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This is the tale of the heroic John Rolfe, the English farmer and gentleman who saved the fledgling colony of Virginia not once, but twice. In this episode, we describe how Rolfe smuggled Orinoco tobacco into Virginia, and used his unique skills to learn how to cultivate it and save the broke colony from financial collapse. We then tell the true story of Rolfe’s fairy tale-like marriage to Pocahontas, focusing on how the marriage created the colony-saving “Peace of Pocahontas” and how London Society in the Court of King James I viewed her with immense interest and respect.
We then turn to how John Rolfe died, discussing the 1622 Indian Massacre that he tried and failed to stop, but why his previous work to save the colony ensured the 1622 disaster wasn’t enough to totally destroy it. In this episode, we also describe Rolfe’s family background, the immense tragedy he suffered when the Sea Venture wrecked in Bermuda, Captain Argall’s capture of Pocahontas at the cost of a kettle, Rolfe’s Christian faith, and how Rolfe helped develop representative government in Virginia.
Watch it on YouTube here:
Sources Referenced in this Episode:
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support my work at no cost to yourself, you can do so by ordering the sources I used for this episode using the links below
Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, https://amzn.to/437bho4
Dowdey, Clifford: The Great Plantation, https://amzn.to/434EBeS
Willison, George F.: Behold Virginia: The Fifth Crown, https://amzn.to/4do9YG4
Bruce, Philip Alexander: Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, https://amzn.to/4tDRsQd
Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Under the Stuarts, 1607-1688, https://amzn.to/431VN4O
Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson: Planters of Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4tyVARt
Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson: Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, https://amzn.to/48ZgIcl
Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ua3bqY
Andrews, Matthew Page: The Soul of a Nation: The Founding Of Virginia and the Projection of New England, https://amzn.to/4d9Ut60
Bruce, Philip Alexander: The Virginia Plutarch, Vol I, https://amzn.to/437cAU0
Timeline:
0:00 How John Rolfe Saved Virginia with Tobacco
3:41 Reviewing the Golden Age
3:57 Who Was John Rolfe?
8:10 Tragedy Strikes Rolfe
9:39 John Rolfe Saves Virginia by Cultivating Tobacco
15:21 How Tobacco Built Virginia
15:39 Rolfe Saves Virginia Again: The Peace of Pocahontas
17:22 The Capture of Pocahontas and the Anglo-Powhatan War
18:39 Pocahontas Meets John Rolfe
21:26 Pocahontas Becomes Beloved in England, and Dies
23:30 Rolfe Returns to Virginia, and Helps Create Representative Government
25:06 Rolfe Dies in the 1622 Indian Massacre
26:48 The Legacy of John Rolfe
Rough Transcript
