Pocahontas: Race and Gender in England’s Colonization of Virginia

For my first blog, I decided to read the section that looked into the real and depicted story of Pocahontas. There were several different stories that developed over time. Within what I read, there was the first story told by John Smith in the narrative of his captivity and rescue. Like the story that we’ve all heard over time, Smith tells a story of his ship being attacked, the death of his men, and the enslavement by Powhatan, Pocahontas’ father. He was given food and kept healthy while he was captured and described his encounter with Powhatan’s people as terrifying. They tried to kill him and Pocahontas threw herself on him in order to keep him alive.

In the second tale Smith told, he explained that he loved Pocahontas on a different level as he described the event to the queen in a letter. His story changed and he began to describe Pocahontas’ tribe as a friendly and helpful tribe. We can see his feelings for Pocahontus changing through his different explanations throughout time. Smith was known as the kind of man that exaggerated his stories in order to make a more entertaining and appealing story. What most people don’t know that was described in this section of the book is that John Rolfe, an English colonist, actually married Pocahontas and brought her back to England. Here, she became a Christian woman and was known as Rebecca, the first Virginia colonist to return to England with Rolfe.

I think this was a perfect example of how things get twisted and changed over time. Stories can only be assumed to be true if we assume the people telling the stories are being truthful. I think that our history is very much based on the belief that these people documented everything truthfully to truly tell the story of our nation. In this situation, I’ve learned that Pocahontas’ story has been twisted by the media and pop culture to fit the more appealing story versus the story with holes and little truth. Even in the earliest days of our nation, people told stories for entertainment in order to get the best reaction from the rest of the world. The dramatic, prisoner story would sell more than the man that survived because of the kindness he found in a tribal group.

I think in a lot of situations, we tell the worst of a story to make our side of the story sound better to the masses. Why do we do this to ourselves? History is an interesting story on its’ own without our help. Some of the true and honest stories are the best stories. They don’t need to be dramatized or sugar coated, they speak for themselves. Irony and integrity tell a great story and I think that it is our job to pass along the kind of stories that make us proud of who we are and where we came from. There were several instances in the different stories told by people who witnessed what had happened with Pocahontas and I think the best story came from John Rolfe, who loved Pocahontas once he let her into his life. Maybe we should appreciate the honest beauty of man kind instead of trying to alter it for the better, more dramatic story.

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