First Families of Virginia - Pocahontas, Wife of John Rolfe

Pocahontas, Wife of John Rolfe

Many of the First Families of Virginia can also trace their ancestry to a young Native American named Pocahontas. She was the youngest daughter of Nonoma Winanuske Matatiske and Chief Powhatan, who had created the Powhatan Confederacy in the late 16th century and led the local Native American tribes during the first ten years of the settlement of Jamestown in 1607.

In 1614, Pocahontas married English-born colonist John Rolfe, who arrived in Virginia in 1611 after a trip of great hardship. It included being shipwrecked on Bermuda and the deaths of his first wife and their young son. Rolfe had become prominent and wealthy as the first to successfully develop an export cash crop for the Colony with new varieties of tobacco. The combination of notable Native American and English heritage began when their only son, Thomas Rolfe, was born in 1615, and his offspring. Many married other persons of FFV heritage, as there was a propensity to marry within their narrow social scope for many generations.