History: Pocahontas and Marketing

Pocahontas & Marketing Pocahontas is said to have stopped her father from executing John Smith in 1607. The truth of this story cannot be verified. Whatever really happened, a friendly relationship with Smith and the colony of Jamestown, Virginia was initiated. In 1612, Pocahontas was captured and held hostage by the Jamestown colonists, in the hope that they could ransom her for the release of some of their own people held in captivity by Pocahontas' tribe. During this time, she learned English. After her baptism, she married John Rolfe on April 5, 1614, and her name was changed to Rebecca Rolfe. They lived together at Rolfe's plantation, Varina Farms. Their marriage was unsuccessful in winning the captives back, but it did create a climate of peace between the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan's tribes for several years. The Virginia colony's sponsors found it difficult to lure new colonists to Jamestown, and to find investors for such ventures. They used Pocahontas as a marketing ploy to convince people back in Europe that the New World's natives could be tamed, and the colony made safe. She was promoted as an