement survive. Also, it is suggested that her marriage to John Rolfe (and their son, Thomas) helped maintain a certain level of peace between the Algonquins and the English settlers for a period of time.