Pocahontas Facts

There are multiple reasons why Walt Disney’s film Pocahontas is not historically accurate. First, when she met John Smith she was aged 11 or 12, in the film her age is bumped up significantly to go along with her and John Smith’s romance. Her age was never given in the film, but you can tell that she is a young adult. In the movie, Pocahontas and John Smith meet instantly due to his ship landing in America. However, they actually met when Smith and two other men were ambushed by Indians. Two months later, after Powhatan decides to murder the men Pocahontas throws herself between John Smith and the attackers causing Powhatan to back off.

We all have heard or even maybe seen the movies about the tragic love story of Pocahontas and John Smith. You know, where the girl saves the guy, but did she really save him? Pocahontas is a young girl, daughter of a King of an Indian tribe. Smith is an American explore and writer. Pocahontas did not save Smiths life because the King changed his mind on wanting to execute Smith, they both were very good friends and this was just a publicity stunt on Smiths part.

So this document never even mention’s Pocahontas so therefore she never has to save his life. But in document B it show’s that there was a heavy confrontation between them. I know this because in document B it states “…ready to beat out my brains. Pocahontas the

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.

She was the daughter of the Powhatan Indian leader of Werowocomoco, a town close to Jamestown (Smith 66). She was kidnapped by the British and was converted into Christianity (Tremblay 1). They called her a Princess because the British thought her father was the king, because they did not understand her language (Tremblay1). They protested to her father if he would let the British people go, give them their weapons, and corn, they would return Pocahontas back to them. He decided to let the prisoners go, and give them corn but would not give them their weapons. Her father trusted the kidnappers that they would not mistreat her (3). Unable to hand over the weapons, the British kept Pocahontas and started teaching her how to write and how to dress because Powhatan women dressed in hardly nothing on themselves. The British soon changed her name from Pocahontas to Mataoka (Tremblay 1), so she would fit in to the London society. Later some time, she meets John Rolfe while he was in Chesapeake Bay becoming a tobacco grower and merchant (3). Soon after, she converted to Christianity then they got married and had a son (3). They moved to England in 1616, and in 1617, Pocahontas died from a lung ailment while sailing. She was buried at St. George’s Church

Also, as a side note John Smith was not attractive at all he was short and stubby. Many different accounts are told on how she came to stay in jamestown, some say she was captured so the colonist could get guns back from the indians and some don't say how she came to stay with the colonist. The story of pocahontas is told differently by many people, but they all seem not to agree with the disney version. A Native American chief of the Powhatan Renape nation comment on the movie, “ it is unfortunate that this sad story, which euro-americans should find embarrassing, Disney makes “entertainment” and perpetuates dishonest and self-serving myth at the expense of powhatan

While talking with a tribe a pregnant women named Sacagawea presented herself. Sacagawea promised to held these explores get to Mississippi, before they left Sacagawea gave birth to a boy named Jean Babtiste. She strapped her baby to her chest and began the long journey with Lewis and Clark. When the reached another tribe they asked for horses and supplies. Chief Cameahwait strongly agreed,

It is said that she was one of the most important reasons the expedition survived. Most of the Indian tribes did not think this a military expedition because a woman and her child, Pompy, who she gave birth to on February 11, 1804, accompanied the group. She knew many secrets of the Indian culture, had knowledge about their medicine and knew local plants and animals foreign to the Easterners.

Many years later, while acting as an envoy to the Patowomeck chiefdom, supervising the flow of tribute back to her father, she was taken by a party of Englishmen. However, even after her kidnapping, Pocahontas continued to remain a significant figure, but the reasons for this importance and the type of famous she became differed wildly from her role as the daughter of the paramount chief of

Famous for saving the life of John Smith, Pocahontas is a legend (Morenus). The real question is “Who was Pocahontas and was she real or just a legend for kids?” Most people have heard of Pocahontas, who was primarily linked to the English colonist through Captain John Smith (Biography). Pocahontas, whose real name was Matoaka, was a native American who became famous for helping English colonists new to America (“Pocahontas Facts”). Matoaka, the beautiful and lively daughter of Powhatan (Morenus), ruler of the land that the English named Virginia, is a name most people question because they are not familiar with it, using the nickname “Pocahontas” instead. “Pocahontas” translates into many different things including “the playful one” or “little wanton” (Pocahontas Myth).

The animated Walt Disney movie Pocahontas is based on a true life story of a young Powhatan Indian girl named Pocahontas who falls in love with John Smith. In the making of the movie, Walt Disney, attempts to relate to the early 17th Century historic event of Europeans settling in Jamestown; however, Disney did not portrait the true story. Disney rewrote the story by making it a beautifully romantic and animated love story like a Cinderella fairytale.

[1] Disney’s Pocahontas has understandably received a lot of flak about the historically inaccurate story that is told about the legendary Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. There is a good reason for that. The movie does little that can be construed as historically accurate, yet Disney claims that was never their intent. Disney, in their previous movies, has been attacked for being racist and unsympathetic to racial minorities. Their answer was a movie whose sole purpose, as stated by Disney, was to promote racial tolerance. The question is, then can a movie promote racial tolerance when the issue is built on false history, history that if told accurately would depict the exact opposite?

The Pocahontas story is one of assimilation. The true Pocahontas emigrated to England and is buried there. The Disney version of Pocahontas however is far more romantic. In the true story, the daughter of a Native American chief fell in love with the head group leader of English settlers. She risked her own life to save Englishmen John Smith. Thanks to her devotion, smith and the colony of Jamestown survived. This marked the first successful English settlement of the new world. Later on in life she was Baptized to become a Christian. She was then christened by "Lady Rebecca". At first Pocahontas was not accepted by the colonists in the same manner as an Englishwoman would’ve been. One reason is due to her name “Pocahontas” which was of Indian dissent. Eventually she assimilated in society, which serves as an analogy to the real world. This is because in the real world cultures assimilate in nations they’ve immigrated

The story of Pocahontas was made famous by many legends and myths told by people across the years, yet there is actually very little written records about her life experiences or her feelings. What we know about her is from the colonists in Jamestown virginia that documented parts of their lives and from captain John smith’s writings.Despite being a young ‘“savage” indian girl, Pocahontas was actually a smart young woman that was crucial and very significant to the foundation of the first English settlement in Jamestown Virginia. Her interesting life even had the power to inspire Disney to make a cartoon movie based on her story told by Captain John Smith.

Pocahontas is easily one of the most well-known Native American figures, in both history and popular culture. Her image as a brave young woman standing up to her father in order to save the life of a strange Englishman in a strange marriage of the Old and New World has become rooted in American culture to such a great degree that few question or look deeper into her history. The real story of Pocahontas is steeped in historical uncertainties and dubious sources, with much of the information that is known about her having multiple interpretations. Pocahontas is historically different from her modern image in the near-execution of John Smith, in the misconceptions of those who encountered her, her age, and her visual image.