Powhatan’s Daughter

Powhatan’s Daughter - John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)
This march, written by Sousa in 1907, carries the name of the Chief of a confederation of some thirty Algonquian tribes that populated the area of what is now central Virginia. Powhatan was both a brilliant warrior chief as well as a skilled negotiator with the Jamestown Englishmen with whom his people traded and fought over land and resources. Following a skirmish in December 1607, English explorer, cartographer, and pioneer Capt. John
Smith, one of the Jamestown colony's leaders, was captured by an Algonquian hunting expedition. Smith was taken to a village by the York River to face their chief, Powhatan. According to Smith’s account, he was about to
be executed when he was saved by Pocahontas, the chief’s 10- or 11-year-old daughter, who placed herself between him and his executioners.
Powhatan’s Daughter endeared Sousa to the Indians of America. As a salute to Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, it was written for the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, that marked the three hundredth anniversary of the first English settlement in America.