František (Fanda, Frankie) Majer

John Rolfe

John Rolfe was a famous settler in the Jamestown colony and he was involved in
its heroic saving. He is known for the economic success of Jamestown, a famous
relationship with Pocahontas, and some tragic moments. The year of his birth is
unknown but is it assumed that he was born in the year 1585 and died in 1622. 1

Jamestown was the second established English settlement in North America. The
first one was a colony named Roanoke but unexpectedly every inhabitant suddenly
disappeared from it. So, Jamestown became the first successful English settlement.
Jamestown was located approximately where Virginia is spread out today. In the
beginning, Jamestown was struggling for the first four years. This was known as The
Starving Time and it happened before the arrival of John Rolfe and his 150 other
crewmates in 1611. They were supposed to arrive in 1610 but they got delayed by a
shipwreck in the Bermudas. With great economic success, Jamestown developed from a
swampy dying place to a booming society for cash and crops. Jamestown also became
one of the most influential areas in all of America. All of this was thanks to the tobacco
trade and export. 2

John Rolfe is the main person that was behind the great tobacco success. He
smuggled in tobacco seeds from Trinidad. This tobacco was too sour for the liking of
others. Rolfe decided to cultivate these tobacco seeds until he made irresistible tobacco.
At this time, the tobacco market was ruled by the Spanish and they were persistent to be
the only ones. The Spanish had colonies in South and Central America where the
climate was and still is much better for growing tobacco. The seeds that John Rolfe had
smuggled in were under the death penalty by the Spanish. These seeds were not
supposed to be sold to anyone or grown by anyone other than a Spaniard. Thankfully,
Europe was hooked on tobacco and they needed more and more. John Rolfe was able to
fulfill this need and make a living out of it. In 1611 John Rolfe described his tobacco
like this: “Smoke pleasant, sweet and strong.” In just six years they were able to export
about 25000 pounds of tobacco, the next year about 45000 pounds, and in the year
1630, they sold about 500000 pounds of tobacco. John Rolfe started small with Varina
Farms, a plantation along the James River, which was about 30 miles long. As the
1
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, March 6). John Rolfe. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Rolfe
2
YouTube, 5 Minute History – John Rolfe (2021, July 17).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRdSSNeomag

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export grew, the plantations were getting bigger and bigger along the river. This was a
clever placement because they were able to transport big amounts of tobacco on the
river by building many wharves. Jamestown was not overflowing with resources and a
lot of them had to be imported from Europe. This need was able to be supported solely
by tobacco exports. On one hand, tobacco saved a lot of lives and made Jamestown a
good place to live. On the other hand, the settlers needed a lot of space for tobacco
planting. This meant that they had to overtake some of the land from Native Americans.
A lot of killing, slavery, and other issues were involved in this action of land taking.
Things other than tobacco exported from Jamestown and the other British colonies in
North America were furs, lumber, dried fish, iron, gunpowder, and rice. They were also
exporting rum, cloth, tools, iron, and gunpowder to Africa. From Great Britain, they
were importing manufactured goods, textiles, furniture, and other luxuries. From Africa,
they were getting gold, pepper, and enslaved persons. Most of these slaves were used as
farm and plantain workers taking care of tobacco and cotton. 3

Pocahontas and the Native Americans

The settlers had some major disagreements with the Native Americans. One of
the most known Indian tribes was the one of Powhatan. Powhatan was the father of
Pocahontas. She helped her tribe by communicating with the settlers and translating
languages. She also served as a diplomat for the Native Americans. In 1613 she was
kidnapped by the settlers and ended up on the ship of John Rolfe. People say that John
Rolfe fell in love with Pocahontas at first glance. This statement is not so true. John
Rolfe saw the opportunity to marry Pocahontas as a sign of peace. He had to compose a
long letter to Governor Dale asking for permission to marry a heathen Pocahontas. The
letter reflected Rolfe’s dilemma. The tone suggests it was intended mainly for official
records, but at some points, John Rolfe bared his true feelings. “It is Pocahontas,” he
wrote, “to whom my hearty and best thoughts are, and have been a long time so
entangled, and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth that I cannot unwind myself
thereout." Their marriage led to years of peace between the settlers and the Native
Americans.4 Pocahontas was sixteen at the time of their marriage but John Rolfe was
not her first husband. She was already married to a fellow tribesman Kocoum. As a
3
YouTube, Khan Academy – Jamestown – the impact of tobacco (2016, November 1).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZnJLEyJtBU
4
Historic Jamestowne, Part of Colonial National Historical Park Virginia, National Park Service, 2022, September 4,
cited 2023, April 15
https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/john-rolfe.htm

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wedding gift, Powhatan gave the newlyweds acres of land across the James River as a
place to live and prosper. They never actually lived here and used some of the space for
more tobacco planting. After the death of John Rolfe, this space was willed to Thomas
Rolfe that sold some of it to Thomas Warren. Until their journey to England, they lived
on the Varina Farms. To be accepted by the Britons and to be a good wife, Pocahontas
travelled to Great Britain with her husband John Rolfe, and got baptized to accept
Christianity. She even changed her name to Rebecca. In Great Britain, Pocahontas gave
birth to a baby boy named Thomas Rolfe. She died in Britain due to tuberculosis and
was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend, England. Great Britain
accepted Pocahontas as their own and she became very famous. Thomas Rolfe moved to
America in 1640 and married a woman named Jane Poythress. They had a daughter
together named Jane after her mother. Jane then married and had children of her own
and so on. The descendants of Thomas Rolfe live on to this day. Pocahontas has entered
the pantheon of modern popular culture and is a subject of art, literature, and film. Many
places, monuments, and products have been named after Pocahontas. Her story has been
romanticized over the years but many aspects are fictional. Thanks to the Disney
animated movie named after her, she became a role model for children, especially for
little girls. The movie portrays her as a courageous, strong, and independent woman.
She even became one of the most known princesses in the whole world and is surely the
most famous Native American to ever exist. This is crucial in the sense that she not only
represents people of colour but also women. Even though her looks might not have been
as exquisite as people have portrayed her, she became a role model for beauty and
independence. She even overshadows her husband John Rolfe, the saviour of existence
in North America. 5

After the death of Pocahontas, John Rolfe married a woman named Jane Pierce.
She was the daughter of a British colonist Captain William Pierce. Captain Pierce was a
fellow crewmate of John Rolfe. They were only married for three years and had a
daughter together named Elizabeth. The Native Americans have finally had enough of
the settlers and their reckless doing. Now that Pocahontas was not a part of the British
colonizers, they had the courage to attack. This is known as The Massacre of 1622, in
which the Native Americans attacked the colonists. 347 settlers were killed including

5
YouTube, Timeline – Pocahontas, John Smith and John Rolfe 1608 Jamestown colony, Virginia, USA (2023, March
11)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH8qtKxJfsI

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John Rolfe. This attack was inevitable. For many years, the colonists were attacking the
Indians, taking over their land, imprisoning them, kidnapping them, and making them
suffer. The only thing that was keeping them away for so long was the love for
Pocahontas. The contributions from John Rolfe allowed the English settlements to
become permanent, thus solidifying the English presence in America and making
possible the first steps toward the creation of the future United States. Also, his writings
about the colony helped to promote the settlement and its investment. 6 The Native
Americans are to this day portrayed as villains, even though the colonizers were the
ones that made their lives horrible. The colonizers ransacked most of their land, killed a
scary amount of them, and gave them illnesses that the Native Americans had no
immunity for, even a common cold took out many of them, and they enslaved many of
them. Even now, in America, there are special districts for the few remaining tribes that
still live off of the land and not the government. When we look into literature and film,
Indians are not seen as people on the same level. For example, in Peter Pan, they are the
ones that attack and try to kill. In The Last of the Mohicans, Magua, the Huron Indian
chief, is the main villain that assists the French leader in his attack on the fort. And in
many more, the Indians are seen as less advanced, less intelligent, and less human.
Children from newer generations are not able to see the full essence of Indians and are
given more of a fictional version of them. Sadly, most of the American population is not
educated well enough on this topic and sees Native Americans as a threat or just as a
mascot for their holiday Thanksgiving, which is celebrated on the 23 of November. Not
many people know the extremely sad history behind it or they do not want to accept it
the way it is. The Indians also had a giant impact on the development of the English
language and came up with certain words like tepee.

“In 2006, Jamestown rediscovery archaeologists working in a James Fort well

discovered numerous seeds. Soil from the well was sent to an archaeobotanist, an expert
in the identification of plant remains from archaeological grounds. Among the seeds
were identified tobacco seeds, likely the same strain of tobacco that John Rolfe had
famously introduced to Virginia.” 7

6
Historic Jamestowne, Part of Colonial National Historical Park Virginia, National Park Service, 2022, September 4,
cited 2023, April 15
https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/john-rolfe.htm
7
Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, Historic Jamestowne, Howell Creative Group, John Rolfe, 2021, cited 2023,
April 15
https://historicjamestowne.org/history/pocahontas/john-rolfe/