Life of John Rolfe, Husband of Pocahontas

Life of John Rolfe, Husband of Pocahontas John Rolfe (1585–1622) was a British colonist of the Americas. He was an important figure in Virginia politics and an entrepreneur who played a significant role in founding the Virginia tobacco trade. However, he is best known as the man who married Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, head of the Powhatan confederacy of Algonquin tribes.   Fast Facts: John Rolfe Known For: British colonist who married Pocahontas  Born: October 17, 1562 in Heacham, England  Died: March 1622 in Henrico, Virginia  Spouses Names: Sarah Hacker (m. 1608–1610), Pocahontas (m. 1614–1617), Jane Pierce (m. 1619)  Childrens Names: Thomas Rolfe (son of Pocahontas), Elizabeth Rolfe (daughter of Jane Pierce) Early Years Rolfe was born on Oct. 17, 1562 to a wealthy family in Heacham, England. His family owned Heacham manor and his father was a successful merchant in Lynn.   Not much is known about Rolfes education or life in England, but in July of 1609, he left for Virginia on the Sea-Venture, the flagship of several vessels carrying settlers and provisions and the first group of government officials to the new colony at Jamestown.   Shipwrecked in Bermuda Rolfe brought with him his first wife, Sarah Hacker. The Sea-Venture was wrecked in a storm on the Bermudas, but all the passengers survived and Rolfe and his wife stayed on Bermuda for eight months. There they had a daughter, who they named Bermuda, and- importantly for his future career- Rolfe may have obtained samples of West Indies tobacco.  Ã‚   Rolfe lost both his first wife and daughter in Bermuda.  Rolfe and the surviving shipwrecked passengers left Bermuda in 1610. When they arrived in May 1610, the Virginia colony had just suffered through the starving time, a grim period in early American history. Over the winter of 1609–1610, the colonists were beset by plague and yellow fever, and sieges by the local inhabitants. An estimated three-quarters of the English colonists of Virginia died of starvation or starvation-related diseases that winter.   Tobacco Between 1610 and 1613, Rolfe experimented with the native tobacco at his home in Henricus and succeeded in producing a leaf that was more pleasing to the British palate. His version was named the Orinoco, and it was developed from the combination of a local version and seeds from Trinidad that he had brought with him from Spain or perhaps obtained in Bermuda. He is also credited with inventing a curing process to prevent rot during the long sea voyage to England, as well as the dampness of the English climate.   By 1614, active exports of tobacco were being sent back to England, and  Rolfe is often credited as the first person to suggest cultivating tobacco as a cash crop in the Americas, the major source of income for Virginia for centuries to follow. Marrying Pocahontas Throughout this period, the Jamestown colony continued to suffer from an adversarial relationship with the Native American inhabitants, the Powhatan tribe. In 1613, Captain Samuel Argall kidnapped Powhatans favorite daughter, Pocahontas, and eventually, she was brought to Henricus.  There she received religious instruction from the settlements minister, Rev. Alexander Whitaker, and converted to Christianity, taking the name Rebecca. She also met John Rolfe.   Rolfe married her around April 5, 1614, after sending a letter to the governor of Virginia asking for permission to do so, for the good of the Plantation, the honor of our Country, for the Glory of God, for my own salvation, and for the Converting to the true knowledge of Jesus Christ an unbelieving Creature, namely Pocahontas.   A Temporary Peace After Rolfe married Pocahontas, relationships between the British settlers and Pocahontas tribe settled into a time of friendly commerce and trade. That freedom created opportunities to build up the colony as it had not seen before.   Pocahontas had a son, Thomas Rolfe, born in 1615, and on April 21, 1616, Rolfe and his family joined an expedition back to Britain to publicize the Virginia colony. In England, Pocahontas as the Lady Rebecca was received enthusiastically: among other events, she attended The Vision of Delight, a royal court masque written by Ben Jonson for King James I and his wife Queen Anne.   Return to Virginia In March of 1616, Rolfe and Pocahontas started for home, but she was ill and died aboard the ship before it left England. She was buried at Gravesend; their infant son, too ill to survive the voyage, was left behind to be raised by Rolfes brother Henry.   Before and after Rolfe returned to his estate in Henricus, he held several prominent positions in the Jamestown colony. He was named Secretary in 1614 and in 1617 held the office of Recorder General.  Ã‚   Death and Legacy In 1620, Rolfe married Jane Pierce, the daughter of Captain William Pierce, and they had a daughter named Elizabeth. In 1621, the Virginia colony began actively raising funds for the College of Henricus, a boarding school for young Native Americans to train them to become more English.   Rolfe grew ill in 1621, and he wrote a will, which was drawn up in Jamestown on March 10th of 1621. The will was eventually probated in London on May 21, 1630, and that copy has survived.   Rolfe died in 1622, a few weeks before the Great Indian Massacre of March 22, 1622, led by Pocahontass uncle Opechancanough. Nearly 350 of the British colonists were killed, ending the uneasy peace which had been established, and nearly putting an end to Jamestown itself. John Rolfe had a significant impact on the Jamestown colony in Virginia, in his marriage to Pocahontas which established an eight-year-long peace, and in the creation of a cash crop, tobacco, on which the fledgling colonies could use to survive economically.   Sources Carson, Jane. The Will of John Rolfe. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 58.1 (1950): 58–65. Print.Kramer, Michael Jude. The 1622 Powhatan Uprising and Its Impact on Anglo-Indian Relations. Illinois State University 2016. Print.Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown. The Journal of American History 66.1 (1979): 24–40. Print.Rolfe, Jo. Letter from John Rolfe to Sir Thos. Dale. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 22.2 (1914): 150–57. Print.Tratner, Michael. Translating Values: Mercantilism and the Many Biographies of Pocahontas. Biography 32.1 (2009): 128–36. Print.Vaughan, Alden T. Expulsion of the Salvages: English Policy and the Virginia Massacre of 1622. The William and Mary Quarterly 35.1 (1978): 57–84. Print.

How Autocratic were the 18th c essays

How Autocratic were the 18th c essays How absolute were the 18th Century Tsars? When asking how absolute a monarch is, we need to pay attention to the groups of people that surround that monarch. The aristocracy, the church and the army all played an important part in the running of an 18th century state, and without the support of these powerful elites, it is arguable whether or not the monarch in question would have had the opportunity to be absolute at all. At the beginning of the 18th Century Tsar Peter the Great was in power and consolidating his reputation. Whilst growing up Peter had been greatly influenced by Western ideas and believed that success for Russia lay in opening up to the West. Peter was the first Tsar to venture into the west and was thus convinced of Russias backwardness. His strengths lay in foreign policy, and the expansion Russia experienced due to this. Peter introduced a number of reforms to Russia that were aimed at changing every aspect of life.The role of the nobility in Russia under Peter was enlarged and modernised, he stressed the importance of noble status wresting on indivual merit rather than hereditary nobility. Although a table of stamps was introduced older nobles whose families had been so for more than 100 years remained their hereditary titles. It must be remembered that Peter was reliant upon the nobility for their state service in administration and bureaucracy, and to provide military recrui ts. Under Peter, serfs were treated badly and were used as a fixed source of taxes for the state. Serfs also were recruited into the state army to keep up the supply of men. It was Peters decision to tie the peasants to the noble rather than the land, and this decision was made as a compensation for the nobles service to the state. This meant that the burden of taxation almost wholly fell upon the peasantry as nobility were exempt from paying taxes. By the end of Peters reign it could be considered that Russia was more absoluti...

Opportunity Cost of Going to College, Marginal Analysis Essay

Opportunity Cost of Going to College, Marginal Analysis - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that opportunity cost in economic terms is the cost of forgoing or sacrificing the consumption of one commodity or service in order to consume and derive utility from any other service or commodity. For computing opportunity cost of any commodity one has to take into account the next best substitute that has to be forgone or sacrificed. Under economies we generally compute opportunity cost in monetary terms. Considering the opportunity cost of going to college the next best alternative that can be sacrificed is the salary that an individual can get if he instead chooses a full time job. Such compromises are made each year. If the overall degree course the individual loses an annual salary of $80,000 in the three or four years. The commodities and services of opportunity cost for attending college are listed below: Monetary cost of college: Attending college require a minimum amount that has to be spent on food, clothing. Transportation costs: The student has to spend some amount of money each for attending. For the travelling expenses opportunity costs does not remain same and fluctuates frequently. This is because the student might choose not to attend college someday or he may choose to attend extra days than he usually does due to some extra class or some particular college meeting. Income through sports: If the student is an athlete he may earn huge through various tournaments. But such a job mostly requires the sportsman to travel a lot. In that case he may have to give up college. Clearly he has to choose between attending college and becoming a professional sportsperson (Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel and McPherson, 2009, p.29). Students dependent on parents: All the students attending college do not have to earn for their expenses. Sometimes students are dependent on their parents who take the responsibility of paying for all of their son’s or daughter’s expenses. In that case opportunity cost may be counted as zero (Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel and McPherson, 2009, p.29). Income in entertainment industries: Students who work as entertainers or pursue any other work in the entertainment industry have to spend a lot of time in the shoots or they may also have to travel abroad quite often. In that case too they have to choose between college and their work (Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel and McPherson, 2009, p.29). Missing T.V. shows: Attending college and pursuing a degree course also requires a student to study harder and appear for examinations. Thus in this respect the student would have less time for television and his favorite shows. In some cases while studying for college exams he might also have to miss out a big soccer match. Less leisure time: Attending college and then going for part time jobs- in this day to day busy schedule the student may not have any time left for leisure or spare time. Hence for attending college the student has to sacrifice leisure or any other activity that he used to perform during spare time. Higher Education: Attending colleges the student gets a professional degree. This may help the individual to earn higher income once he finishes college education than what he can earn currently by leaving college. 2. Marginal Analysis Decision taken on a margin Marginal analysis is a very important concept under microeconomics leading to efficient allocation of resources (McGuigan, Moyer and Harris, 2011, p.41). ‘Decision taken on a margin’ refers mainly to economic decisions. Alterations on the available amount of resources lead to such marginal decisions. It may be similar to decision making as simple as spending hours or money. Such decisions are assume to yield better output for a number of reasons. Firstly the decisions are made with full information on resources and shortages. Preferences and indifferences of an individual are also taken into account while making decisions. The involvement of analysis helps