On Matoaka, the woman once nicknamed Pocahantas

Born around 1596, Pocahantas was not named Pocahantas.  At birth, she was called Amonute, and as a child nicknamed Pocahantas which means “playful”, but that was only a nickname, not her actual name.  When she reached adulthood, which among the Powhatan was much younger than 18, she took the name Matoaka.   Changing one’s name to mark milestones in life, such as reaching adulthood in her case or a certain Cherokee warrior changing his name from Pathkiller to The Ridge after a permanent peace was reached between his people and the United States in 1795, was common practice among Native Americans.

In 1613, she was visiting the Patawomeck, a tribe belonging to the paramount chiefdom over which her father rule. The Patawomeck tricked her into boarding an Englishman’s ship and that was how the English captured her, doing so to exchange her for prisoners held by Wahunsenacawh and weapons and tools stolen in raids.  Wahunsenacawh returned the prisoners but kept the rest, so Jamestown kept his daughter.

She stayed in the town of Henricus for over a year, and during that time the minister, Alexander Whitaker, converted her to Christianity.  When she was baptized, she adopted the name Rebecca.  Partially to secure lasting peace between the English and the Powhatan Confederacy, she consented to marry John Rolfe, a tobacco plantation owner who’d lost his wife and children in a shipwreck on the way to Virginia from the Summer Isles (Bermuda).  This was something countless other native women did (Nancy Ward, to cite just one example), not only between their people and the English but with other native peoples as well.  Among the people of her husband and son Thomas, she was known as Rebecca Rolfe.

When her portrait was engraved in London, she told the artist her name was Matoaka, clearly giving him the name by which she preferred to be called, and although he engraver did include her “Christian” name, he did her the courtesy of giving her preferred name first. Given that point, when referring to the actual historical figure herself, we ought to call her by the name she chose, Matoaka.  Otherwise, we’re deadnaming her.

And please stop spouting bullshit about her being raped and reducing her status to that of a helpless victim, a pitiful damsel in distress, when she clearly showed herself wielding all of the agency which she could in that time.