![jan_koprek[1].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5297dc_ceb3524c5f0d45e6af99f63eb2a32742~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_73,h_80,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/jan_koprek%5B1%5D.jpg)
This is another lead that I got from playing with familysearch's "Famous Relatives" search. I was looking at our link to the film director Cecile B. DeMille. He is a distant cousin. We are related through the Martin family in the mid 1600s. See the Revis/DeMille family tree graphic below.
That tree showed a woman named Christian Pettus 1636-1701 as our 9x GreatGrandmother. I always check the individuals shown through the automated search to see if the links can be substantiated. While looking at Christian, I discovered that her grandparents were Pocahontas and a Native American man named Kocoum. Pocahontas was married prior to her marriage with John Rolfe. Who knew?
Revis Family lore has always maintained that we have Native American ancestry. Somewhere. After 50 years of general family ancestry research, this is the first time that I have found a link. Quite an unexpected one!
The following is my overview of an article written by Tribal Historian, William Deyo in the September 19, 2009 Patawomeck Tides newsletter.
The Patawomeck Tribe was one of the members of Chief Powhatan’s federation. Chief Powhatan was the supreme ruler of the Powhatan Federation. He got his title Powhatan from the name of the federation. His real name was Wahunsunacock. Matoaka "Pocahontas" (and later called Rebecca) was Powhatan’s daughter.
A book by a Mattaponi tribal historian, Linwood Custalow, says that Pocahontas married Kocoum, the younger brother of Chief Japasaw, and had a child by him. Chief Japasaw was also called Chief Passapatanzy because that was where he lived. The Mattaponi kept the story of Pocahontas' daughter, Ka-Okee, alive.
Japasaw and his wife lured Pocahontas aboard an English ship so that its captain, Argall, could hold her as ransom for the return of stolen weapons and English prisoners held by her father. Japasaw and his wife were rewarded with a small copper kettle and some other trinkets for their part in the kidnapping.
She never returned to her husband and daughter. Kocoum was killed around the same time as the kidnapping.
Pocahontas' daughter is Ka-Okee.
Christian Pettus Martin is the daughter of Ka-Okee.
William Strachey, Secretary of Virginia Colony, wrote that Pocahontas had first married Kocoum in 1610. Their child was raised by Kocoum’s family with the Patawomeck Tribe after Pocahontas was abducted and Kocoum was killed.
Today’s Mattaponi Tribe descend from the sister of Pocahontas, Matachanna, who went to England with Pocahontas (and other family members). Matachanna (also known as Elizabeth) took care of Thomas Rolfe, the son of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.
Ka-Okee’s husband was Colonel Thomas Pettus (as shown in the Patawomech article). The famous Matoaka portrait of Pocahontas was found in England in a Pettus family home.
The families who carry the traditional descent from Pocahontas and Kocoum are: Martin (our link), Threlkeld, Porch, Sullivan, Fugate, Roberson, Curtis, Limbrick, Newton, Green, Butler, Courtney, Humphries, Brown, Jett, Peyton/Payton, Chilton, Burton, Hudson, Jones, Cox, Grigsby, Bates, Berry, Kitchen, Fines, Chinn, McGuire, Payne, Rollow, and many others.
The map detail above is based on John Smith's scouting trips in the New World 1606. I see 1693 in the upper right of the complete map below. That may be the printing date. You can see the various tribes scattered all across the area. Most of the territory is made up of the Powhatan Federation. Red highlights show two of the tribes mentioned in the Patawomeck newsletter, and Chief Powhatan's location. Green shows the houses of the tribal chiefs.
Pocahontas Matoaka was a lively young girl
Pocahontas was a frequent visitor to Jamestown. She delivered messages from her father and accompanied Indians bringing food and furs to trade for hatchets and trinkets. She was a lively young girl, and when the young boys of the colony turned cartwheels, "she would follow and wheele some herself, naked as she was all the fort over." Several years after their first meeting, Smith described her: "a child of tenne yeares old, which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion much exceedeth any of the rest of his (Powhatan's) people but for wit and spirit (is) the only non-pariel of his countrie."
The earliest description of this first marriage to Kocoum is from William Strachey who reached Jamestown May 23 or 24, 1610, and was made Secretary and Recorder of the colony under Lord Delaware. He writes in the records, ". . . younge Pocohunta, a daughter of his [Powhatan], using sometyme to our fort in tymes past, nowe married to a private Captaine, called Kocoum, some two years since."
In 2007 "The True Story of Pocahontas" was published by Native American medical doctor Linwood Custalow and Angela L. Daniels. In it he mentions Kocoum as the first husband of Pocahontas. Custalow presents the book as oral tradition written down. Looking at the opinions of experts in Native American oral history causes me to be skeptical of all of the stories in that book. The experts believe the book contains both true tales told down through the generations as well as a few embellishments and outright falsehoods. I have found other sources that mention Kocoum and a daughter so I have not relied solely on TTSoP.
Recommended
For a wonderful (and heavily footnoted) dive into the life and story of Pocahontas,
I found a website called Pocahontas Lives!
Click the name and your browser will take you there.
Take time to wander around the whole site.
It is a delightful storehouse of sources and information.
Another good backstory article is,
from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.
My goal in all of the Dead Family Tales is to present stories that would have been told around a kitchen table or campfire during family gatherings.
A new Dead Family Tale is posted every Monday.
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Do you have more tales of our Koprek, Haupt, Revis, or Oswald lines?
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