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The True Story Of Pocahontas That Disney Doesn’t Tell
Content Warning: the following article contains discussions of sexual violence
Disney’s Pocahontas is chock-full of memorable music and beautifully animated sequences, but the real story of the Indigenous woman is vastly different from what the film depicts. The animated Disney classics of the early ’90s featured a string of fairytales ripped from their gruesome origins and sanded down of their less-savory aspects to become shiny iconic recreations of family-friendly animated adventures with a catchy soundtrack to boot. However, 1995’s Pocahontas stood out because, unlike Ariel or Belle, she was a real historical figure. Though, like all the other source material used during Disney’s animation renaissance, her story was changed for a younger audience.
What’s worse is that Pocahontas’ real story wasn’t just altered so that it could be enjoyed by a younger crowd. It was changed so drastically that the two figures are truly only similar in name — and Disney didn’t quite get even that right. There are plenty of differences between the Pocahontas movie and her real-life story, and while some of them may seem harmless, the warping of her tale to erase culpability for white settlers’ treatment of Indigenous people is inherently harmful. While Disney tried to right a few historical wrongs with Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, the damage had been done.
The Real Pocahontas Was Much Younger When She Met John Smith
While Pocahontas’ age isn’t ever mentioned in Pocahontas, it can be estimated that she was around 18 years old when she met John Smith in the animated film. In real life, Pocahontas, or Amonute, would’ve been roughly between 10 and 12 years old upon Smith’s arrival into what would later be known as Virginia. Since Pocahontas’ true birth year is unknown, her age has been surmised from the writings of John Smith in various letters and his account, A True Relation of Virginia. In A True Relation of Virginia, Smith describes meeting her in the spring of 1608 and claims she is around 10 years old.
Smith recounts his meeting with Pocahontas in a letter eight years later, though this time, he describes the Indigenous woman as 12 or 13 at the time. Regardless, Disney decided to age Pocahontas up drastically for their film. While an explanation for this choice hasn’t been freely given, it’s obvious that the studio wanted a typical Prince Charming for their Disney princess and couldn’t have the older John Smith wooing a historically accurate Pocahontas. Knowing that Pocahontas was so young when she allegedly saved Smith’s life and made contact with the Jamestown settlers brings an entirely different twist to her story, making her braver.
Pocahontas & John Smith Never Had A Romantic Relationship
In Pocahontas, the Disney princess’ one true love is settler John Smith. However, he and Pocahontas didn’t have a romantic relationship in real life. Instead, the two were reportedly friendly. According to Smith, Pocahontas saved his life after he was taken prisoner by her father, the chief of the Powhatan tribe, by throwing herself over his body as he was about to be clubbed by a stone. Some have disputed Smith’s account, saying that he might not have understood the actual context of what was happening and that it may have simply been a ceremony. Regardless, Pocahontas became a frequent visitor to Jamestown and was very friendly with Smith.
Pocahontas and John Smith may have been friends but never had a romantic relationship. Pocahontas married a Virginia settler named John Rolfe in 1614 when she was around 18 years old. Funnily enough, Disney tried to correct their John Smith/John Rolfe mistake with the Disney princess sequel Pocahontas II. In it, Pocahontas presumes that John Smith has died thanks to a well-spun lie by Governor Ratcliffe, and John Rolfe is sent to bring the Powhatan chief to England for negotiations. Pocahontas goes in his stead and the two fall in love. In real life, Rolfe was just a settler who fell in love with Pocahontas.
Pocahontas Was Thought To Have Married Kocoum
Before Pocahontas married John Rolfe in 1914, it’s thought she married Kocoum first. Kocoum does, in fact, feature in Pocahontas. In the Disney movie, Pocahontas outright dreads being married to Powhatan warrior Kocoum as she feels that he’s much too stern and serious to handle her independent nature. His character receives ill treatment throughout the film. He becomes understandably jealous and upset when told of Pocahontas and John Smith’s secret love affair. However, when things escalate between him and Smith, another settler kills Kocoum, which sparks a war between the English and the Powhatan.
Kocoum was a real-life Powhatan warrior and is believed to be the original husband of Pocahontas before she married John Rolfe. The younger brother of Chief Japazaw of the Potowomac tribe, he and Pocahontas moved to his home village, where she gave birth to her first son. Unfortunately, colonizers had other plans for Pocahontas, which saw Kocoum murdered, according to The True Story of Pocahontas, The Other Side of History by Dr. Linwood Custalow and Angela L. Daniel. Because Kocoum’s marriage to Pocahontas wasn’t considered a Christian union, the English had no problem marrying her to John Rolfe.
English Colonizers Kidnapped & Abused Indigenous Women (Including Pocahontas)
One of the most harrowing aspects of Pocahontas’ real story, along with the stories of many Indigenous women, is that she was captured and abused by English colonizers. Pocahontas sees the Powhatan tribe and the settlers at odds over the use of the land, but she and John Smith are eventually able to bring peace and harmony to Colonizer-Indigenous people relations. In reality, it’s arguably offensive how much Disney omitted about the true brutality of relations between English colonizers and Indigenous people at the time. Many Indigenous women were kidnapped and abused mentally, sexually, and physically by colonists, and Pocahontas was one of them.
While she was married to Kocoum and living near the Potomac River with her husband and son, Captain Samuel Argall of Jamestown sought to kidnap her and use her as a hostage for negotiations with the Powhatan. He somehow convinced Chief Japazaw to let him lure Pocahontas onto his ship and had Kocoum murdered before it set sail. Some accounts state that Argall threatened to attack the village if he couldn’t take her. Others claim that he had lied and said she would be returned. According to Custalow and Daniel’s book, Pocahontas became so withdrawn during her captivity that settlers were fearful she would take her own life.
Pocahontas’ Name Was Changed To Rebecca Before She Married John Rolfe
In Disney’s continued attempt to romanticize the story of a tragic figure who was one of many victims of colonizers, another detail that was omitted was Pocahontas’ “rebranding” into an English woman. The animated movie sees Pocahontas retain her cultural roots while shacking up with the white settler John Smith. Similarly, the more “historically accurate” sequel sees Pocahontas sailing off into the sunset with John Rolfe, set to live their new life in Jamestown. In real life, Pocahontas was kidnapped and held hostage for years. Whether accepting Rolfe’s proposal over a year into her captivity was the result of Stockholm syndrome or true love is up to debate.
During her captivity, Pocahontas was converted to Christianity and baptized under the name Rebecca. This is not shown or spoken about in Disney’s Pocahontas tales and speaks to a sinister goal for colonists. Pocahontas was not allowed to exist in white society as she was. All because she decided to reach out to the settlers in kindness as a child, she was forcibly taken from her husband and child with her husband being murdered, forced into captivity for over a year, coerced into a new marriage, and given a new name and system of beliefs. Pocahontas was stripped of her identity and culture, and Disney omitted this entirely.
Pocahontas Died By The Age Of 21
Since Pocahontas isn’t the free-spirited and happy-go-lucky woman depicted in the animated movie and, instead, lived a hard life in which she was kidnapped, abused, used as a pawn, and denied her culture and identity, it makes sense that she would die an early death. Pocahontas was only 21 when she passed away, about three years after marrying John Rolfe. As the story goes, she and Rolfe were in England in March 1617 and planned to sail back to Jamestown. However, they only made it as far as Gravesend on the River Thames before Pocahontas became ill.
She died not long after being taken ashore, a key detail that Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World omits. While her cause of death was never determined, historians believe it could’ve been smallpox, pneumonia, tuberculosis, or hemorrhagic dysentery. Other horrors from her story could’ve contributed to her early death. Custalow and Daniel’s book states that Mattaponi’s sacred oral history is firm on the fact that Pocahontas was raped in captivity, and Thomas was born out of wedlock. There’s no question that Disney’s Pocahontas is such a far cry from her real story that the only thing connecting the two figures is their shared name.
