The Bride Pocahontas

A few years ago, historian Annette Gordon-Reed published The Hemmingses of Monticello, a compelling narrative about the children Thomas Jefferson fathered with the enslaved woman Sally Hemmings. I approached this book with great interest, knowing my ancestors hailed from that region. Driven by curiosity about how the past influences our present, I began researchingmy genealogy using newly available tools that make this pursuit both easy and rewarding.

I suspected I would uncover a mix of enslavers and the enslaved among my lineage. To my surprise, by tracing maternal lines instead of the patrilineal paths favored by my grandfather—who had embarked on a similar genealogical journey years earlier but missed this matrilineal treasure, I discovered a direct lineage to the renowned Powhatan princess, Pocahontas.

This revelation prompted me to delve deeper into Pocahontas's history, contemplating the true life experiences of a girl whose story has been narrated by others rather than herself. I sought to gather existing facts while imagining her perspective. This process of purposeful imagination often fuels my painting, allowing me to explore the inner life of a person or character and paint her into existence. In this way, she transforms into a sort of empathetic self-portrait.

In my painting, The Bride Pocahontas, this act of deliberate imagining becomes the central theme. I found an engraving depicting the marriage of Pocahontas to the English colonist John Rolfe, a union shrouded in uncertainty—whether it was by force or consent cannot be known. Pocahontas was only 17 or 18 at the time.

In my artwork, I incorporated this engraving into a band at the bottom, intertwining it with images of living family members, thus creating a connection between past and present. I am a native of Colorado, a result of the migratory journeys of my ancestors who ventured westward. This painting serves as a self-portrait set in the West—my home, my countryside, and the expansive sky over the rugged landscape that was once wild and untouched but is now interspersed with suburbia and scarred by wildfires.