A brief account of the life of the Indian princess who befriended Captain John Smith and the English settlers of Jamestown.

A New York Times Notable Book and aSan Jose Mercury News Top 20 Nonfiction Book of 2003In 1606, approximately 105 British colonists sailed to America, seeking gold and a trade route to the Pacific. Instead, they found disease, hunger, and hostile natives. Ill prepared for such hardship, the men responded with incompetence and infighting; only the leadership of Captain John Smith averted doom for the first permanent English settlement in the New World.The Jamestown colony is one of the great survival stories of American history, and this book brings it fully to life for the first time. Drawing on extensive original documents, David A. Price paints intimate portraits of the major figures from the formidable monarch Chief Powhatan, to the resourceful but unpopular leader John Smith, to the spirited Pocahontas, who twice saved Smith’s life. He also gives a rare balanced view of relations between the settlers and the natives and debunks popular myths about the colony. This is a superb work of history, reminding us of the horrors and heroism that marked the dawning of our nation.

Her nickname was Pocahontas which meant "tomboy". She befriended the settlers of Jamestown.

The swashbuckling life of the Elizabethan explorer and colonial governor is vividly recounted in this historical biography. Captain John Smith is best remembered for his association with Pocahontas, but this was only a small part of an extraordinary life filled with danger and adventure. As a soldier, he fought the Turks in Eastern Europe, where he beheaded three Turkish adversaries in duels. He was sold into slavery, then murdered his master to escape. He sailed under a pirate flag, was shipwrecked, and marched to the gallows to be hanged, only to be reprieved at the eleventh hour. All this before he was thirty years old. Smith was one of the founders of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. He faced considerable danger from the Native Americans as well as from competing factions within the settlement itself. In the face of all this, Smith’s leadership saved the settlement from failure.

Presents the life of Pocahontas, a Powhatan princess, describing how she saved the life of Captain John Smith of Jamestown, made efforts to broker peace between the English and the Powhatan, married John Rolfe, and died in England at the age of twenty-two

The True Story of Pocahontas is the first public publication of the Powhatan perspective that has been maintained and passed down from generation to generation within the Mattaponi Tribe, and the first written history of Pocahontas by her own people.

"Many school-aged children are familiar with the story of Pocahontas. Yet most accounts of this Native American icon, gleaned from sources such as fables and animated feature films, are rife with inaccuracies. This book emphasizes the truth behind the embellishments, examining how an Indian princess first befriended early American colonists and then became an influential contributor to their survival and well-being. Readers also get a meaningful glimpse into life in the Jamestown colony, as well as the customs and traditions of Algonquin society."