Pocahontas Through the Ages Robert Tilton\'s Book,

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 players involved in the famous rescue of John Smith, such as, the Powhatan people or key members of the Virginia plantation. He also side-steps the question of the historical authenticity of the rescue story -- a story that largely came into doubt amongst nineteenth-century critics and writers from the northern states who struggled to weaken the power of the mythic narrative being exploited by southerners, around the time of the Civil War. The story of Pocahontas, Tilton argues, has played itself out, again and again, in the pages of history and literature, in the visual arts, and in political tracts, since the time of Pocahontas herself. Tilton's work lays the emphasis squarely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century re-interpretations and re-assessments of the early texts that document the life of the "Indian Princess" -- re-assessments that have contributed to an evolving and ever-expanding narrative of Pocahontas.

The central argument of Tilton's book is that the narrative tradition surrounding Pocahontas has been continually recast in different time periods. It has changed and evolved according to the needs of writers and artists who sought to re-tell the story according to the prevailing values of their time. Tilton writes, "[a] study of a tradition like that of Pocahontas reminds us that every new era interprets the cultural documents of the past in the service of prevailing agendas" (186). As a result, the authenticity or veracity of the entire Pocahontas narrative cannot be fully verified, especially given the fact that as Tilton remarks, "some aspects of the Pocahontas narrative have sources that date to the classical age" (6), to the stories of Jason, Medea, and Aeneas.

Tilton's book is therefore more than a story about a story; it is also an important comment on such larger matters as history, historical truth, and the reading and re-telling of history as well. Historians, artists, and political figures alike have all sought to re-tell the story of Pocahontas in order to affirm or validate their own perceptions, their own agendas -- political, literary, or otherwise -- in their own time. Tilton helps us understand that history and true-to-life historical events have not historically been read as isolated and remote facts, grounded in a specific time and place. History, we come to recognize, is not a static entity, rather it continues to be written and re-written; it continues to be debated and re-examined, long after its initial telling. Very often, history is uprooted from its time; it is severed from actual conditions or so-called historical truths in order to be used in the realms of fiction and myth, while becoming an important and symbolic tool for story-tellers, myth-makers, political figures, and moralists. History is therefore always open to interpretation and as such the perspective that certain individuals (or even whole cultures) have on historical events always changes, that is, the story's emphasis evolves over time, according to the particular needs of its interpreter. Historical interpreters of the Pocahontas story have continued to ask a myriad of questions: What is the real story here? What does this event represent? Who were the principle players? Is this a story of romance? Miscegenation? Was this a story of heroism or little more than a misinterpreted "Powhatan adoption ritual" (Tilton 5)? And what are the enduring values of this historical event? Read in a certain way, history lends itself to the advancement of moral lessons. History, Tilton shows us, can therefore be utilized as the raw materials for myth-making and nation building. The story of Pocahontas, like that of George Washington and the cherry tree, is no longer simply a piece of historical truth: it is a historical drama and a malleable narrative that has been told and retold throughout history to serve self-perceptions and shifting moral agendas, to serve a certain idea of America and a certain vision of Indian-American relations. Tilton adds that the real life story of Pocahontas has become "a flexible discourse...used to address a number of racial, political and gender-related issues" (1).

Tilton's study begins with the colonial or pre-Revolutionary engagement with Pocahontas and the work of various historians and authors who made use of this narrative. He writes, t]here had to be a United States of America before the ultimate implications of the Rescue [of John Smith] could be recognized and before [Pocahontas'] individual act of rebellion and sacrifice could be seen as a saving of, and even a precedent for, the citizens of the new nation (33).

In other terms, before Pocahontas could become a romantic, heroic, or even mythological figure -- that which she would become in the early nineteenth-century -- the need, by European settlers, to further colonize and populate the "New World" in the century leading up to the Revolutionary War in 1776 took precedence. The primary concerns for these early settlers through the early part of the eighteenth-century, included, amongst other things, the acquisition of land, the continued expansion of the population base, the need to 'civilize' the so-called 'savage' indigenous population by either removing them, converting them to Christianity, or killing them, and the need to minimize the threat of war over territorial land claims. Therefore, at that time, America needed a certain vision of Pocahontas to serve its cultural and political objectives. In time, as colonialism evolved into revolution and the United States of America was born, those objectives would change, and as we will see, so did the history of Pocahontas.

In the earliest reincarnation of the Indian Princess' story, the emphasis was placed on her marriage to John Rolfe in 1614. A prevailing question amongst pre-Revolutionary writers pertained to how colonial settlers would somehow resolve the "Indian question" (17)? The suggestion in a great deal of the literature was that colonial Europeans might have attempted to intermarry, in other words, to "cross-breed' with the native population. Tilton writes, "it was the rare historian who could resist the temptation provided by [the question of intermarriage in]... The Pocahontas narrative to editorialize on the missed opportunity for a general intermarriage modeled on the successful union of Pocahontas and Rolfe" (12). While most Anglo-Americans considered intermarriage to be unnatural, sinful, and morally wrong, not to mention illegal, several colonial writers pointed to the benefits of intermarrying the races and lamented the missed opportunity to assimilate the Indian population into the colonialist way of life. Writers like Robert Beverley saw the possibility of appropriating Indian lands.

Of course, the belief was that such a "mixed-breed" union would result in mostly white children; their children would be raised Christian, as would their children's children. Over several generations, native 'savagery' and ethnic identity would eventually be 'bred out' of the mixed marriage, because as Tilton writes, the belief was that "in those traditionally defined as 'half-breeds' a 'savage' was potentially lurking somewhere beneath the visible surface" (11), ready to rise up against Colonial settlers. So finally, through miscegenation and assimilation the native population would be largely pacified, and Europeans would be able assume what many believed to be their 'God-given' right to occupy the land, while future "Indians could simply be moved out into...vast open spaces, out of contact with the civilized world, and therefore away from any whites" (25). The story of Pocahontas was ultimately a useful tool for writers of this period who wanted to advance the value of mixed marriages largely because Pocahontas herself represented the pinnacle of elegance and grace: she was the Indian Princess who had gained acceptance by James I. At a time when colonialists sought ways to assimilate the native populations, and when laws and social edicts prohibited European whites from marrying or interbreeding with uncircumcised heathens, i.e., those who traditionally populated the "New World," the Pocahontas-Rolfe union was considered to be the exceptional and exemplary image of a successful union.

In this early incarnation of the Pocahontas narrative we see a clear example of how the narrative was used to justify certain social and economic goals. History, in this instance, becomes something less than concrete, less than final; rather, it becomes malleable in the hands of those who use it. History is not about relics; it is a living entity that can be used and manipulated by interested parties with an agenda to promote, and historians, for their part, need to ask themselves: who tells a given story and for what reason? This point is made all the more apparent in the years after the Revolution. Clearly, the times had changed and the primary need within the newly formed United States of America had shifted from the largely economic need to ensure a strong foothold on a foreign soil to the largely social and psychological need to nation-build. The goal now would be to invent a heroic past, to establish a place in history, to sustain and support the young nation as it begins to take shape, and to ensure a great future. Tilton writes,

It was a rare occurrence during the first two decades of the nineteenth-century when a reference to the colonial past was not made to fit into the tapestry of the national prehistory, especially when an event could easily be read as in some way preparatory to the founding of a nation. (48)

An earlier willingness to tolerate Indian-American marriages for the sake of land acquisition would no longer be useful in the newly formed United States, and the Pocahontas-Rolfe story-line almost immediately began to crumble. In fact, Rolfe, who had been a central figure in the early versions of the Pocahontas narrative, would from the Revolution on become more and more a peripheral figure, as his presence only appeared to further the common distaste for the immoral and sinful mixing of breeds, that which so many found abhorrent. The emphasis would at first shift to both Pocahontas herself and her relationship with John Smith.

In post-Revolutionary versions of the story, "it is [Pocahontas'] natural 'humanity,' or feelings of benevolence toward all human beings...that emerges and causes her to protect the helpless prisoner" (Tilton 35). Pocahontas, as a literary figure, begins to take on a certain nobility and strength, which her status as a high-ranking Indian Princess had initially helped to cultivate. She becomes a heroic figure of the past, a heroine with a deep feeling for humanity -- this, of course, would be a useful image for a young, forward-looking nation, searching for a common identity, driven by dreams of unlimited expansion, "Manifest Destiny," while hoping for an unlimited future, filled with promise and glory. Both writers and the Founding Fathers alike hoped to provoke emotion or feeling in the people about their country, their history, their future, and their place in the world. Pocahontas' past actions, i.e., protecting the young John Smith from the heartless "savage" about to take his life, became an important symbol of American destiny and American promise. Smith, like all of America, had been saved, protected, and nurtured in the face of the Godless hoards. America would also survive, with God's grace. Therefore, in the post-Revolutionary period, the fact that Smith had survived at all proved that somehow destiny had had a hand in the eventual creation of America, and America would now survive and prosper. The Pocahontas narrative helped to stir the revolutionary spirit all the more; it served the people as a common link to a mythic past -- a past that helped unite Americans at a crucial stage of their development: the search for identity. Once again, the needs of the time dictated the tone and tenor of the Pocahontas narrative, and that early history was literally re-invented for the newly created United States.

In addition to her symbolic status as a protector of the young nation, her story, perhaps in an effort to further distance the Indian Princess from her American husband, began to take on a more romantic aspect as well, making it more palatable, "more attractive to a wider, particularly female audience" (Tilton 36). Tilton describes the image of a young woman who projected innocence and purity of heart, who felt only love and affection for the man who she helped to save from certain death. The romantic angle would be further developed through the first part of the eighteenth-century with the growing perception that Pocahontas' "romantic feelings [for John Smith] were at the root of her heroism" (58). Pocahontas was the heroine, John Smith the hero. While American values and laws dictated that Indians not marry Americans, perhaps the story of Pocahontas' ill-advised sexual attraction or romantic love for John Smith may have better served the American desire to purify its stock and rid itself of "half-breeds" than a story of miscegenation, family, and children would have. Perhaps Pocahontas was simply deluded about John Smith. This conclusion might certainly be plausible in this period given that in the minds of most Americans, Pocahontas emerged from an inferior race. Nonetheless, alongside the common desire to destroy the native population, "[t]he reawakening of this fear of miscegenation was an important reason for the growing dominance of the Pocahontas-Smith elements of the narrative. Their relationship, though perhaps sexually charged, did not have to end in cohabitation" (62). The goal of Indian assimilation had long been abandoned by the 1820s, and Indians had lost or were rapidly losing all their ancestral lands, so America needed to re-think the Pocahontas narrative.

Pocahontas' life had made its way directly into the realm of sentimental fiction and drama, and she was the central inspiration for the conventional figure of the "noble" (Tilton 59) or "gentle" (75) savage. Her story was both romantic and epic, and it would be a story that the state of Virginia would ultimately use to elevate its own stature within the newly formed union. Pocahontas had become a monumental figure, a deity, a romantic heroine, full of humanity and bravery. In short, she had achieved what most all native Americans would never achieve; she had become the "good Indian" (48) who was somehow acceptable to Americans, where most other Native Americans would simply be considered a threat to the American way of life. In fact, Pocahontas may have seemed slightly more acceptable to the American audience over time because of her elevated status. Descended from native Royalty, Pocahontas came from the Native American equivalent of a higher class. She would therefore have been considered more noble in general, more acceptable, than would have the vast majority of native Americans. Where she failed at the level of race, she redeemed herself in the eyes of Americans for her position as the archetypal "Indian Princess" of the Powhatan people. In any case, Pocahontas continually emerges as the exemplary Indian, and the prevailing belief was that "certain Indians, like certain blacks...apparently had the potential for civilized behavior" (56).

Still, the concern amongst many Americans through the early stages of the nineteenth-century was that there remained something entirely indecent and problematic about the idea of a native heroine, about the relationship between Rolfe and Pocahontas (i.e., the idea of miscegenation), and about Indians generally. As the "era of the romantic Indian" began to fade from dramatic literature and the stage, Pocahontas' story began to shift to "the drama of a rescue scene without the problematic romantic material that should necessarily have followed" (Tilton 76). Once again, Pocahontas would need to be 'Americanized,' and, in this case, 'Christianized.' I would argue that despite several problematic revisions of the Pocahontas narrative up to that point in history, the narrative turns even more insidious for several reasons. For example, once again the original story was re-emphasized; in this instance, art work laid the primary emphasis, not on Pocahontas' noble deeds, not on her strength or heroism, but on her baptism into Christianity. Tilton writes,