I thoroughly enjoyed this history book about a period which I am rather unfamiliar with. It gives an informed introduction to Native America-English relations through the lives of a small group of individuals in the Early Modern period, written in a very accessible manner while still showing that it is well-researched and founded on solid scholarship. A really good piece of popular history writing!

This book was interesting and I learned new things about early American Colonial history that I didn't know before. This book was clearly well researched.

Eye opening book. I recall the many stories I heard of Pocahontas growing up and what I later learned as an adult. The boys were a complete mystery to me, though in retrospect, not very surprising. Humans can be pretty horrible kids. This was a whole new take on the Jamestown fiasco to me. I enjoyed the book very much and imagine it took quite a bit of researching to find so much info. Kudos Karen Kupperman. great read arm chair historians, or anyone interested in the colonization of the New World.

The life of the real Pocohontas was not what little we learned in grade school, nor what the movies portray. Ms. Kupperman takes a unique look at early Colonial history through the eyes of the young English boys who sailed as indentured servants and Pocahontas, and investigates how the early settlers used these children and sometimes abandoned them. I knew there were indentured servants who earned their freedom after 7 years, but I never knew that some of these were young teen-aged boys, and I never knew that in some cases, they were abandoned. They were not even considered important enough to have their names recorded; they were simply called 'a boy' in some memoirs or legal papers. These boys were sent to live with Native Americans so they could eventually function as translators for the English. But their lives and fates took unexpected twists the longer they stayed with the various tribes. Failed settlements often returned to England, leaving the boys behind with out any compunction or second thoughts. Kupperman has done an admirable job finding what few references exist to these boys, reconstructing their lives when possible, and considering their fates when they disappeared from history. Early colonial history is an interest of mine, and I enjoyed learning about a slice of it I'd never heard of before.

An interesting and well-researched look at the life of Pocahontas and three young interpreters (the "English boys") caught between two worlds. Kupperman offers a lot of details, all of which emphasize how complicated the politics were between the English and indigenous populations. These complexities pose some problems for the writing, though. At times, the text feels rushed and unorganized, with some paragraphs and sections not following tightly on the pieces preceding them. At other times, quotes and pronouns aren't clearly attributed; this made for several hard-to-follow sentences where the subject of the sentence was being called by two different names. I understand that Kupperman was being true to the primary sources, but editing them (or her framing of those sources) for clarity would be an enormous help to readers. A very interesting and informative work, but one that could use one more round of editing for a cleaner, more straightforward read.

Pocahontas was born circa 1596 as the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a network of tribes in the Tidewater region of Virginia. She was credited with saving the life of a Colonist John Smith. She was captured in 1613 and converted to Christianity during her captivity. She took the name Rebecca, and she eventually decided to remain with the Colonists. She married John Rolfe the following year and gave birth to their only child - Thomas Rolfe - in January 1615.

In 1616, Pocahontas and her family travelled to London to be presented to society as a "civilised savage." She arrived as a celebrity, but tragically, she died in Gravesend on the return journey. Long after her death, her story was romanticised in art and film.

Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia by Karen Ordahl Kupperman tells the story of Pocahontas and three English boys. The English boys lived with the Natives from a young age, spoke their language and travelled between cultures as Pocahontas did. I must admit I was quite uneducated about Pocahontas' times and circumstances, and I was glad to learn more about it. Even though the three English boys are not quite a fit subject for a site like mine, I found their stories quite interesting and well-told.

As the nation turns to elections in 2020, one person has emerged as the front-runner in the imagination of the electorate, if not in reality.

I'm speaking, of course, about Pocahontas.

Over 400 years ago, after she was captured by English conquerors in Jamestown, Pocahontas learned the art of survival by navigating her own agency between cultures. In her new book, Pocahontas and the English Boys, history professor Karen Ordahl Kupperman focuses a sharp light on the historical record, revealing the elements of Pocahontas' resilience and illuminating the narrative created about her by Colonial settlers.

Kupperman also presents the remarkable history of three English boys — Thomas Savage, Robert Poole, and Henry Spelman — who were traded to native communities by the English in exchange for food and the knowledge required to survive in the region's harsh environment. And while Kupperman's academic prose requires patience, the reader's perseverance will be rewarded with a culturally resonant understanding of the early confluences in America between Indigenous peoples and Europeans.

Beyond its history of the English intervention in America, Pocahontas and the English Boys illuminates what Kupperman describes as a new "Atlantic model" for this period. This perspective focuses on the fluidity of human relationships of the time, of cultural paradigms and in the use of language, in travel, and especially in the ways people identified themselves.

And so we learn how the young Pocahontas, at age 10, was already serving as a trade ambassador for native communities living in Tsenacomoca (Virginia), and that she met young Thomas Savage and helped him adjust to his new life as a cultural translator living among native people after he was given to her father, Wahunsenaca (also called Powhatan). We learn that Wahunsenaca presided over 30 native communities, and that his daughter often accompanied trade sorties to Jamestown, in part to signify the peaceful nature of their mission. We learn that preteen English boys and girls were often sent into servitude by their families as a way of "managing" their adolescence. And that adolescence for both native and European youth meant growing up fast. For Pocahontas and the English boys it meant traveling between tribal and Colonial communities, learning several languages, translating trade negotiations, teaching and learning basic farming methods to prevent starvation. It meant understanding how, what and when to translate. It meant learning the politics of human nature for survival as well as enrichment.

Pocahontas, Thomas, Robert and Henry were essential to the sustainability of their communities. Kupperman writes that "they spent the rest of their lives caught between cultures. They were the only people who could understand the goals of the Chesapeake Algonquians as well as the English and they often faced hard choices. They knew they were being used by both sides, but they also cared about the outcomes."

This realization of the essential empathetic nature of a culture whisperer is Kupperman's gift as a historian biographer and the core of her book. It's also a lesson for today's fractious civic culture. She puts Pocahontas and the English boys in their context and shows how their actions tied cultural systems together and served as cornerstones of a fragile Colonial ecosystem. Her description of Pocahontas' sartorial transformation from native nobility to the wife of John Rolfe will resonate with anyone who has worn an ill-fitting suit. More importantly, we learn how England's grand plans for trade and religious conversion of native peoples relied on this singular woman — via a forced junket to England to generate support for the Virginia Company as the wife of John Rolfe.

Pocahontas died on the way back to America before the grand scheme was realized. She was 21. Kupperman discerns what must have been an untenable situation for her. In England, as the mother of John Rolfe's child and a celebrity in her own right, Pocahontas' circumstances were new but assured. Returning to lead the conversion of her people was something else. Today we understand the complex science of stress-related illness. Then, things were simple: People died of broken hearts. Kupperman's informed guess — and she calls it that — is that this was Pocahontas' fate. But she's also done the detective work to back up her story that this was a journey of torment with an inevitable conclusion.

It's possible to shoulder the burden of navigating different cultures when that navigation successfully translates feelings of strangeness into common ground. But Kupperman suggests that Pocahontas' "inner turmoil over what would happen once they got back to Virginia must have been intolerable."

When translation becomes forced betrayal, even the strongest culture bearers may succumb to overwhelming pressure. Or perhaps Pocahontas chose her own agency one last time. Either way, this new take on her life and times answers questions essential to our time: What is the nature of fluidity in civic culture — what happens to us when we encounter new cultures, people, languages — not just once but frequently? And what happens to our human condition when someone else tries to shape who we are?

Marcela Davison Avilés is a writer and independent producer living in Northern California.

Great read, most people are aware of the name of Pocahontas in recent years, Thank you Trump. But her story and the stories of the other young people caught up in the politics of the region at that time was much more complicated and tragic. Ironically Pocahontas was a nickname, her given name was actually Matoaka.

This is a nice account about the history of Pocahontas. All I know about Pocahontas before was the one depicted in the movie. It is nice to get a fresh new perspective.