1842

Ella. "Pocahontas." Lowell Offering 3 (October 1842): 14-20. An intriguing magazine. The Lowell Offering -- written, edited, and published by the female operatives of the Lowell, Massachusetts, woolen mills -- was the most prominent of several magazines produced by New England factory employees. And this is a very striking essay, morphing from an analysis of Pocahontas's distinctive character to reflections on the state of the Indians and back again. Pocahontas, "like a visitant from the ethereal world," must have led a "lonely life" in her culture, "yearning for communion with those she could not find," and it is no wonder how quickly she moved to "assimilate" with the whites. And the Indians recognized her power: "Powhatan treated her not as a child –- but as a woman. Aye, there and then, she was treated as a man."