Who is Edith Wilson?

The circumstances were anything but romantic. Pocahontas was kidnapped by Captain Samuel Argall in 1613 and held for ransom at the colony of Henricus, north of Jamestown. She had been visiting friends among the Patawomeck people on the Potomac River when Argall, seeing an opportunity, sought out Iopassus, the chief of the Indian town of Passapatanzy. Iopassus had one of his wives insist that Pocahontas accompany her on a tour of Argall's ship. Once aboard, Pocahontas was detained and the ship departed.

Argall informed Chief Powhatan that he wouldn't return Pocahontas unless he released English prisoners, returned stolen weapons and sent the colonists food. Much to Pocahontas's dismay, her father only sent half the ransom and left her imprisoned.

Where Rolfe entered the picture

While in captivity, Pocahontas lived in the settlement of Henricus under the care of a minister named Alexander Whitaker, where she learned about Christianity, English culture and how to speak English. There she met John Rolfe, a widower who had arrived in Virginia in 1610 and who had introduced tobacco as a cash crop in the colony.

Rolfe fell in love with her and wrote a letter to Sir Thomas Dale justifying his feelings for her. Rolfe was a religious man who agonized for weeks over the proposition of marrying a "strange wife," a non-Christian. After Pocahontas converted to Christianity, Rolfe married her "for the good of the plantation, the honor of our country, for the glory of God, for mine own salvation."

She was baptized and took the English name Rebecca. Powhatan gave his consent to this peace-making marriage and sent Pocahontas's maternal uncle and two of his sons to witness the ceremony held in Jamestown's church on April 5, 1614.

What the marriage meant

The marriage helped bring an end to the First Anglo-Powhatan War, which had been grinding on since 1609. When they wed, Rolfe was approximately 29, and Pocahontas was approximately 18. Their son Thomas, the direct ancestor of Edith Bolling Wilson, was born the following year.

In 1616 the Rolfe family traveled to England with Sir Thomas Dale, who hoped to encourage financial support for the colony. While there, Pocahontas fell ill and died in 1617. She was buried at Gravesend, England, and never returned to Virginia.

The connection goes back to the very beginning of English colonial America. In 1614, Pocahontas married English tobacco planter John Rolfe, and bore him a son, Thomas Rolfe. Their marriage was the first recorded interracial marriage in American history.

The chain, step by step

The descent from that union to Edith runs through 1 family line, 10 generations long. Tap anyone to learn more.

How distant the connection was

Edith Wilson was a direct descendant of Pocahontas through the Bolling family lineage, placing her roughly ten generations removed and therefore less than 1% Native American by ancestry. The line came through her father, who was descended from Pocahontas's granddaughter Jane Rolfe, who married Robert Bolling, a wealthy planter and merchant.

According to genealogist Gary B. Roberts, those who claim this Pocahontas lineage do so through the Bolling family line, which is the only descent traced clearly beyond the early 18th century. It was estimated that Pocahontas's descendants probably numbered around 250,000 by the time the count was made, so Edith was far from alone in this heritage, but she was the only one ever to live in the White House.

When Edith married Woodrow Wilson, newspapers emphasized her connection to Pocahontas, the "Good Indian Princess," as the Richmond Times-Dispatch put it. She was also related, either by blood or through marriage, to Thomas Jefferson, Martha Washington, Letitia Tyler, and the Harrison family of Virginia.

The land bridge they walked across

About 20,000 years ago, at the peak of the last Ice Age, Earth's water was locked in massive glaciers, dropping sea levels roughly 120 meters lower than today. That exposed the continental shelves, connecting Siberia and Alaska as one landmass. Scientists call that land Beringia.

The people who walked across it didn't know they were crossing continents. There were no borders, no maps, no concept of continents. The migrations were most likely driven by the search for food, as these groups hunted large mammals that inhabited the region. They followed the animals, and in doing so, they walked into an entirely new world.

As ice sheets melted and sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, the land bridge became submerged, and corridors opened in the interior and maritime regions of western Canada, effectively reconnecting eastern Beringia to the rest of North America. Once through, people expanded southward along a route that hugged the coast, with populations splitting off along the way.

Where they came from before that

Genetic evidence shows that Native Americans most likely had a common Siberian origin. About 23,000 years ago, a single group splintered off from an East Asian population. Genetic data point to a population linked to ancient groups from northern Asia and Beringia. During the Last Glacial Maximum, this population developed several distinct lineages, including Ancient Native Americans and Ancient Beringians.

About 13,000 years ago, Native Americans started to split into different groups, creating the genetic and cultural diversity that exists today.

Was it one migration or several?

Mostly one, but the story is more layered than that. Scientists at UCL found that Indigenous Australians populations across the Americas arose from at least 3 migrations, with the majority descended from a single group of migrants. That single group of First American migrants crossed through Beringia, and while most Native American populations arose from that first migration, two subsequent migrations also made important genetic contributions.

Some Amazonian Native Americans descend partly from a founding population that carried ancestry more closely related to Indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders than to any present-day Eurasians or other Native Americans. This signature is not present in the same way in Northern and Central Americans, suggesting a more diverse set of founding populations than previously accepted.

How fast did they spread?

Remarkably fast. The close genetic affinities found at similar times across vast distances suggest people moved rapidly across the Americas, with little time to evolve into distinct genetic groups. Some researchers argue that Clovis technology, a distinctive style of stone spear point, may have spurred this rapid expansion. Clovis points, the earliest widely recognized tool tradition in the Americas, have been found from New Mexico to Patagonia.

Archaeological evidence suggests that these early Paleo-Indians spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into numerous culturally distinct nations. Major Paleo-Indian cultures included the Clovis and Folsom traditions, identified through unique spear points and large-game hunting methods.

That is the story of Pocahontas's own most distant ancestors, and of every Native American people: not people who were always here in a static sense, but the descendants of extraordinary travelers who made humanity's last great continental crossing on foot, in ice, following animals into a world no human had ever seen.

Christopher Columbus was convinced he had found a new route to the Indian subcontinent, so he referred to the Indigenous Australians peoples he encountered as Indios, the Spanish word for Indians. He had set out to reach Asia by sailing west and, when he landed in the Caribbean, he genuinely believed he had arrived at the outer islands of South Asia, then broadly called "the Indies." Despite the fact that people probably realized this mistake within hours, the name remained in use.

There is also a second, less cited theory. Some say he used the term because he was convinced he had arrived in "the Indies," his intended destination. Others say the term refers to his diary entry, in which he describes the natives as "una gente in Dios", meaning "a people in God."

Either way, whether from confusion or romanticism, "Indian" is a word of illusion, not a description of reality.

How the term spread and stuck

Despite its origins in error, it became entrenched in the lexicon and was used extensively in legal, political, and social contexts throughout history. "American Indian" remains the official legal term used in the United States.

Early explorers and settlers tended to think of the Indigenous peoples as a single group, but the peoples themselves did not. An Indigenous person considered himself or herself a Cherokee, a Diné (Navajo), an Ojibwe, or a member of one of the hundreds of other Indigenous nations in the Americas. The name of many tribes meant "the people" in the tribe's own language.

That flattening of enormous diversity into one borrowed word is part of what makes the label contested today.

How the terminology shifted

In the 1960s there was a significant shift in preferred terminology. Many activists in the United States and Canada began to reject the term "American Indian" due to its inaccurate and sometimes derogatory connotations. Instead, "Native American" became the preferred term, reflecting a more accurate and respectful acknowledgment of the Indigenous peoples' history.

However, many Indigenous individuals still refer to themselves as Indians, highlighting the complexity and personal nature of identity. Preferred terms vary regionally and generationally, with many older Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians," while younger Native Americans often identify differently.

By the end of the 20th century there was a growing preference for using specific tribal names or the term "Indigenous" to describe these communities, as part of a broader movement to recognize and respect the diverse cultures, languages, and histories of these peoples.

The honest takeaway: the word "Indian" tells you everything about where Columbus thought he was and nothing at all about the people it was attached to. The most respectful practice today, when you know it, is to use the specific nation's name, Cherokee, Lakota, Ojibwe, and so on, rather than any umbrella term.

Words that sound alike across continents invite curiosity. The Yoruba word for food is oúnjẹ, and Ogooué is the name of a major river in Gabon. Both are interesting to notice, given that the ancestors of Native Americans crossed into a new land in search of food.

What "Ojibwe" means

• The word: "Ojibwe" first appeared in English writing around 1700. The most accepted meaning is "puckered," likely from the puckered seams of their moccasins. Another reading links it to keeping records in pictures.
• Their own name: The people call themselves Anishinaabe, "original people." Their language is Anishinaabemowin.

How their ancestors arrived

About 20,000 years ago, at the peak of the last Ice Age, so much of Earth's water was locked in glaciers that sea levels were roughly 120 meters lower than today. That exposed the land between Siberia and Alaska, a bridge scientists call Beringia. The people who walked across it, likely following animals and food, didn't know they were crossing continents.

Why language links are interesting

Sound-alike words can spark great questions. Linguists look for regular sound patterns across many words, not 1 or 2 matches, before they call languages related.