is best” of the news from the colony. And, as a Biblical scholar, he was certainly involved in the next step in this project, the daring decision to christen Pocahontas/Matoaka as Rebecca. To understand how provocative this
choice was, look to the original Rebekah in Genesis, chapter 24, the chosen wife of the second patriarch Isaac. Abraham, the first patriarch, was originally a city boy from the prosperous civilization of Mesopotamia; he had been ordered by God to emigrate to a wilderness surrounded by alien peoples. In arranging a marriage for his son, Abraham instructed his major domo in a solemn oath “that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell.” The wife was to come from Abraham’s homeland and his kindred. But the bride must emigrate to Canaan to found a great nation; under no circumstances was Isaac to return to Mesopotamia. The servant journeyed to Mesopotamia and at the city of Nahor encountered Rebekah, the great- grand-daughter of Abraham’s brother. She agreed to return with him, with her family’s blessing, “Be thou the mother of thousands of millions.” This story is so important to Israelite identity that the Bible tells it twice.
It would not have been lost on a Biblical
scholar of Whitaker’s quality that in accepting the name Rebecca, the new bride was step- ping into the role of “mother of thousands of millions.” She was to be the foundation of a new people, sent far away from its homeland and never to return. But the analogy took a breathtaking reversal; instead of coming from the homeland, the new Rebecca was in fact “a daughter of the Canaanites.” Rolfe, the equiv- alent of the patriarch Isaac, was turning to the surrounding peoples, not his faraway kindred, to find a wife. It is hard to believe that none of these thoughts crossed Whitaker’s mind, and possibly that of Pocahontas too. The name was at the least a deliberate defiance of preachers like William Symonds. One can even see in the choice of the name a glimmer- ing awareness that a new national identity, an amalgamation of Indian and English, was in the making.X
James Ring Adams is senior historian at the National Museum of the American Indian – Smithsonian and managing editor of American Indian magazine.
This article is adapted from a paper delivered at the Virginia Forum on March 23, 2013, at Randolph-Macon College.
The National Museum of the American Indian gratefully acknowledges the generosity of Mrs. Philip E. Nuttle and the Barksdale Dabney Patrick Henry Family Fund, which supports museum research and scholarship.
Vitoria’s lecture “On the Indians Lately
Discovered” addressed the rights of the indigenous 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 Salamanca, condemned the conquistadors and defended the rights of the Indians.
Arctic and Indian arts for the 21st century Inuit Sculpture and Graphics • Ivory Sculpture and Jewelry
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June 1 - 30: Generations
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June 14 - 16: Kevin Pourier
Lakota buffalo horn artist SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 41
June 28 - 30: Earl Plummer Navajo inlay artist
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