Analyze how the English used the marriage between Pocahontas (Rebecca) and John Rolfe as propaganda and why; then, compare this propaganda, in both its content and its purpose, to one contemporary instance of propaganda with which you are familiar

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

1. The London Company of Virginia had to recruit colonists to make money on their investment in the New World; one strategy they used was to downplay the hostilities of the Indians by disseminating the story of Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, and her heroism in saving the life of Captain John Smith, leader of the colony at Jamestown, from execution at the hands of her father. The story might be apocryphal, but whatever her actual role, Smith seems to have wanted to associate himself more closely with her. In 1613, Pocahontas was captured by the Jamestown colonists to pressure Powhatan to release a number of English prisoners and stolen weapons. Over the course of the next year, Pocahontas was instructed in English and Christianity, baptized and christened Rebecca, and married to the settler John Rolfe. The marriage apparently soothed relations between the colonists and the Powhatans. In 1616, John and Rebecca Rolfe travelled to England, where they were attended a ball hosted by King James and Queen Anne. Soon after, Pocahontas sat for a portrait by Simon van de Passe, commissioned by the London Company and quickly engraved so that it might be sold in the streets to attract new colonists and investors. Not long after this portrait was completed, and just as she was about to return to Virginia, Pocahontas died and was buried near London.
2. Students’ examples of contemporary instances of propaganda will vary.