Pocahontas statue in Gravesend relisted 400 years after her death

Historic England also lists London monument to founders of Jamestown colony, where Native American woman met English settlers

A memorial to Pocahontas, who lost her original name and religion, and in 1617 her life, through encounters with English settlers, is to be relisted by Historic England to mark the 400th anniversary of her death.

The Grade II life-size bronze of Pocahontas at St George’s church in Gravesend, Kent, has had its entry on the heritage list updated to include a full description of her life and role in English and American history.

New Grade II listed status has also been given to the Virginia Quay Settlers Monument in Blackwall, east London, which remembers the men, women and children who left the quayside to found the Jamestown colony in North America in 1606.

Pocahontas is said to have saved the life of the colony leader, Capt John Smith, by pleading with her people to spare him. She later converted to Christianity, married another settler and became Rebecca Rolfe.

Her story was learned by generations of schoolchildren as a tale of simple heroism and was made into a successful Disney animated movie. But more recently it has been interpreted as an example of the disastrous encounters between her people and the colonisers.

Pocahontas was mortally ill when she was taken ashore at Gravesend after a propaganda tour to England to raise money for the struggling colony. She may have died of tuberculosis, or another western disease such as flu to which her people had no immunity, and she was probably only 23.

Her grave was lost when the medieval St George’s church was destroyed by fire in the 18th century. The statue in the gardens of the rebuilt church was erected in 1975 – a copy of one in her honour in Jamestown.

The memorial to the settlers was first installed in 1928. A bronze plaque was placed on the dockmaster’s house on Blackwall Quay to commemorate the 105 settlers who left for Virginia in three small ships, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and Discovery, in 1606.

Their new settlement at Jamestown had dire problems with famine and disease, and there were numerous battles with the Native Americans. Three years later only 60 of the settlers survived. James Rolfe arrived in 1610, bringing seeds of the tobacco plant which would become Virginia’s most famous crop, and eventually married Pocahontas.

The plaque was fixed to a stone monument after the building was destroyed in the blitz, and a new sculpture of an astrolabe was added in 1999 to replace the original stolen mermaid.

The monument will be Grade II listed on Thursday. The statue, which was already listed, will be redesignated to emphasise its importance.

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