Pocahontas was born about 1594 as Matoaka, in the village of Werowocomoco, located on the north shore of the Pamunkey River (now called the York River), some eleven miles downstream from the present city of West Point, VA. Her father was Chief Powhatan who became chief of the 32-tribe Powatanas in 1570. The Powatan Confederacy were a well organized, thriving agricultural and fishing nation with a total population in the neighborhood of about 9,000 at the time Matoaka was born.928