Mysteries of Disneyland : Princess Addition

CHAPTER 12 : POCAHONTAS

Pocahontas might be a Disney name for the great historical female princess but her great and powerful life has been buried through lies and deceit in the 17th century myths and history.

To start off Pocahontas wasn't her real name, her actual name was Amonute or as they also called her Matoka and she was born around 1596, Pocahontas was just her nickname which meant either "playful child" or "the ill behaved child".

She was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan culture and was notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the formidable ruler of the more than 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes in and around the area.

No one was able to dispute the facts that John Smith wrote about how she, the beautiful daughter of a powerful native leader, rescued him, an English adventurer, from being executed by her father but this does not mean that romantic feelings were involved.  Adding to that Captain Smith was not a prince as in the Disney movie.

Well for you to be surprised, he mostly mentioned Pocahontas in a message revealed to the Queen Anne of Denmark that she did save him and is coming to England, but he did describe her as in the paragraph before this

In the capture of Pocahontas by the colonists, there were no counts of rape or any of that sort as certain websites pertain to. Instead when she was captured, they baptized her and converted her to Christianity, and named her Rebecca. They did also hold her for random for money and weapons.

Mattaponi tradition holds that Pocahontas's first husband was Kocoum, but he was killed by colonists after his wife's capture in 1613.

Though one marriage was true, and it was when she married John Rolfe, a farmer who cultivated a new type of species of tobacco overseas. His family had died in a shipwreck.

Their marriage created a climate of peace between the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan's tribes; it endured for eight years as the "Peace of Pocahontas". They also had a son named Thomas Rolfe.

In 1607, Pocahontas was the first Native American to be honored on a US stamp. It was also said that she also worked as a translator for some time.

In March 1617, Rolfe and Pocahontas boarded a ship to return to Virginia, but they sailed only as far as Gravesend on the river Thames when Pocahontas became gravely and passed away with unknown causes

Speculated causes of her death include pneumonia, smallpox, tuberculosis and hemorrhagic.

She was said to be buried at St George s church at Gravesend underneath the churches chancel but the church was destroyed in 1727 by a fire and now the exact site is unknown.

Her bravery is commemorated at St George's church by a bronze statue by an American Sculptor William Patraidge.

In the earlier years the tale of Pocahontas has been twisted around for many to believe a secret love affair including Disney, but the truth is that she did create peace between the colonists and the Natives and at one point of time did fall in love, just not with John Smith but John Rolfe.

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Love Thalia Grace.