Pocahontas follows the Powhatan woman whose encounters with English settlers became one of the most familiar stories of early colonial America. It places her within the political world of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom and the unstable Jamestown settlement rather than treating her only through later romantic legend.
The biography examines the disputed rescue of John Smith, her captivity, conversion, marriage to John Rolfe and journey to England. It also considers how her early death and limited surviving testimony allowed colonial and national myths to overshadow Indigenous perspectives on her life.
