Pocahontas And The Powhatan Dilemma Essay

In the book “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma” the author is trying to give people a more realistic and factual based outlook on the actual story of Pocahontas. The author’s book is very different from all the other biographies of Pocahontas. It shows us, as the readers, how much the seventeenth-century Native Americans were alike. In the film Pocahontas that was created by Disney it is said that many of the English were trying to enhance the lives of many of the savages. The movie leaves us with the feeling and impression that the New World English settlers were here just to educate and Christianize the Native Americans. However, in this book, it is very evident that this is not the truth. Through the perception that Townsend show her readers

This book goes above and beyond to separate the facts from mythology in regards to Pocahontas’s life and provides us with information on the cultural context and in which she was raised. The book tries to recapture and show us the humanity of Pocahontas. While reading the book we learn a lot about the unknown truth behind America’s beloved story and of course we learn about the Native American girl Pocahontas. Camilla argues what she believes happened and what facts she has to prove what she believes. Since we were kid’s proponents of American exceptionalism, romantic poets, and Hollywood moguls have continued to change reality to the point that it is said that the real Pocahontas no longer exists. It shows us that she went against what people actually thought of women during that time and became her own person. According to the book, “she was as brave as all her people--not a simple, joyful worshipper of English men or power, but a real and complicated woman with her own plans, goals, and ideas” (p. xi). This book goes against anything we have ever been told and lead to believe and makes us see the story in a new