Historians now believe that the story was either made up entirely or that Smith misunderstood a ceremony meant to bring him into the Algonquian community, albeit in a subordinate role. He didn't mention it until his 1624 book, published when Pocahontas had already died. It was also one Smith left out of his initial recounting of his time in Virginia. The story that she had a close relationship with Smith and saved his life after he had been captured by throwing herself across his body just before he was clubbed to death is implausible and disturbing considering their age difference. Richter's book ' Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America.' Pocahontas also may not have been her father's favorite of his approximately 30 children from many wives.īorn in 1595 or 1596, Pocahontas would have been about 11 or 12 years old when 27-year-old John Smith and the English settlers arrived in 1607 to found Jamestown. That occurred matrilineally and the identity of Pocahontas's mother is unknown, according to Daniel K. That she was the daughter of Wahunsenaca (Chief Powhatan), who was chief of an alliance of about 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes in Virginia, is true, although calling her a princess misrepresents the way political office descended in Native American societies. Pocahontas was either a nickname or way of describing her and is translated as something like 'mischievous girl.' Pocahontas wasn't her name her formal name was Amonute, and her more familiar name was Matoak (also Matoaka or Meto-aka). So if Pocahontas was not the woman portrayed in the Disney film, who was she? What neither of these Disney versions includes is a focus on a love story between Pocahontas and John Smith, first of all because it would have been indecent.

'Native Americans were not passive agents in their own history.' Viewing the story of Pocahontas that way reminds us of how important indigenous agency is. In that sense she is an 'empowered indigenous actor,' Reid says.

Or she can be described as a young Algonquin woman who made decisions in her life on her own terms, who chose to convert to Christianity and chose to marry an Englishman and travel to England. In brief, Pocahontas can be explained as a young woman who was captured by the English, married to a colonizer and died young far away from home after being placed on display.

Reid, assistant professor at the school of humanities at Coventry University in England. 'The story of Pocahontas is the story of a young woman whose life was coopted by the colonizers to spread the gospel of European civility,' says Dr.

The real pocahontas