Jhayda Johnson
9-14-14
Period 7
The Truth about Pocahontas
In the movie Disney “Pocahontas”, a village of Powhatan Native Americans is visited by European settlers. This movie is an inaccurate representation of the events that took place at this time. In the Disney movie “Pocahontas”, the Europeans came across a land and named it Jamestown. A young man by the name of John Smith wondered into the forest and met the infamous Pocahontas. The two fall in love, which caused conflict between the Powhatans and the European settlers. In fact, John Smith almost lost his life but Pocahontas saved him. In the end, the Native Americans came together with the Europeans to help them adapt to the land. This movie portrays both accurate and inaccurate events in history; however the movie demonstrates inaccurate historical events that are disrespectful towards the Native Americans and untrue.
Some events in this movie are historically accurate. For example, in the movie the English settlers do come to America to find gold. They also got into an altercation with the Powhatan Native Americans. Another accurate historical event is John Smith meeting Pocahontas and her saving his life. They also show Native American having strong social societies and amazing structure. This is an accurate depiction of Native Americans.
Even though some events are historically accurate, majority of them are not. For example, while the Europeans settlers are in Jamestown they never mention anything about the "Jamestown Starvation." The “Jamestown Starvation” is when the European settlers ran out of food and did not know the land well enough to hunt so they starved to death. Another inaccurate event is Pocahontas being depicted as an older woman when she is actually a young girl. Her name is not actually Pocahontas, it was a nickname. Her real name was Matoaka, as stated in the reading “The Pocahontas Myth.” They also show her
