Pocahontas Myths

The Native American, known as Pocahontas, this women accomplished amazing things some myth some facts that have gone down in history. The story told through generations is a childhood story that the majority of American children have watched at some point. Her story is a model of bravery, independence, and wisdom. As the story goes men from England come over to “The New World” and John Smith meets Pocahontas. Then the two fall in love, ending the fighting between the Native Americans and English men. However the story may not be exactly how we where told it went in the Disney Movie, it is quite different in many ways. Pocahontas was never emotionally attached to John Smith, she may have saved his life however the story wasn’t the way John Smith

In the Disney movie the two characters are portrayed as two people around the same age. Pocahontas’s real name was in fact Matoaka. History has no real record of weather Pochahontas saved John Smith’s life. “In the vtmost of many extremities, that blessed Pokahontas, the great Kings daughter of Virginia, oft saved my life” (John Smith, 3). However John Smith claims, after the death of Pocahontas, that she did in fact save his life. Many historians argue that she did not but that “the multiple threats Powhatan (Pocahontas’s father) made on John Smith’s life was written because of anti-Indian sentiments”(Gail Tremblay, 121). Also John Smith writes that many women saved his life but, they where not recorded to be real

Then she renounces her Powhatan culture getting baptized and assimilated further into European culture. She marries a man named John Roth. They are again depicted as head or heals for each other, a common theme in stories. “Like other artists, the writers and animators behind the film integrate elements of fantasy with historical facts, and they reflect cultural biases of their own time” (PBS.com). Concluding that you really can’t count on all historical accounts. Most sources try to spice things up, especially when money is involved. Pocahontas at the time the settlers settled in Virginia was twelve years old. Not a women who falls in love with John Smith. She was a brave soul who wanted peace and was very smart for her age. She would’ve done anything that was good for her tribe, hints her staying and not going back to Europe to be with the man she “loved”. Needless to say history can’t always be trusted. Pocahontas was never emotionally attached to John Smith, she may have saved his life however the story wasn’t the way John Smith said it to