Images of a Legend
KING POWHATAN COMANDS
C. SMITH TO BE SLAYNE, HIS DAUGHTER POKAHONTAS BEGGS HIS LIFE …
1624,
Robert Vaughan
While its artistry is
crude at best, this small engraving is a landmark in the Pocahontas legend: the
first visual representation of the famous, and still hotly debated, story of
her "rescue" of John Smith. The engraving was published in Smith's Generall
Historie, where the
self-promoting adventurer recorded the event, 17 years after it supposedly took
place. The artist attempts to be faithful to Smith's account: "Two
great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could layd hands on
him [Smith, here writing about himself in the third person], dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready
with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Pocahontas the Kings dearest
daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid
her owne upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperour was contented he
should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper."