evil deeds, even human sacrifice, or that they were pagans. The capacity for organization demonstrated human reason; in Aristotelean terms, Indians were political animals and thus possessed human souls. This emphasis on common humanity justi-
fied Whitaker in his labors to educate Pocahon- tas and Rolfe in his proposal of marriage. The Biblical barriers, in their view and in the view of current traditionalist authorities, were not based on biology or an anachronistic pseudo- science of racism; they dealt with divides in language, culture and religion which could be overcome by human effort and divine grace. This message, moreover, would have come
across strongly in Whitaker’s education of the intelligent young lady, capable of understand- ing and apt and willing to receive instruction. In his teaching of religious principles, it would be surprising if he did not use the document prepared by his own father,A Short Summe of Christianity. Delivered by way of Catechism. This popular book was a clear and concise distillation of Calvinist doctrine. In Calvin’s own explanation, all humanity
This pair of white mussel-shell earrings, a Rolfe family heirloom for generations, is believed to be the set worn by Mrs. Rebecca Rolfe (“Pocahontas”) during her visit to England in 1616-1617. It is now in the possession of Preservation Virginia.
T The Earrings Clue
hose who saw Pocahontas in the Sedgeford Hall portrait some- times pointed to her earrings as confirmation. Although there are no high-resolution repro-
ductions of the painting, the copies available do show a vague resemblance to the earrings pictured above, and also possibly seen in Simon van de Passe’s engraving. This beautiful pair of mussel-shell earrings was handed down through the Rolfe family as the personal prop- erty of Pocahontas, her only known belonging believed to have survived four centuries. Each earring is formed of a double mussel-
shell of a rare white kind found mainly on the eastern shore of the Bering Strait. They are set in sliver rims and inlaid with a myriad of small steel points. Although shells are customary jewelry for American Indians, this particular mounting suggests that they were set – or re-set – in England. There’s a story that Henry Percy,
40 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2013
ninth Earl of Northumberland, offered to remount her earrings in the workshop he maintained while a prisoner in the Tower of London. Pocahontas may have received these earrings as a gift while on her trip to London in 1616. When Pocahontas died in 1617, her young son, Thomas Rolfe, was left
in
the care of his uncle, Henry Rolfe, with whom he remained until adulthood. The earrings were carefully handed down for generations in Rolfe’s family. In 1923, the last member of this branch of the family, J. Girdlestone Rolfe, offered the earrings to his second wife, Isabella Golden Clark, on their wedding day. In this way, they went out of the Rolfe family. The famous earrings were exhibited at
the Jamestown Exposition in 1907. They are now in the care of Preservation Virginia. – Valerie Navab
is “damned and forlorn by nature. Hath not the devil a tyrannical domination over us, from whence no man can deliver himself by his own power.” Deliverance from this domi- nation comes not from human merit, “but from the peculiar mercy of God.” But this doctrine argues strongly against
the current academic effort to build a Puritan “Black Legend.” Some indigenously oriented scholars maintain that the Euro-American invaders demonized the Natives as children of Satan and thus justified dispossession and genocide. This historiography has plenty of material to work with, but it ignores the ac- ceptance in the 16th
and 17th centuries by
theologians such as Vitoria and Whitaker of the fundamental principle of universal hu- man rights and the Calvinist insistence that all humans are in the same boat. No matter how many statements one com-
piles to the effect that Indians are “children of the divell” or “slaves to Sathan,” one has to ac- knowledge that to a Calvinist, all members of humanity are conceived in sin and enslaved to the devil, except for the Immaculate Concep- tion. There is no warrant here for murder and dispossession. We can’t say whether or to what extent Al-
exander Whitaker engaged in such discussions with his ward, but we do know he was pleased with the result. In a short letter home, printed in Hamor alongside Rolfe’s soul-searching, he reported the marriage of “Pocahuntas or Ma- toa the daughter of Powhatan” as “that which
PHOTO COURTESY OF PRESERVATION VIRGINIA
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
