The Pocahontas ArchiveHistory on Trial Main Page

<-- Previous  |  Image Index  |  Next -->

page 577

47. Selected image: page 577. Source: "Poccahontas [sic]: A Story of the First English Emigrants to North America, Founded on Fact." Leisure Hour: A Family Journal of Instruction and Recreation. 1.37 (September 9, 1852): 577-82; 1.38 (September 16, 1852): 594-97; 1.39 (September 23, 1852): 610-12; 1.40 (September 30, 1852): 625-27. Serialized novel loosely based on the "real" story. Smith is 36, with a wife and family in England; Pocahontas is 17 and falls in love at first sight. Neither Smith nor Powhatan are anxious for war; the villain is a spurned lover of Pocahontas, Jukka. Pocahontas makes a night journey to warn Smith; Smith has Powhatan in custody and releases him. Smith is wounded in battle and captured, leading to the climactic act of Pocahontas. "The noble self-denial of the girl's conduct to their chief was indeed universally acknowledged; not the shadow of a doubt existed in a single breast of the purity of her motives, nor was her partiality for him ever made the subject of a ribald jest. As for the governor himself, need we say that he entertained the sincerest regard for Poccahontas. Most unfeeling, had he felt otherwise, must he have been. Twice had she saved his life, and preserved at the same time the infant colony from destruction. But a dark passage at this point rests upon his memory. It is said that he promised his Indian deliverer that she should be his wife -- a promise dictated by state policy, and made but to delude."
[novel; illustrated]
[Electronic Version]
[1 of 4 images from this source.]