John Smith Rescued by Pocahontas

1608

According to his own later account, the Jamestown adventurer John Smith was spared execution at a Powhatan feast when the chief's young daughter Matoaka, nicknamed Pocahontas, cradled his head in her arms. The story, probably half-legend, would become the founding myth of Anglo-Indian relations, retold and romanticized through centuries of American literature, painting, and film.