There is certainly room
for difference of opinion as to whether so precocious a woman, as her
intelligent apprehension of affairs shows her to have been, should
have remained unmarried till the age of eighteen. In marrying at
least as early as that she would have followed the custom of her
tribe. It is possible that her intercourse with the whites had
raised her above such an alliance as would be offered her at the
court of Werowocomoco.
We are without any record of the life of Pocahontas for some years.
The occasional mentions of her name in the "General Historie" are so
evidently interpolated at a late date, that they do not aid us. When
and where she took the name of Matoaka, which appears upon her London
portrait, we are not told, nor when she was called Amonata, as
Strachey says she was "at more ripe yeares." How she was occupied
from the departure of Smith to her abduction, we can only guess. To
follow her authentic history we must take up the account of Captain
Argall and of Ralph Hamor, Jr., secretary of the colony under
Governor Dale.
Captain Argall, who seems to have been as bold as he was unscrupulous
in the execution of any plan intrusted to him, arrived in Virginia in
September, 1612, and early in the spring of 1613 he was sent on an
expedition up the Patowomek to trade for corn and to effect a capture
that would bring Powhatan to terms.
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