LONDON, July 13: A delegation of 50 American Indians landed in Britain on Thursday for a visit to the grave of Pocahontas, the fabled princess who acted as an ambassador between British settlers and her Algonquin kinsmen in the 17th-century settlement of Jamestown.

Tribe members will meet history buffs and local leaders at a formal ceremony on Friday in the south-eastern English town of Gravesend, on the estuary of the River Thames, where Pocahontas is buried in an unmarked grave at St George’s Church.

The welcome ceremony marks the start of events to mark next year’s 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first English settlement in the New World.

“It is difficult to underestimate the importance of the Jamestown anniversary in the history of the United States, and its impact on England,” said English county official Alex King in a statement.

“The Pocahontas story is known worldwide, and is an important part of Gravesend’s history.”

Pocahontas saved New World explorer Capt. John Smith from execution in 1607, though legend has it the two later became lovers. In 1612, she was kidnapped by the English to be used as a pawn in dealings with her father Powhatan, chief of the Algonquin Nation.

Historians have gleaned little in the way of fact about Pocahontas, but fictionalized accounts of her life have appeared in art and media for centuries _ most recently in a 1995 animated Disney musical and live-action historical thriller, “The New World,” released in January.

But the princess was best known in her own day for keeping peace between her kinsmen and British settlers, said Dr. William Rasmussen, a curator at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia.—AP