Some early male settlers married Indigenous American women and had informal unions with them. Early contact between Indigenous Americans and Europeans was often charged with tension, but also had moments of friendship, cooperation, and intimacy. Marriages took place in both English and Latin colonies between European men and Native women. For instance, on April 5, 1614, Pocahontas, a Powhatan woman in present-day Virginia, married the Englishman John Rolfe of Jamestown. Their son Thomas Rolfe was an ancestor to many descendants in First Families of Virginia. As a result, English laws did not exclude people with some Indigenous American ancestry from being considered English or white.

When was the wedding of Rolfe and Pocahontas?