Pocahontas. Details about history seem to change. As new generations learn the stories of their history, they notice whose voices are missing. Native Americans, african Americans and women are some of the groups described inaccurately or left out of history completely. One Native American story has been celebrated and misrepresented for centuries. Her name was Pocahontas First. The Disney version of her life is magical and beautiful, but it is not true. She was only about 11 years old when she met the colonists who came to where she lived in 1607. So she didn't fall in love with the grown-up John Smith, and she probably never saved his life either. However, she was an important connection between her tribe and the colonists who came to settle there.
Speaker 1:Pocahontas was interested in learning about the new people and their language. They spoke English and her tribe spoke Algonquin. She and John Smith became friends and taught each other their languages. This helped them translate between the Jamestown colonists and her father, the chief of the Pauhontan tribal nation. Pocahontas wasn't her real name, it was her nickname. Her real names were Amanute and Motuaka. She and her father organized winter food deliveries for the colonists.
Speaker 1:The English settlers didn't yet have the farming skills to keep them from starving. Then there was a long drought. There wasn't enough food and diseases were spreading. English colonists began attacking the native villages In 1613, they kidnapped Pocahontas and took her to Jamestown as a prisoner. The colonists hoped to get a ransom for her. A ransom is a kind of trade for a prisoner. For example, they would trade her back if the Pauhontans gave them food and released English prisoners. Her father didn't give them everything they asked for, so Pocahontas remained a prisoner.
Speaker 1:A year later, as the two sides continued to fight, pocahontas married a colonist named John Rolf. Her father agreed to this union and called it the Peace of Pocahontas. She became a Christian and changed her name to Rebecca. John and Rebecca had a son and later traveled to England. Sadly, on their journey home she got very sick and died at only 21 years old. The facts of her life are only known from the writings of others. Sometimes the stories are very different, but her bravery, intelligence and work for peace are the details of truth that history cannot change.