Stephen Hopkins and Pocahontas by Caleb Johnson

As early as 1769, Thomas Mayo speculated that Stephen Hopkins of Plymouth may be the same man who ship-wrecked in Bermuda in 1609.  But it was not until my 1998 discovery of Stephen Hopkins’ origins in Hursley, that actual documents could be cited to show they were indeed the same. Since the Bermuda castaways built two ships and made it to Jamestown in 1610, we are then left with an interesting question—did Stephen Hopkins know Pocahontas?  The question is an intriguing one.  Stephen, in his later life at Plymouth, was associated with Squanto, even housing him in his house. Could Stephen have actually known and met the two most famous Indians in early American history? Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhattan, the Indian ruler of most of the tribes around Virginia. Her rescue of John Smith from a death sentence and her visits to Jamestown between 1607-1608 are legendary. But the famous Captain Smith returned to England in 1609, and Indian relations took a major downturn; by the time Hopkins arrived in 1610, Pocahontas no longer visited.  Pocahontas would later be captured by Captain Samuel Argall, and returned a prisoner to Jamestown in March 1613.  They tried to use her capture to negotiate with her father, Powhattan, to return stolen goods and several Englishmen he was holding prisoner. After holding Pocahontas for a year, she began to sympathize with her captors, and fell in love with one of the colonists, John Rolfe, and married him in April 1614.  There were only two ministers at Jamestown that could have performed the wedding ceremony: Alexander Whittaker and Richard Buck. The latter was Hopkins’ employer—he had hired Stephen to be his clerk. We do not know which reverend performed the wedding ceremony. Whittaker was more familiar with Pocahontas, and was the man who helped Christianize her. Buck, on the other hand, was the primary minister of Jamestown, and given the status and prominence of the marriage (deemed to be a royal marriage), he may have been the one. In any case, the wedding was almost likely attended by nearly everyone.  So when exactly did Stephen leave Jamestown? There is no record of when he returned to England. The normal “contract” for a Virginia Company employee was for seven years. If Hopkins were to fulfill his contract, he would have been “free” in mid-1616. But his wife Mary, back in Hursley, died in May 1613, orphaning Stephen’s three children there. Could he have been recalled to England on their account? In September 1614, a letter was sent to Thomas Dale, governor, to send home by the next ship “Eliezer Hopkins.” There is, however, no known Eliezer Hopkins in Jamestown. The original letter does not exist, only a brief summary of the letter jotted down in a Virginia Company logbook. Could the scribe have misread the name?  We know that a Stephen Hopkins married Elizabeth Fisher in February 1618 at St. Mary Matellon, Whitechapel, London. This is in the heart of where Separatists were organizing the Mayflower’s voyage from the London side. We know from Gov. Bradford that Stephen Hopkins’ second wife was named Elizabeth, and we also know that this couple’s first child, Damaris, was born about nine months after the Whitechapel wedding. Combining these tidbits it would seem that Stephen returned to England between 1615-1617, and therefore almost certainly was around to witness Pocahontas’ return to Jamestown in March 1612, and her marriage in April 1614. In fact, Pocahontas and John Rolfe left Jamestown to visit London in 1616. Given there were so few ships leaving Jamestown, there is a reasonable chance that Hopkins returned on this ship too, spending several months at sea with two of America’s most interesting figures, Pocahontas the “Indian Princess”, and John Rolfe, the future tobacco entrepreneur. ▄