17世纪著名的印第安女性—波卡洪塔斯

PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English on the Voice of America. She lived four hundred years ago in what became the American state of Virginia.

She was the first Native American to marry a white person. I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Ray Freeman. Today, we tell about Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian tribe.

Pocahontas was born in fifteen ninety-five. She was one of twenty children of Chief Powhatan. Powhatan ruled a group of more than twenty Indian tribes in territory that is now the eastern state of Virginia.

In sixteen-oh-seven, the Virginia company in England sent colonists to settle the land that later became the United States of America. The leader of the English settlers was John Ratcliffe. He claimed the land for King James of England.

He named the new colony Jamestown, Virginia. The English colonists did not know that the area already was settled by Indians. The Powhatan Indians lived in the area where the English colonists landed.

They were part of a large group of American tribes who spoke the Algonquian language. The Powhatans had lived in the area for almost one thousand years. They built villages.

They grew beans, corn, squash and melons. They created a strong political system, led by powerful chiefs like Powhatan. His power and wealth were evident. Women of the tribes controlled the houses and the fields. They made clothing of animal skins and containers of clay.

Men hunted and fished for food. Both men and women wore earrings and other objects made of shells, pearls and copper. The young Pocahontas often visited Jamestown during the colony's first months.

She was about twelve years old. The colonists knew her well. She became an important link between the colonists and her father, Powhatan. The Indians' culture was very different from that of the English settlers.

The two groups did not understand each other. The misunderstandings led to hostile incidents between the colonists and the Indians. John Smith was an explorer, soldier and a leader of the Jamestown colony.