Images of a Legend
POCAHONTAS
1852, Thomas Sully
This regal portrait, painted by the renowned artist Thomas Sully,
seemed a fitting treatment of the woman who had come to be called
the "mother" of the nation by the 1850s. Southerners in particular
claimed Pocahontas as a progenitor; indeed, her descendants through
her son Thomas Rolfe were among the most prominent families in the
South. In Sully's portrait, Pocahontas's features are more
Mediterranean than Powhatan, but this image of her became one of the
best known and most copied. It was even adapted for the banner of a
Confederate militia unit that called itself the "Guard of the
Daughters of Powhatan."