What was john Rolfe significances?

Answer 1

The short answers are three things. He married Pocahontas which allowed the situation between the Jamestown colonist and the Powhatan tribes to become more settled. He and Pocahontas cultivated the first successful crop of commercial tobacco in Virginia, this crop made the colony successful.

The tobacco crop not only made great money for those who were there and had land it made a great demand for cheap labor. At first this was filled by white and other indentured servants Indians, and whoever was willing to work. Then in 1619 came a Dutch ship. Which John Rolfe recorded a Dutch man of Warre which sold them "20 and odd negars" (verbatim) for supplies and sundries. It is recorded that those first Africans and those that arrived soon after them for the first 40-50 years after were not treated as slaves, and were freed after 7-10 years of service just like white servants.

John Rolfe's action lead eventually to slavery, and his curious spelling may have lead to the N word. That from a man who was tolerant enough to marry a woman of another race and call her people brothers.

So his legacy is mixed. He put the Virginia colony on a sound economic footing. He and his contemporaries did not resort to slavery, though two generations latter what he did set the stage for slavery. He married a woman of another race and seemed to get along with people of that race. Yet his actions set the stage for great suffering to befall many members of that race. John Rolfe is the John in Pocahontas's life we should all know about.