The article offered a more detailed explanation:


This picture painted by a North American Indian artist, has lately been brought to London by Colonel Sherburne, who has ap- plied, through the American representative here for a channel by which to present the painting to the Queen. The picture portrays Pe-o-ka, the wife of Osceola, the principal War Chief of the Seminoles, in Florida, and her Son, on hearing of his treacherous cap- ture under the white flag, his imprisonment, and death in a dungeon by the American General, after a seven years’ war with the Seminole tribe.


In spite of Colonel Sherburne’s intentions,


the Royal Collection has since confirmed that a presentation to Queen Victoria never occurred. What happened to this painting between 1848 and 1875, until it appeared in Rolfe Collection thanks to “Mrs. Charlton,” remains a mystery. Colonel Sherburne reportedly died in England, and the portrait might have never returned to America. Over time, possibly because of the resemblance of at least the first syllables of the names, it became assumed to be a representa- tion, either faithful or imaginary, of the famous Pocahontas. Now that the true identity of this mother


and child is known, this painting has gained greater historical importance and consider- able interest. Historians possess almost no information on Pe-o-ka, and this portrait is the only known image of her. Her story as a widow and a mother is unknown. Her husband, Osceola, also known as Asi-yahola, was an influential leader and war chief of the Seminole in Florida. At the head of a guerilla war against American forces since 1835, he was captured under a flag of truce in 1837. His capture by deceit generated a national up- roar. George Catlin, Robert J. Curtis and other painters persuaded the proud war chief to pose for them. Osceola died in prison of ma- laria, surrounded by Pe-o-ka and his children, on January 30, 1838. Eventually, the 250 Seminole prisoners


were expelled 700 miles west of the Missis- sippi, far away from their native land. We don’t know the name of the painter responsi- ble for Pe-o-ka’s portrait, and his style differs strongly from that of artists such as Catlin or Curtis. (A possible candidate, both for style and geography, might be the Georgia-based portraitist George Cooke(1793-1849).) Whoever the painter, he very successfully


imbued his portrait of this mother and child with traces of pride, sadness and resilience. – Valerie Navab


inconveniences which may therefore arise.” In prose as tortured as his conscience, Rolfe


concluded that two concerns superseded and purified a “merely carnal” attraction. One was the safety of the colony, which would be ad- vanced by a marriage alliance. The other was the conversion and salvation of Pocahontas/ Matoaka herself. “Why dost not thou indeavor to make her a Christian?” Rolfe asked himself. “Likewise, adding hereunto her great ap-


pearance of love to me, her desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge of God, her capablenesse of understanding, her aptness and willingnesse to receive anie good impres- sion, and also the spirituall, besides her owne incitements stirring me up hereunto.” Rolfe received “no small encouragement”


in this course by his “conference with honest and religious persons.” One of these men was undoubtedly the


Rev. Alexander Whitaker, spiritual mentor to Pocahontas. Whitaker is already known as “the Apostle of Virginia,” but his historical standing would be much higher if he had lived longer (he drowned at the age of 32 crossing the James River) and if more of his writings had survived. His education and intellectual ability were outstanding. His father, Dr. Wil- liam Whitaker, was master of St. John’s Col- lege at Cambridge and a leading Church of England theologian with Calvinist leanings.


A


lexander answered the call to emigrate to Virginia in 1611, leaving a comfortable posi- tion. His main surviving work Good Newes from Virginia was


published in 1613. Although it predated his encounter with Matoaka, it laid the intellec- tual foundation for her marriage and much that followed. His interest in the Indian population, and his emphasis on their hu- man rights, is particularly illuminating when read in conjunction with John Rolfe’s letter. Whitaker describes the Virginia natives as


“naked slaves of the divell” but quickly blames their condition on their awe of the Powhatan priesthood, the Quiokosoughs (an elaborate institution relatively rare in North American tribes). He compares the Quiokosoughs to English witches and reminds the reader of the benighted state of England “before the Gospell was preached in our Countrey.” The language is jarring to modern ears, but it leads to a surprisingly broad-minded conclusion. The comparison to ancient Britain was meant to emphasize their common humanity.


It


echoes the famous report by Thomas Harriot and the artist and Roanoke Governor John


White, which included pictures of the ancient Picts, “to showe how that the inhabitants of the great Bretannie have bin in times past as sauvage as those of Virginia.” Even though Whitaker calls the Powhatan


priests “Sathan’s own brood,” he shows a lively curiosity about their conduct and promises to study it further. “When I have more perfectly entered into their secrets, you shall know all.” Moreover he sees an obligation to rescue


the “miserable people” under their spell. “One God created us, they have reasonable soules and intellectual faculties as well as wee: we all have Adam for our common par- ent: yea, by nature the condition of us both is all one, the servants of sinne and slaves of the divell.” Whitaker carries the argument fur- ther in a very important sentence. “Finally, there is a civill government amongst them which they strictly observe, and show there- by that the law of Nature dwelleth in them.” This statement is more than an echo of a fa- mous 1532 lecture by the Spanish jurist and Dominican theologian Francisco de Vitoria (1480?–1546); it is a precis of Vitoria’s thesis, which is now widely cited as a foundation of modern human rights. Vitoria’s lecture “On the Indians Lately


Discovered” addressed the rights of the in- digenous peoples of the Americas in the face of Spanish conquest. To those raised in the shadow of the Elizabethan “Black Legend” of Spanish cruelty, it is a major surprise to learn that Vitoria, the eminent Dominican and theology professor at the University of Sala- manca, condemned the conquistadors and defended the rights of the Indians. Vitoria’s basic point, after a prolonged medieval-style back-and-forth, was that Indians had basic political and property rights because they possessed the basic human quality of reason. “This is clear, because there is a certain meth- od in their affairs, for they have polities which are orderly arranged and they have definite marriage and magistrates, overlords, laws and workshops, and a system of exchange, all of which call for the use of reason; they also have a kind of religion.” It didn’t matter that their government or religion sometimes sanctioned


E SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 39


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