📍Werowocomoco, Gloucester County, VA 23061, USA
1596 – 1609“My given name was Amonute, and I had a private name too, Matoaka. Pocahontas, which means playful one, was what people called me, because I was lively and curious. I was a daughter of Wahunsenaca, the paramount chief known as Powhatan, who ruled more than thirty tribes around the rivers of the Chesapeake. I grew up at his capital, Werowocomoco, which means place of leadership, on the north shore of the river the English later called the York. Werowocomoco was a town of houses made of bent saplings covered with bark and reed mats, set among fields of corn, beans and squash, with the river, its marshes and its fish close at hand. Warriors guarded my father, and chiefs from across the region came to bring tribute and hold council. As a girl I learned what Powhatan girls learned, gathering, planting and preparing food, but I also watched the comings and goings of a great chief's court. When the English built their fort at Jamestown in 1607, I was about eleven. That winter, their captain, John Smith, was brought to my father at Werowocomoco. Afterwards I visited the fort with messages and food, and the English boys remembered me turning cartwheels with them in the square. In 1609 my father moved his capital farther inland, away from the English. Later I was taken captive, became a Christian, married John Rolfe and travelled to England. Archaeologists rediscovered Werowocomoco in the early 2000s on Purtan Bay in Gloucester County, and the site is now protected so that the story of my people's capital can be told.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today