POCAHONTAS
Many people know Pocahontas from the Disney movies. They think of her as an Indian girl who wears a mini dress and fell in love with John Smith and thought John Smith had a dog named Percy. First of all Pocahontas didn’t even wear clothes as a kid and never was in love with John Smith. And Percy was actually a colonist who followed John Smith and wrote books about the experiences. and Disney just created this movie for entertainment. Therefore they left out lots of important details and historical events that actually happened.
Pocahontas was born the year of 1595 in Jamestown. She was named Matoaka,
but goes by Pocahontas which means, playful one. Her father, Wahunsunacock also known as Powhatan sent Pocahontas and her mother to her village so she can take care of her.
When Pocahontas was just a couple of months old her mother died. And Pocahontas moved back with her father. There she got to be with her older siblings. Her father had 100 wives and a child with each one. But Pocahontas was the “apple of his eye” meaning she was his favorite.
Her fathers name was Wahunsunacock but he liked to call him self Powhatan. He was a chief. He was handed down leadership of 8 tribes. The tribes had their own villages, they hunted and fished, as well as planted corn, vegetables, and tobacco. Each year they would rebuild their villages a few miles away.
Pocahontas was married to Kocoum who was on one of Powhatan’s chiefs. He was known as a captain of the Powhatan. In the Disney movies they made it seem as though the marriage between them was just arranged but he died before it happened. When the daughter is still a child the chief would arrange the marriage to often form some type of alliance. But its up to the children w...
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...ame sick. They stopped by a town close by to see a doctor they said she had small pox and would not survive. There she died at the age of 22 on March 21, 1617. And was buried in a churchyard in Gravesend, England.
Thomas Rolfe was educated in England. Later went to America and became a settler in Virginia. John Rolfe became recorder and secretary general of the colony. He remarried to a woman named Jane Pierce and had a daughter born the year of 1620 named Elizabeth Pierce.
The colony John Rolfe was in got attacked by Opechancanough its said that 350 people were killed in just an hour. Rolfe died during this incident.
As you can see Pocahontas isn’t the girl you thought she was. She is an Indian princess who has made history. There is lots of important things left out from Disney movies. And people should know the real reason why Pocahontas is part of our history.
Simon Van De Pasee was a young Dutch Artist who painted the famous painting of Pocahontas, the only painting of her when she was alive. Pasee portrayed Pocahontas as a aristocrat. He did not try to make her an Anglicize Pocahontas; she is still recognized as a Native American in his Painting. During this time Pocahontas was a daughter of a powerful Indian leader in the New World, whom married an Englishmen named John Rolfe and moved to England. Looking closely at the portrait, it seems as if Pocahontas appeared grave, her cheeks are sunken and her hand is skeletal. (Horwitz p 3) It seems as if Simon Va De Pasee wanted people to see Pocahontas before she became deathly ill, which with his painting he did give a brief history of her. Before Pocahontas met John Rolfe, Jamestown was going through a period of starving. Pocahontas would give the English food and warned them attacks her father was planning on the English. In 1614, Pocahontas would convert to Christianity, changed her name to Rebecca and have the...
Rountree starts the book by "setting the scene," she introduces the Indians and attempts to explain the complexities of the Powhatan society. This may be the hardest part of the book for most readers to follow, because the system of leadership and the leadership line is quite complicated. It is explained the Powhatan, the king of the Powhatan people, ascended to the throne through a matrilineal system, Powhatan being his mothers oldest son would rule first, then his next brother and so on. Once his mother had no more sons to rule leadership would be passed on to the son of his mothers eldest daughter, and so on. This system, while difficult to understand is easily justified; a man could possibly have two children at the same instant but no matter what a woman can only have one child at a time.
Sacagawea, also known as Bird Woman, was born to a Shoshone chief in 1788, in Salmon, Idaho. At the age of twelve, she was captured and sold to the French Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, and was made one of his many wives. Setting forth after the conformation of the purchased land, Lewis and Clark approached the hired interpreter, Charbonneau and his unknown Native American wife. They were to serve as guides for the party. Being only sixteen, her and her husband accompanied Lewis and Clark, graciously directing them on the expedition. She later gave birth to a boy, Jean-Baptiste, nicknamed “Pompey”, at their fort. Since Clark had become deeply attached to the infant he offered to take him, when weaned, to educate him as his own child. Less than two months later, the expedition was to continue and Sacagawea had her infant son strapped on her back sharing the hardships of the journey. Sacagawea posed as a guide, spectator, and translator because she was familiar with the geography, animals, and plants. When traveling through the land, she quieted the fears of other Native American tribes because she served a...
Notably, Rolfe’s second marriage is the one that seems most vital. This marriage consisted of Pocahontas, the Indian princess, daughter of the leader of the Powhatan Federation. This marriage also resulted in a son, Thomas Rolfe. They were not married for long due to her death but their marriage was an eventful marriage in a positive way.
The Disney movie Pocahontas is not historically accurate. There are many differences in the plot and characters. A few are that there was no love story between Pocahontas and John Smith, Pocahontas was 12 not 20 when John Smith came, John Smith was not tall and blond, and in the movie, they came to Jamestown in one ship. There are much more ways that the Movie is not historically accurate, but you can already see that it was very different from what actually happened.
Learn about the culture of Pocahontas' people in this re-created village. Explore the Powhatan houses, called yehakins, climb into a dugout canoe and try your hand at grinding corn or weaving plant fibers into rope.
The main plot of the film focuses on the relationship between John Smith, Pocahontas and John Rolfe. The film was a romantic film and had a lot of romantic scenes that were probably not portrayed in actual historical events. For example, the two main characters in the film were of course John Smith and Pocahontas, and there were many scenes in the movie that implied their romantic relationship. Scenes, such as when the two are connecting with one another, spending time together and learning about each other mostly through touch and sign language, after Pocahontas had saved John Smith from execution. In these few scenes each character narrates and discusses their idea on love and expressing their feelings on one another. Although, entertaining, John Smith and Pocahontas weren’t actually romantically involved with each other as the film portrays in these few scenes. It is uncertain what the relationship John Smith and Pocahontas actually had. Most likely, it was a beneficial relationship between the two, since there was a lot of trading between the Native American tribes and the colonists. (Read, 2005)
La Malinche, also called Malintzin, Malinalli or Doña Marina, was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast. “She was born into a noble family sometime between 1496 and 1501 in the Paynalla province in Coatzacoalcos, in the Veracruz region of southern Mexico” (“Creator or traitor”). Pocahontas was born around 1595; she was the daughter of Wahunsenaca (Chief Powhatan). Her name was Matoaka, but she was called by her nickname Pocahontas, which means “Little Wanton” (“Pocahontas 1595 – 1617”). She lived in eastern North America, present day Virginia. These women belonged to different region of America and different time. Malinche had contact with Spanish conquerors and Pocahontas was related to English conquerors.
To begin, Sacajawea grew up as a member of the Lemhi band of the Native American Shoshone tribe. She was surrounded by the Rocky Mountains in the Salmon River region of Idaho. She had a tough life growing up. The Shoshone became enemies with the Hidatsa tribe who lived along the Missouri River. In 1800 the Hidatsa tribe later captured Sacajawea, leaving her family and friends, during a buffalo hunt. They officially adopted her into their culture and she became known as a Hidatsa. She was a Shoshone by birth and a Hidatsa through culture. Three years later, through a trade, French-Canadian Toussaint Charbonneau bought her making Sacajawea become his ownership. At age 16, Sacajawea became one of two wives' of Charbonneau and later was the mother of her son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. She had a very difficult life growing up leading her to going on a famous expedition. ("Sacajawea").
To conclude with “The General History of Virginia” and Disney’s version of Pocahontas, the two stories had two different opinions and views. Although, Disney’s portrayal of Pocahontas was perceived as an offense to the Native Americans, no one really knows the actual events that took place during that time. People will continue to think that John Smith’s version was a bit hysterical, while the Native Americans will take the Disney movie Pocahontas to an offense. John Smith and Disney both gave their own versions of their story. Others will continue to do the same.
She was the daughter of Wahunsenacah. The most important Powhatan Indian was Chief Powhatan. His real name is Wahunsonacah. Chief Powhatan was named as the leader of the Powhatan Confederacy. Chief Powhatan was actually more like a European king than a traditional Algonquian chief.
The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith, portrays the enormous troubles the settlers were faced with by the Native Americans. He explains how he was captured by Indians and also saved by a young Native American girl, Pocahontas. He vividly describes the ceremonies and rituals of the Natives performed before his execution. However, the execution never occurred due to the tremendous mercy showed by the king’s daughter who blanketed John Smith’s body her own. Pocahontas went on to persuade the Native Americans to help the settlers by giving them food and other necessities. Despite her efforts to reach peaceful grounds, her people were still bitter and planned an attacks on the colony. Nevertheless, Pocahontas saved them once again by warning the settlers of attacks. Pocahontas went on to marry an Englishman and traveled to England. She resembled the prosperity and good that was to be found in an untamed land.
Kilpatrick contends that Disney was ineffective in developing the essence of Pocahontas and was solely concerned with creating a visually stimulating, condensed, romanticized film. “Pocahontas was a real woman who lived during the pivotal time of first contact,” according to Kilpatrick. The film took historical figures and created fictional characters by turning an adolescent girl into a mature, sexualized woman, a mercenary into a “blonde Adonis” and evil villains out of English settlers. Kilpatrick’s
Correspondingly, Allen’s argument that Pocahontas’s contributions were overlooked can be backed up by many other writings by knowledgeable scholars. One of those writings is “Living with Europeans” by Daniel Richter. In it he states “...writings of at least fourteen seventeenth-century English chroniclers… their works reveal that Pocahontas was a nickname…”(Richter 307). This demonstrates just how much she was overlooked; they gave her a nickname instead of calling her by her birth name. By doing this they showed just how much they didn’t respect her. Moreover, it ties into “saying I was a simple wanton, a savage maid” (Allen 322) in Allen’s poem. Coupled together with “Letter to Queen Anne of Great Britain” by Captain John Smith, Allen’s argument is backed up even further. In it, John writes all about how Pocahontas saved his life and occasionally helped feed the Europeans. This is a major understatement. In Allen’s poem she said “And indeed I did rescue you- not once but a thousand times… you slept, a foolish child” (Allen 322). Pocahontas saved both his and his men’s lives, and was their saving grace. Given that she taught them how to tend the land and grow tobacco; without her they would have
The Disney movies of Pocahontas tell a plot of a Native ¬American tribe and English colonists that fight for the land the Native Americans live on though war ultimately creating moderate peace. While keeping to their own sect, the imbalance of power between the two social groups is prevalent throughout much of the story. Walt Disney’s Pocahontas is more than a classic children’s movie. It is a thoughtful, well contrived narration that portrays a message that in order to fit in, you must be a certain race and born into a specific culture. Disney’s Pocahontas suggesting that the color of our skin shouldn’t matter when being accepted into social groups as well as the idea that arranged marriage should be rejected. Thus, treating people right could ultimately have a positive outcome and lastly, the film also suggests that family roles change without a mother figure.