Pocahontas

The Jamestown colony’s records mention her real name: Amonute, daughter of Chief Powhatan. She was known for speaking to the river as if it were alive. Settlers mocked it — until the river began changing course overnight, drowning their camps and uncovering bones they hadn’t buried properly.

Amonute married John Rolfe and was taken to England. There she sickened, though no disease could be identified. Witnesses wrote that the water in her bath “turned murky” and that she would wake gasping, crying, “It’s too far — I can’t hear her anymore.”

When her body was shipped back home, the ship vanished near the Azores. A year later, its wreck was found — every body decayed but hers. Her eyes were open, and her skin damp.

In Virginia, local tribes refused to sail the river for months, saying they saw her figure in the mist, her hair moving as if underwater. They called her She-Who-Walks-the-Current.

To this day, environmental historians speak of the “Pocahontas Curse” — any time construction threatens a sacred riverbed, floods follow. Scientists blame erosion. The locals say it’s her, reclaiming what memory forgets.