About

John Rolfe performed by Richard A. Cheatham, a 14th generation descendant. John Rolfe (c1585-1622) was the pivotal early colonial Virginian and who became the husband of Pocahontas. Their marriage at Jamestown brought an end to seven years of fighting between the native Powhatan people and the English. He was also the entrepreneur who developed successful trade in tobacco, Native plants blended with sweeter Spanish West Indies plants, that prevented the abandonment of the failing Virginia colony. Rolfe witnessed the many intense challenges that beset earliest Virginia, including the failure of the "common storehouse" system and its replacement by widespread ownership of private property by the common man. He was also a member of America's first representative government, a little parliament called the Virginia General Assembly, years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. He gave the only first-hand report of the arrival of the first Africans into Virginia in 1619. John Rolfe's story is America's founding story, one that unfortunately few Americans have heard.