Images of a Legend
POCAHONTAS
1852,
Thomas Sully
This regal portrait,
painted by the renowned artist Thomas Sully, seemed a fitting treatment of the
woman who had come to be called the "mother" of the nation by the
1850s. Southerners in particular claimed Pocahontas as a progenitor; indeed,
her descendants through her son Thomas Rolfe were among the most prominent
families in the South. In Sully's portrait, Pocahontas's features are more
Mediterranean than Powhatan, but this image of her became one of the best known
and most copied. It was even adapted for the banner of a Confederate militia
unit that called itself the "Guard of the Daughters of Powhatan."