Pocahontas

Pocahontas

  • Submitted By: nothinghamm
  • Date Submitted: 11/10/2013 6:05 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1109
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 58

POCAHONTAS

Respond to the Text!
1. Describe each of the characters in the story.
* Matoaka (Pocahontas): Pocahontas was the beautiful and lively daughter of Powhatan, ruler of the land that the English named Virginia. "Pocahontas" was her childhood nickname, translated as "little wanton," meaning she was playful and hard to control. When she was born, Powhatan sent her mother home to her own village, to raise Pocahontas. That was his custom. When she was about school age, Pocahontas left her mother to live in her father's capital, with her older brothers and sisters. As they grew up, Powhatan appointed some as chiefs of his other tribes. Pocahontas became her father's favorite, "the apple of his eye".
* Powhatan: Powhatan was the father of Pocahontas. As a young werowance (chief), Powhatan inherited the leadership of eight tribes, which he built into a loose empire controlling Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers, bounded on the West by the fall line – basically Tidewater Virginia, plus he had some control over Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Map. Powhatan lived long, and allegedly had 100 wives, with one child by each. There were a dozen known children of his; Pocahontas was his favorite. King James had Powhatan coronated Emperor of Virginia. (This made Pocahontas a princess, theoretically outranking a lot of the English nobility when she visited England. The English had not yet decided how to treat "savages".)
* Captain John Smith: Captain John Smith is an English man. He was a short man who wore a beard. Like many famous stories, he was feisty, abrasive, self-promoting, and ambitious. He was an experienced soldier and adventurer, the man who boldly went out and got things done. If not for him, the colony may have failed at the start – according to him, anyway. He arrived in 1607, was rescued by Pocahontas that winter, became council President in September 1608, and was shipped back to England on a stretcher in October 1609,...

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