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On May 13, 1607, three English sailing vessels dropped anchor beside a small island fringed by swamps in the James River, Virginia. On board were 104 colonists who established the first successful English settlement in the New World at Jamestown. In Pocahontas, NOVA revisits the epic, mythical tale of the brash, swashbuckling John Smith, the wily, venerable chief Powhatan and his infatuated daughter Pocahontas. Now science is revealing the truth behind the myth's saga of unparalleled adventure, greed, and savagery. Virginia archaeologists have discovered the site of Chief Powhatan's capital, Werowocomoco, some 17 miles from Jamestown beside the York River: the very spot where the captive John Smith had his famous life-and-death encounter with the mighty chief, in which (so the story goes) the smitten Pocahontas begged her father to spare the Englishman's neck. The unique investigation of the site is followed in depth exclusively by NOVA, as archaeologists for the first time reveal the Native American side of the Jamestown story. The evidence from Werowocomoco provides a fascinating new perspective on the colonists' inevitably one-sided accounts of their sometime allies and adversaries.
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