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Pocahontas: Fact and Fiction
According to documentation of the life story of Pocahontas, there is a frequent blurring of the lines between fact and fiction. Considered here are a number of ideas about Pocahontas contrived from unconfirmed legend; a number of facts confirmed by historical verification; and the modest cross-section between these.
The legend of Pocahontas is colored by details that tend to romanticize the figure. Among them, the most significant detail is the insertion of love and romance into her relationship with prominent colonist John Smith. This would contribute to other mythologized details including the idea that she had been deceived into marrying Englishman John Rolfe. Another peripheral detail is that which depicts Pocahontas as throwing her body over John Smith to protect him from execution by her tribe. Additional fabrications would relate to her life and appearance following her death, with her celebrity resulting in a Europeanized presentation of her appearance in portraits, claims that she had been Baptized and converted to Christianity and that she had been presented in the court of King James upon her arrival in England. It is likely that her status within the Powhatan tribe has been exaggerated by her notoriety.
That said, it is factually that she was a daughter of the chief of the Powhatan tribe. It is also the case Pocahontas would become an important emissary between her tribe and the colony of Jamestown. Likewise, this relationship would be channeled through her closeness with the high ranking colonist John Smith. She factually was married to John Rolfe. Further, indications drawn from Rolfe's correspondent demonstrate that he was truly in love with her. Also, it is indicated that he had intended to introduce her to Christianity. Finally, in relation to her marriage to Rolfe, as well as on the basis of her high regard amongst colonists, she traveled to England as a representative of the colonies.
The two central commonalities between legend and reality seem to be the genuinely positive and voluntarily assistive impact that Pocahontas would have in her relationship with the colonists and the degree to which this role elevated her to reverance and celebrity amongst colonists and Europeans.
Pocahontas Through the Ages Robert Tilton's book, Pocahontas: The Evolution of a Narrative, is ultimately a story about a story. Tilton's study does not largely concern itself with the real life individual whom we have come to know as Pocahontas, nor the primary texts from the early seventeenth-century that documented the facts of her life as they originally occurred. In addition, Tilton does not engage in pointed discussion about the principle
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