Middle school · AP US History

The baptism of Pocahontas: what the painting gets right

Your child is reading The Double Life of Pocahontas. Chapman's painting hangs in the U.S. Capitol and shows her kneeling in white to be baptized. It leaves out the part Jean Fritz puts at the center: she was a prisoner of the English when it happened.

Chapman's Baptism of Pocahontas: Pocahontas in a white dress kneels at a baptismal font before a minister in white robes, watched by English colonists and Powhatan relatives
John Gadsby Chapman, Baptism of Pocahontas, 1840. U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Source and licence

The book your child may be reading

What really happened (1613–1614)

Pocahontas, born around 1596, was the daughter of Powhatan, the leader of the Powhatan people in what is now Virginia. As a girl she visited the English fort at Jamestown and brought the colonists food.

In 1613, during a war between the colonists and the Powhatan, Captain Samuel Argall captured her and held her for ransom. She was kept at the English settlement of Henricus, where the minister Alexander Whitaker taught her Christianity.

She was baptized with the name Rebecca, and in April 1614 she married the tobacco planter John Rolfe. The marriage brought several years of peace.

In 1616 the Rolfes sailed to England, where the company that ran the colony presented her to London society to attract investors. She fell ill as they set off for home and died at Gravesend in March 1617, at about 21.

What the painting shows

Baptism of Pocahontas, by John Gadsby Chapman, 1840.

  • Pocahontas kneels in a white dress on the steps of the font, head bowed and hands clasped. The Reverend Alexander Whitaker stands over her in white robes.
  • John Rolfe stands behind her. Sir Thomas Dale, the deputy governor, has risen from his chair on the left.
  • On the right, her family looks on: her brother Nantequaus turns away, her uncle Opechancanough sits with his back to the ceremony, and her sister sits on the floor with a baby.

What is true

  • Pocahontas really was baptized and given the name Rebecca, and Whitaker was the minister who taught her.
  • Chapman travelled in England and America to study early 1600s buildings and objects, trying to get the setting right.
  • The baptism and the marriage that followed did bring peace. Colonists called it the Peace of Pocahontas, and it lasted about eight years.

What was changed or invented

  • The painting never shows that she was a captive. The light, the white dress and the watching crowd make it look like a free and happy choice.
  • The Jamestown church had been torn down long before 1840, so the room is Chapman's reconstruction. Even the place is unsure: she was held at Henricus, and the Architect of the Capitol says only that the baptism took place 'in 1613 or 1614'.
  • The Powhatan relatives are idealized types, painted more than 200 years later by an artist who never saw them.

Short timeline

  1. c. 1596 · Pocahontas is born, a daughter of Powhatan.
  2. 1607 · English colonists found Jamestown; John Smith is captured by Powhatan's men that winter.
  3. 1613 · Samuel Argall captures Pocahontas and holds her for ransom.
  4. Apr 5, 1614 · Now baptized Rebecca, she marries John Rolfe.
  5. Mar 1617 · She dies at Gravesend, England, at about 21.
  6. 1840 · Chapman finishes the painting for the Capitol Rotunda.

Talk about it: 3 questions

For the dinner table or the classroom.

  1. Nothing in the painting shows that Pocahontas was a prisoner. Why do you think Congress wanted this scene in the Capitol in 1840?
  2. Look at her family on the right side. What do their faces and poses say about how they felt?
  3. Jean Fritz calls her life a 'double life'. Which two lives do you see in this painting, and which one gets the light?

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Where this fits in school

Sources

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