John Rolfe

Timeline

1. 1609–1610Bermuda Islands · Bermuda IslandsEn route to Virginia aboard the Sea Venture in 1609, a storm drove the ship onto the reefs of Bermuda; the crew was stranded on the island for nearly ten months before building small boats and continuing to Jamestown, and Rolfe's first wife died during the voyage or shortly after arriving in Virginia.
2. 1612–1616Jamestown · Virginia ColonyRolfe experimented with cultivating export-suitable tobacco varieties at Henricus and elsewhere; his first shipment to London in 1614 was a commercial success, shifting the Virginia Colony from dependence on company subsidies to a plantation economy based on tobacco exports, and spurring land expansion and demand for labor.
3. 1614–1617Virginia Colony · Virginia ColonyIn April 1614 he married Pocahontas, who had converted to Christianity and taken the name Rebecca, a union seen as a symbolic easing of English-Indian relations. In 1616 he took his wife and young son Thomas to London to display colonial achievements; Pocahontas fell ill and died at Gravesend on the return journey.