Pocahontas And The Powhatan Tribe Summary

Your textbook (and most short accounts) depict the war as Indians against English colonists; how is that depiction accurate, and why or why not?

It is said that there are many different versions to a story. There is one persons story, then there is an other person’s story, and then, there is the truth. “Our memories change each time they are recalled. What we recall is only a facsimile of things gone by.” Dobrin, Arthur. "Your Memory Isn't What You Think It Is." (online magazine). Psychology Today. July 16, 2013. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201307/your-memory-isnt-what-you-think-it-is. Every time a story is told, it changes. From Disney movies to books, to what we tell our friends and colleagues. Sometimes the different sides to the story challenge the

For this research paper, I am providing you with the history of the Cherokee Indians. I have Cherokee Indian in my blood. My father’s family is fully Cherokee Indian. Both my Mother and my Father resided in North Carolina. Except on my Mother’s side, she isn’t any Native American of any kind. I am doing my research paper on the Cherokee Indians because it always perks my interest in hearing about my ancestors and what they did.

The relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

As young children we are often misled to believe that the stories and movies we are exposed to are presumably based on factual history, but are in reality myths, keeping the truthful, important, and fair facts hidden. Amonute is an accurate example of learning the real events that occurred in a person’s life while the typical myth of Pocahontas saved an Englishmen from being killed by her father. In the beginning of the book we are briefly introduced to Pocahontas, the Powhatan people and the English colonists. As the book continues we follow Pocahontas when she is kidnapped, her married life, and her trip to London where she got sick because of foreign illnesses and died. Camilla Townsends “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma” wants Pocahontas’ true story to unfold because she is worthy of respect for her bravery and sacrifice and because “everyone subverted her life to satisfy their own needs to believe that the Indians loved and admired them” (Townsend, pg. xi). I also believe that the author was trying to argue that even though the Englishmen believed that the Native Americans were uncivilized and lived like savages, that instead they were wise people.

Pocahontas was born in 1595, with the given name of Matoaka and later got the nickname Pocahontas. She has been known as the favorite daughter of the powerful Powhatan Chief but she is also famous in history for contributing greatly toward the survival of the Jamestown colony. When the English colonists settled in Jamestown in 1607, there became tension between the Colonists and the Powhatan Indians. During the 1600s, the leader of the Colonists, Captain John Smith was caught by the Powhatan’s men. It has been said that Pocahontas saved Smith’s life and has had great influence on early relationships between the colonists and Indians. During Pocahontas’s life, she has faced many tragedies but triumphs have also played a role in her time.

When examining early American history it is commonplace, besides in higher academia, to avoid the nuances of native and colonizer relations. The narrative becomes one of defeat wherein the only interaction to occur is one of native American’s constant loss to white colonizers. It is not to say that the European colonizers didn’t commit genocide, destroy the land and fabric of countless cultures, but rather when looking at history it is important to take a bottom’s up approach to storytelling. We must examine in what ways the native Americans fought English colonization, not just through war, but also through the legal system that was established after the area was colonized.

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

Despite having lost the war, the Indians a deployed a psychological weapon that made the colonists hesitant to fight them again. That psychological weapon was During the conflict, a third of all New England towns were burned to the ground (Philbrick xiii). Most of these destroyed towns were in the sparsely populated frontier, which provided easy targets for hostile native warriors. This caused a long-term fear of the frontier for the colonists and slowed down territorial expansion (Mention Springfield). This mentality was harmful for the English as they (colonies became

The resulting white, indian conflicts often took a particularly brutal turn and ultimately resulted in the near -de- struction of the indigenous peoples.Warfare between Europeans and Indians was common in the seventeenth century.In 1622 the Powhatan confederacy nearly wiped out the struggling Jamestown colony.In New England Puritan forces annihilated the Pequot’s in 1636-1637, a campaign whose intensity seemed to foreshadowing the future.

The Jamestown colonists believed that the Native Americans could be coerced into doing their labor for them. This, however, was not as easy said than done. King Powhatan was suspicious of the Englishmen, and after failing to gain the trust of the Powhatans, the colonists turned the the Monacans, the Powhatans’ nemesis. “The Monacans, on the other hand, lived too far inland (beyond the falls) to serve as substitute allies, and the English were thus deprived of their anticipated native labor.” (39) When

Although white European settlers and the native Indians had existed moderately peaceful for around 40 years pressures rose in the mid-seventh century. Conflict arose due to decline in Indian territories, population, and their cultural integrity. These differences ultimately lead to conflicts in which collectively became known as King Philip’s War. What types of complaints did the Indians have against the settlers? How were the Indians expected to survive if the settlers kept taking their land? The primary sources in this collection of source documents touch upon on what each group (Indian or white settlers) did to survive: an excerpt from a narrative written by John Easton, a second hand account written by Thomas Church, a report written to the English leaders by Edward Randolph, a petition written by an Indian named William Nahton, and an excerpt of an account from a book written by Mary Rowlandson. These documents illustrate the main causes that sparked the war between the Native Indians and the white English settlers, narratives written by both sides to find peaceful solutions, and actual accounts of people who survived the conflict. The second hand account written about Benjamin Church’s meeting with the Indian group known as the Sakonnet Indians displays that the Indians knew their only chance of survival was to fight while the report written to English leaders by Randolph suggest that the settlers who viewed the Indians as uncivilized had ultimately forced the Indians

John Smith's tales of the Indian princess, Pocahontas, have, over time, encouraged the evolution of a great American myth. According to this myth, which is common knowledge to most Americans, Pocahontas saved Smith from being killed by her father and his warriors and then fell in love with John Smith. Some versions of the myth popular among Americans include the marriage of Smith and Pocahontas. Although no one can be sure of exactly what happened almost four-hundred years ago, most historians agree that the myth is incorrect. Pocahontas did not save John Smith's life from "savages" and never showed any affection for him. The events of her life differ greatly from the myth Americans have created.

In the early 1600’s, when the European settlers arrived in Jamestown, there were already around 15,000-25,000 Indians living around the area. The leader of the most prominent tribe in the area, Powhatan, stayed in a neutral relationship with the English in the area for the first couple of years after Jamestown following the start of the colony. During the time the Indians

At the age of seventeen age, Matoaka, or more widely known as Pocahontas, was taken prisoner by the European settlers. She was held captive there for over a year, until she managed to negotiate her way out. As part of the terms of her release, she had to marry John Rolfe. On April 5, 1614, Pocahontas was baptised with the name Rebecca Rolfe. Not long after that, she gave birth to a son whom they named Thomas. In 1616, the Rolfe family traveled to England. Because Pocahontas was very exotic, she immediately became a celebrity of sorts in England. The Rolfes attempted to head back to Virginia in 1617, but Pocahontas ended up getting ill. She died in Gravesend, England at the age of twenty-one. Despite being portrayed in many movies as having