Pocahontas was a Native American famous for her association with English colonists during their initial years in Virginia. She assisted the colonists in establishing the settlement and also played a major role in mediating peaceful relations between the English settlers and her own tribesmen, the Powhatan Native Americans. A very famous anecdote has it that Pocahontas saved the life of an Englishman named John Smith who was captured and about to be executed by her father, the paramount chief of a network of tributary tribal nations in the Tsenacommacah. Some historians, however, have suggested that this story, as told by Smith, is untrue. Nonetheless, Smith and Pocahontas became good friends and she provided the Englishmen with food and other necessities when they were near starvation. However, the relationship between the Native Americans and the Englishmen soured after Smith left for England. Some Englishmen captured Pocahontas and demanded a hefty ransom from her father. During the period of her captivity, she met John Rolfe, an Englishman and tobacco planter, who proposed marriage to her. She agreed to marry him and bore him a child. This marriage helped pacify the hostile relations between the natives and the colonists for a while.