Thomas Rolfe last recorded mention of Thomas Rolfe exists in a land patent from September 16, 1658. While some sources claim that Thomas died in 1680, others claim that the exact year is unknown. Some evidence purports that Thomas Rolfe died in James City County, Virginia, however the records of the county were destroyed in 1685 during a fire. Many non-Native people in the United States claim descent from Pocahontas through her son, Thomas Rolfe. Rolfe's birth was recorded as the first time a child was born to a Virginian Native American woman and an English man in Virginia's history. Moreover, many
History of Jamestown, Virginia (1607–99) England several years earlier, which served to greatly improve relations between the Virginia Native Americans and the colonists for several years. However, when she and John Rolfe took their young son Thomas Rolfe on a public relations trip to England to help raise more investment money for the Virginia Company, she became ill and died just as they were leaving to return to Virginia. Her interment was at St George's Church in Gravesend. What became known as the "Starving Time" in the Virginia Colony occurred during the winter of 1609–10, when only 60 of 500 English colonists survived. The colonists,