Disney's Pocahontas: Fact or False?

The Historical Inaccuracies of Disney's Hit Movie

In 1995, Disney released Pocahontas, a historical fiction film about the Powhatan girl and her interactions with the English settlers. Pocahontas, while being a success, is very historically inaccurate.



The movie tells that Pocahontas was a young adult woman of the Powhatan tribe when the settlers arrived, led by Governor Ratcliffe and John Smith. Pocahontas develops feelings for John Smith and shows him what it is like to be in harmony with nature, and when the settlers and the Native Americans start to clash with each other, they both step in, especially Pocahontas, to intervene the violence. When they wage war on one another, Pocahontas saves Smith from being injured by her father (video to the right), the chief of the Powhatan tribe, and the fighting is halted. Smith, having been injured, is taken back to Europe. While this had a lot of faults with it, a lot of the major faults were fixed in the sequel. In the sequel, Pocahontas travels with John Rolfe to England, develops a relationship with him, and speaks to the king on behalf of her tribe. 

video used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3&v=hcqnQKvlnTc

Pocahontas in real life
photo used: http://pocahontas.morenus.org/images/poca.jpg

To start, Pocahontas was not the girl's real name, but an offensive nickname. Pocahontas's real name was Matoaka, but for ease of reading, this post will continue to use the name Pocahontas. To continue, it wasn't just Pocahontas that stopped the dispute between the settlers and the tribe; she would have been 10 years old! Also, she was not romantically involved with John Smith, and she was married to John Rolfe, a planter, instead. She was actually taken prisoner by the English and held captive until Rolfe married her. The English did, however, take her back to England to be the "poster child" of the settlement effort. Perhaps the funniest inaccuracy occurs in her relationship with John Smith. She was never romantically involved with him, much less married. In fact, she supposedly hated Smith, even openly defying him, and she never did save his life. The sequel attempted to fix many of the wrongs that the first one committed, although it still left out the plotline of Pocahontas being held captive at Jamestown.


I guess the reason why the story has been altered so much is that the fake Pocahontas story is so much more heroic and interesting, and kid-friendly, sparing all of the dirty details in favor of flair. But, it is important to know the real story, else it be lost to history.



Also, there was never a talking tree.

Actual story: http://www.powhatan.org/

Disney movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/