in the English fort two or three days without Powhatan's leave; I say
they often reported unto us that Powhatan had then lyving twenty
sonnes and ten daughters, besyde a young one by Winganuske, Machumps
his sister, and a great darling of the King's; and besides, younge
Pocohunta, a daughter of his, using sometyme to our fort in tymes
past, nowe married to a private Captaine, called Kocoum, some two
years since."

This passage is a great puzzle. Does Strachey intend to say that
Pocahontas was married to an Iniaan named Kocoum? She might have
been during the time after Smith's departure in 1609, and her
kidnapping in 1613, when she was of marriageable age. We shall see
hereafter that Powhatan, in 1614, said he had sold another favorite
daughter of his, whom Sir Thomas Dale desired, and who was not twelve
years of age, to be wife to a great chief. The term "private
Captain" might perhaps be applied to an Indian chief. Smith, in his
"General Historie," says the Indians have "but few occasions to use
any officers more than one commander, which commonly they call
Werowance, or Caucorouse, which is Captaine." It is probably not
possible, with the best intentions, to twist Kocoum into Caucorouse,
or to suppose that Strachey intended to say that a private captain
was called in Indian a Kocoum. Werowance and Caucorouse are not
synonymous terms. Werowance means "chief," and Caucorouse means"
talker" or "orator," and is the original of our word "caucus."

Either Strachey was uninformed, or Pocahontas was married to an
Indian--a not violent presumption considering her age and the fact
that war between Powhatan and the whites for some time had cut off
intercourse between them--or Strachey referred to her marriage with
Rolfe, whom he calls by mistake Kocoum. If this is to be accepted,