Bitchy History - Episode 5： American History 101 - Pocahontas, Jamestown, and John Smith’s Tall Tales

00:00:00.000 Welcome to episode 5 of Bitchy History, the American History podcast that really just wants to sit down and have a conversation with the person who wrote Pocahontas 2, Journey to a New World. 0.67

00:00:10.120 A nice, peaceful conversation that will involve no cast-iron frying pans or concussions whatsoever. We promise! 0.70

00:00:18.260 Uh, oops. 1.00

00:00:25.340 Welcome back to yet another episode of Bitchy History. 1.00

00:00:27.860 I got a 23andMe kit for Christmas last year, you know the ones, you fill up a vial with spit, send it into some shady company, and hope that you don't find out some dark family secret as a result. 0.80

00:00:38.880 Luckily, there was no dark family shame lurking in our past, my dad is my dad, that was never in question, I got his nose, but we did find out someone had been fibbing about the family lore.

00:00:50.600 See, on my dad's side of the family, the story has always been that we're part Native American.

00:00:55.540 Choctaw, as the story goes.

00:00:57.200 Obviously, this is a podcast, so you can't see me,

00:00:59.600 but if you could, you would probably be giving me criminally offensive side eye,

00:01:03.980 because I get sunburn if I even think about going to the beach,

00:01:06.860 but look, that's just the family story.

00:01:09.680 But when I got my results back, there wasn't a single drop of Native blood to be found.

00:01:14.140 My family's bloodline is mayo on everything, raisins in the potato salad white.

00:01:19.640 Like, British, Irish, French, German, broadly, Northwestern, European, and like 1.7% Italian.

00:01:26.700 That's where my love of carbs comes from, I'm sure.

00:01:29.240 This makes total sense.

00:01:30.420 The native bloodline thing never really made sense, and honestly, it's kind of a relief.

00:01:34.380 Because when you look at, like my family, and you're from the South, and your cursory genealogical research finds more than one ancestor on the wrong side of the Civil War,

00:01:43.360 well, there probably wouldn't be some sort of grand romantic consensual reason

00:01:48.120 for there being anything non-European in my genetics.

00:01:51.140 I bring this up in the interest of full disclosure,

00:01:54.040 because I'm about to dive headfirst into an episode that's dealing with a very sensitive historical topic,

00:01:59.220 Pocahontas, and the optics on that are cringe, to say the least, because I am super white.

00:02:05.640 All I can say is that I am dedicated to doing the best job on this subject that I possibly can, 0.78

00:02:10.800 and at the very least, it will be a better history than the Disney movie.

00:02:14.960 Of course, this episode isn't just about Pocahontas.

00:02:17.740 I had planned to do an episode solely about her,

00:02:20.340 but I quickly realized just how wrapped up her history is

00:02:23.660 with that of Jamestown and John Smith's years there,

00:02:26.440 and it would be more confusing than helpful to try to untangle that knot.

00:02:30.640 I want to start this episode out by discussing something

00:02:33.140 that I've been meaning to discuss for a few episodes now,

00:02:35.900 and that's the weirdly sexual lens that European explorers

00:02:39.220 viewed the New World through.

00:02:40.800 The New World was a land described as fertile and ripe to be conquered.

00:02:45.120 And as nauseating as those descriptors already are,

00:02:47.640 they've got nothing on this quote from Sir Walter Raleigh,

00:02:50.140 who described the Guiana region of Venezuela as

00:02:53.320 a country that hath yet her maidenhead, 1.00

00:02:56.240 essentially comparing it to a virginal woman waiting for the right man to fuck it. 1.00

00:03:00.480 European explorers wrote about how the womb of the native lands were barren, 1.00

00:03:04.680 judging the natives as poor stewards of their land

00:03:06.980 because they failed to cultivate them in the same way

00:03:09.140 that Europe had done with their own farmland.

00:03:11.800 These sexualized metaphors were only exacerbated 1.00

00:03:14.460 by the way that explorers hyper-sexualize Native women. 0.97

00:03:18.040 Amerigo Vespucci wrote about female cannibals that attacked sailors

00:03:21.160 and claimed Native women were so insatiable that,

00:03:24.040 as I've mentioned in a previous episode, 0.99

00:03:25.780 they forced their husbands to enlarge their penises 1.00

00:03:27.980 by having venomous animals bite them. 0.99

00:03:30.380 Columbus and Cortez both wrote about violent Amazon-like women 0.99

00:03:33.760 who were living without men,

00:03:35.960 which, I don't know about you, dear listener,

00:03:37.520 but that's a vibe for me right now, actually. Explorers judge the natives, especially harshly

00:03:42.660 for their clothing, or lack thereof, that they wore, and the liberalism of their sexual expression.

00:03:48.240 Exploring the New World was a conquest, but not just economic and political, it was also sexual,

00:03:53.600 which goes a long way toward explaining how we ended up with the eventual narrative of Pocahontas

00:03:58.120 falling in love with John Smith, but I'm getting ahead of myself on that. Let's go back to the

00:04:02.720 beginning of this story. The year is 1596, or thereabouts, and the daughter of Wahu Seneca,

00:04:09.100 also known as Powhatan, has just been born in the Chesapeake Bay area, which the natives call

00:04:13.640 Senacomico. This is where her father is the chief of 28 or so tribes. He rules over a population of

00:04:19.640 about 25,000. The infant is named Maraoka, but during her childhood she would be given the

00:04:24.760 nickname of Pocahontas, which means something like mischievous one or joyous one, which tells

00:04:29.780 us a lot about her personality as a child. We don't have many hard details about her early life,

00:04:34.760 no written records were ever kept, so we speculate based on the understanding we have of the culture

00:04:39.580 of the Chesapeake area tribes at that time. In the culture of her people, traditionally,

00:04:44.400 Maraoka would have been born in her father's village, but returned with her mother to her

00:04:47.780 mother's village until she was weaned. Then she would have been returned to her father to reach

00:04:51.560 adulthood, while her mother was able to choose a new partner. However, we don't know much about

00:04:56.020 her mother or if Maraoka was raised by her. It's possible that the mother died in childbirth and

00:05:00.720 she was raised by her father, which might explain why she was described as his favorite child.

00:05:06.160 Culturally, we know a bit about what childhood would have looked like for Pocahontas. She was

00:05:09.840 a member of the Pamunkey tribe, and as a young girl, she would have worn little to no clothing,

00:05:14.060 had her hair shaven except for a very small section in the back that was grown out long

00:05:17.880 and usually braided. As she grew to adulthood, she would have been taught women's work. 0.98

00:05:21.960 Even as the daughter of the chief, she would need to know how to perform the tasks required by her 0.98

00:05:25.960 tribe. For her tribe, women's work would have been separate from men's, but both were equally 0.97

00:05:30.380 important to the survival of the tribe. Women bore children and raised them. They were responsible 0.99

00:05:35.120 for building the houses they lived in. They did most of the farming, cooking, water collecting,

00:05:39.760 foraging, firewood gathering. They made baskets, pots, and utensils. They also prepared and

00:05:45.100 preserved the meat and hides brought back from the men who hunted. And, well, I guess defended

00:05:50.280 the tribe. I don't know. Look, I researched what the women did in this tribe for my women's history

00:05:53.860 class. They definitely did something, but this is about Pocahontas, so let's get back to that.

00:05:58.740 So now it's 1607, and boats full of white men show up. Pocahontas is 11 years old,

00:06:04.020 not even an adult woman by her own tribe standards. You can see where the whole love story element of 0.56

00:06:09.260 this starts to fall apart, right? Because if this is a love story, John Smith, who was 27 at the

00:06:14.720 time, would need to be on a list somewhere, and not just by modern standards. The average age of

00:06:19.880 marriage in England around this time was about 26 years old for men and 23 for women. No matter 0.99

00:06:25.460 what some men's rights activists with their own podcasts want to tell you, grown men marrying

00:06:30.440 barely pubescent girls was not actually normal back in the old days, and anyone who keeps

00:06:35.500 insisting that it was should probably have their hard drive checked. But that's the topic for

00:06:40.200 another podcast. And it's not just the torrid romance part of the usual narrative of Pocahontas

00:06:46.280 and John Smith that isn't accurate. In fact, most of the story you think you know is a pure

00:06:50.880 fabrication, whether you got that fabrication from Disney or because you once saw the painting in the

00:06:55.820 Capitol building of Pocahontas saving his life. So what really happened with Pocahontas, John

00:07:01.280 Smith, and Jamestown? Well, the answer to that is not much, honestly, by which I mean that we don't

00:07:08.500 have much written record of that period that mentions Pocahontas at all, but let me take you

00:07:13.140 through what we do know. In May of 1607, a group of 144 Englishmen arrived to build the first

00:07:19.660 permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. They built a fort,

00:07:24.820 thatched huts, a storehouse, and a church. They tried to farm, but most of them were townspeople

00:07:29.480 or gentleman adventurers who scorned manual labor, and they had unfortunately arrived during

00:07:34.460 a major drought, which didn't make things any easier. They didn't know how to take advantage

00:07:38.940 of the wilderness, and supplies from England arrived late when they arrived at all. Jamestown

00:07:43.700 was funded by a joint stock company, and the colonists were told that if they did not generate

00:07:47.680 any wealth, financial support for their efforts would end. Many of the men spent their days

00:07:52.140 vainly searching for gold and very little time farming. Food supplies dwindled, and John Smith,

00:07:57.400 one of the governing body of the colony, realizes that the colony will not last without trading

00:08:02.100 partners. Between April and December of 1607, Smith begins to explore the surrounding area and

00:08:07.960 makes trade agreements with the local native tribes. Still, malaria and poor living conditions

00:08:12.640 are going to kill at least 60 of the original settlers by September of 1607. In December,

00:08:18.540 Smith sets out on the Chickahominy River and is captured by Chief Powhatan's men. One day,

00:08:23.680 I may do a more in-depth episode on this entire incident, but for now, what you need to know is

00:08:28.100 that late in 1608, Smith would write a letter back to the Virginia Company detailing this incident,

00:08:33.260 among a long description of other events of the first year of the colony.

00:08:37.460 And at no point in this letter would he ever mention hearing of

00:08:41.140 or having any interaction with Pocahontas. 0.95

00:08:43.800 Certainly no mention of her saving his life. 0.99

00:08:45.780 In fact, the infamous scene of Smith nearly having his head bashed in by the chief

00:08:49.780 is also never mentioned.

00:08:51.640 Instead, Smith details a rather civilized meeting with the emperor of the local tribes,

00:08:56.700 after which Smith is escorted back to Jamestown with a friendly trade agreement.

00:09:01.140 Powhatan is mentioned as sending provisions regularly to Jamestown.

00:09:04.440 The relationship with the natives seems to improve.

00:09:07.020 Smith even mentions visiting Powhatan's village again and bringing him gifts.

00:09:11.200 It's not until much later in this letter that Pocahontas is even mentioned.

00:09:15.020 In the summer of 1608, Powhatan apparently sends her, along with other people from the tribe,

00:09:19.860 to ask for some native prisoners to be released.

00:09:22.700 Smith describes the girl as witty and spirited, a young girl of about 10 years old.

00:09:27.100 The men are released to Pocahontas, and they give her gifts as well and send her off back to her father.

00:09:32.580 This is the only time she's mentioned in this letter.

00:09:35.620 Not really the exciting stuff that Disney films are made of.

00:09:38.820 Pocahontas does spend some more time at Jamestown over the next year.

00:09:42.500 Her father seems to send her along with deliveries of food and trade goods to Jamestown as a sign of goodwill and trust.

00:09:48.600 At one point, Smith writes that a messenger from Powhatan told him,

00:09:51.680 and I quote,

00:09:52.620 How well Powhatan loved and respected me, and in that I should not doubt any way of his kindness.

00:09:58.380 He had sent his child, which he most esteemed, to see me, and a deer and bread besides for a present.

00:10:05.200 There are also descriptions in Jamestown records of her playing with the children.

00:10:09.040 There were families at Jamestown and young apprentices, cartwheeling and generally carrying on in a very unladylike manner.

00:10:15.680 In addition to this, based on Smith's records, he spent some time with her when she was at the fort.

00:10:20.480 In Smith's 1612 publication, A Map of Virginia, he has a single line that seems to indicate that

00:10:25.820 he and Pocahontas exchanged language lessons, Smith teaching her English and Pocahontas teaching

00:10:30.340 him her language. There's more mentions of Pocahontas in his later writings, but we'll

00:10:34.440 talk about those later. You'll understand why when we get to that part of the story.

00:10:38.580 So Pocahontas seems to have spent some time at Jamestown and some time in John Smith's company

00:10:43.040 during 1608. But in 1609, relations between the Jamestown settlers and the natives go sour.

00:10:48.780 The drought is still ongoing, and even Powhatan's people are feeling the impact,

00:10:52.900 so they're now reluctant to give or trade as much food as Jamestown wants.

00:10:57.180 The Jamestown settlers are still partially dependent on the aid of the native tribes,

00:11:01.140 and they get hangry really fast and threaten to raid and burn Powhatan villages for food.

00:11:07.440 Boy, that escalated quickly.

00:11:11.220 I mean, that really got out of hand fast.

00:11:14.020 It jumped up a notch.

00:11:15.380 It did, didn't it? 0.59

00:11:16.300 In some of his later writings, Smith recounts one more meeting with Pocahontas, which I'll

00:11:20.820 mention here, but I'll explain later why I don't necessarily find this record credible.

00:11:25.780 Smith writes that he led a trading party to Powhatan in January of 1609, but when negotiations

00:11:31.300 with Powhatan turned sour, Pocahontas snuck through the woods at night to Smith's camp

00:11:35.720 to warn him that her father had ordered Smith killed, thereby saving the lives of Smith

00:11:40.280 and the rest of his men at great risk to herself. 0.99

00:11:43.360 The rest of 1609 at Jamestown is, well, it's a shit show, to put it mildly. 0.98

00:11:48.760 In April, an infestation of rats, along with the dampness, destroyed all their stored corn. 0.96

00:11:54.040 And with many settlers refusing to pull their own weight,

00:11:56.840 Smith gives his famous he that will not work shall not eat speech.

00:12:00.860 Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries, I hope,

00:12:04.040 is sufficient to persuade everyone to present correction of himself

00:12:07.240 and think not that either my pains nor the adventurer's purses

00:12:10.820 will ever maintain you in idleness and sloth.

00:12:13.680 The greater part must be more industrious or starve.

00:12:16.760 You must obey this now for a law

00:12:18.480 that he that will not work shall not eat, 1.00

00:12:21.080 except by sickness he be disabled. 0.96

00:12:23.620 For the labors of 30 or 40 honest and industrious men

00:12:26.740 shall not be consumed to maintain 150 idle loiterers.

00:12:31.120 In August, the settlement also gets a surprise

00:12:33.840 of 300 new settlers that they had not planned for,

00:12:36.420 and the newcomers were also not prepared for life at Jamestown.

00:12:40.440 Another food shortage soon follows.

00:12:42.640 And then, in October of 1609, Smith is injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion.

00:12:48.660 Was it really an accident? Eh. Who knows?

00:12:51.500 John hadn't exactly endeared himself to the settlement while president of the colony.

00:12:55.620 What we do know is that Smith is so injured that he's forced to return to England for treatment

00:13:00.380 and never returns to Virginia again.

00:13:03.120 Pocahontas and Powhatan are told that he has died.

00:13:06.160 At this point, Pocahontas more or less disappears from the written record for about four years,

00:13:11.240 between 1609 and 1613.

00:13:13.880 Not much is known about her between these years,

00:13:16.000 as she seemed to have had little to no contact with the Jamestown settlement.

00:13:19.900 She may or may not have married and had a child during these years.

00:13:23.060 Details on this are shaky.

00:13:25.060 But despite her lack of contact with Jamestown,

00:13:27.540 Jamestown hadn't forgotten her or how important she seemed to be to her father,

00:13:31.400 and that's what brings her back into play in 1613.

00:13:34.320 The First Anglo-Powhatan War is in full swing, and Pocahontas is lured onto the English ship of Captain Samuel Argyle and kidnapped.

00:13:43.020 Argyle informs Chief Powhatan that he wouldn't return Pocahontas unless he released English prisoners, returned stolen weapons, and sent the colonists food.

00:13:51.960 According to English records, Powhatan only sends about half the ransom, and Pocahontas remains in English captivity.

00:13:58.360 Pocahontas was moved into the home of Reverend Alexander Whittaker in Henricus,

00:14:02.260 where she was instructed in Christianity, English culture, and English language.

00:14:06.400 Henricus was the second settlement in Virginia, which had been built by Sir Thomas Dale in 1611.

00:14:11.160 It was located further inland on the James River than Jamestown.

00:14:15.640 From the summer of 1613 through March of 1614,

00:14:18.900 Pocahontas underwent the educational directions of Whittaker under the supervision of Sir Thomas Dale.

00:14:24.180 She would have been dressed as an English woman, treated with the various courtesies of an English woman,

00:14:28.380 and well-guarded from both the potential rescue by Powhatan warriors, which never happened,

00:14:33.540 and against violation of English men who may have expected more from her than to see the betterment of her soul.

00:14:39.020 She would have dressed, eaten, slept, and prayed like an English woman,

00:14:42.280 and eventually Pocahontas was baptized and given the Christian name Rebecca.

00:14:46.620 Of course, how much of this was genuine on her part and how much was simply Stockholm Syndrome or survival for her

00:14:52.600 is something we can only speculate about, as we don't have any records written from her perspective.

00:14:57.800 Not just from this period, but at all.

00:15:00.120 If she ever did write her story, no one thought it was worth saving.

00:15:03.760 Because of course they didn't.

00:15:05.620 So what we do know about her is all from the English records of the men around her,

00:15:09.940 which of course brings any commentary on her happiness, willingness, or agency in her life in the English settlements into severe question.

00:15:17.560 The next major mention we have about her is in early 1614.

00:15:21.880 After almost a year of captivity, Sir Thomas Dale brings 150 men and Pocahontas into Powhatan's territory in an effort to obtain the ransom.

00:15:30.820 The natives were less than pleased to see them. 0.97

00:15:33.560 The Englishmen respond to being attacked by burning houses and killing several men.

00:15:38.260 Pocahontas is finally sent ashore to meet two of her brothers, where, according to the record,

00:15:42.740 she says that she has been treated well by the English and that she is upset that her father valued her less than some old swords or axes. 0.99

00:15:50.220 Which, I mean, she had a point?

00:15:53.280 After this incident, she's brought back to the English settlement,

00:15:55.980 where she marries John Rolfe on April 5th, 1614.

00:15:59.460 Sometime during her imprisonment, 0.99

00:16:01.040 Pocahontas had become acquainted with a tobacco farmer named John Rolfe.

00:16:04.340 The exact date of their meeting is uncertain.

00:16:07.180 Rolfe was a prominent settler,

00:16:08.660 having introduced Caribbean tobacco into the colony.

00:16:11.560 Rolfe owned a plantation called Bermuda 100.

00:16:14.340 In a letter written to Governor Thomas Dale in 1614,

00:16:17.220 Rolf asks for permission to marry Rebecca, and reading the letter, I have to say that it feels

00:16:22.860 like Rolf did in some way have true affection for her. What she felt for him is unknown, because

00:16:28.140 again, there's no surviving written record from her. In this letter, Rolf writes of struggling

00:16:33.520 with his overwhelming feelings for her, despite knowing the heavy displeasure which Almighty God

00:16:38.400 conceived against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives. He writes of trying to

00:16:43.940 forget her, distance himself from her, but being unable to do so. However, he also describes her

00:16:49.360 in some terms that were a man to describe me using them would earn him a punch to the face. 0.96

00:16:54.240 Examples being that her manners are barbarous, she's had poor education, she's not as pleasing 1.00

00:16:59.540 to the eye as other Christian women he could definitely marry instead. Rolf seems to go out 1.00

00:17:05.280 of his way to couch his request to Governor Dale as if Rolf is simply doing his Christian duty to

00:17:10.080 marry her and aid in her conversion and life as a Christian woman. There's a lot going on in this

00:17:15.580 letter. If you want to parse it yourself, be my guest, but it's 10 paragraphs of early 17th

00:17:20.340 century spelling, so good luck with that. Suffice to say, whatever his feelings for Rebecca slash

00:17:26.420 Pocahontas, Rolfe was willing to put in a lot of effort to get permission to marry her. 1,895 words

00:17:32.820 of handwritten pleading shows that. In any case, the marriage happened. Reverend Alexander Whitaker

00:17:38.220 recorded this in a letter back to London on June 18th, 1614. Sir, the colony here is much better.

00:17:44.500 Sir Thomas Dale, our religious and valiant governor, hath now brought that to pass which

00:17:48.960 never before could be effected. For by war upon our enemies and kind usage of our friends he hath

00:17:54.320 brought them to seek for peace of us, which is made and they dare not break. But that which is

00:17:59.120 best, one Pocahontas or Matoa, the daughter of Powhatan, is married to an honest and discreet

00:18:04.060 English gentleman, Master Rolfe, and that after she had openly renounced her country idolatry,

00:18:09.420 confessed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was baptized, which thing Sir Thomas Dale had labored

00:18:14.280 a long time to ground in her. In 1615, Pocahontas gave birth to a son named Thomas in honor of the

00:18:20.860 governor. The Virginia Company recognized Pocahontas' contributions to the colony that same

00:18:25.660 year, and they awarded her with an annual stipend. One of her major contributions may have been in 0.79

00:18:30.400 teaching Rolfe how to cure tobacco in the style of her tribe, a job which would have traditionally 0.91

00:18:34.760 been for the women of her tribe, which helped make the crops much more profitable. In the spring of

00:18:40.160 1616, Sir Thomas Dale sailed back to London to get more financial support for the Virginia Company.

00:18:45.840 To boost publicity, he brought with him about a dozen Algonquian Indians along with Pocahontas,

00:18:50.560 her husband John Rolfe, and their infant son Thomas. Pocahontas captivated the English and

00:18:55.560 the publicity in turn sparked interest in the colonial settlement. She was introduced to the 0.88

00:18:59.840 King and Queen, as well as the Bishop of London. She was also briefly reunited with Captain Smith,

00:19:04.880 who she had previously thought was dead, if you recall. This apparently did not go well for Smith,

00:19:09.840 as Pocahontas had a sharp tongue and opinions about Smith now that she knew he wasn't dead.

00:19:15.500 Smith wrote that she was so overcome with emotion that she could not speak and turned away from him.

00:19:20.080 However, upon regaining her composure, Pocahontas reprimanded Smith for the manner in which he had

00:19:25.160 treated her father and her people. She reminded him how Powhatan had welcomed him as a son,

00:19:29.840 how Smith had called him father.

00:19:32.040 Pocahontas, a stranger in England,

00:19:33.780 felt that she should be able to call Smith father.

00:19:36.260 When Smith refused to allow her to do so,

00:19:38.220 she became angrier and reminded him

00:19:40.100 that he had not been afraid to threaten

00:19:41.620 every one of her people, except her.

00:19:43.920 She said the settlers had reported Smith

00:19:45.660 had died after his accident,

00:19:47.600 but that she was really not surprised

00:19:49.100 to find out he wasn't,

00:19:50.280 because your countrymen will lie much.

00:19:53.500 So, not a heartwarming reunion, exactly.

00:19:56.660 Though keep in mind that this version of events

00:19:58.380 was written by Smith himself,

00:19:59.840 and he's not exactly a reliable narrator, let's just say that.

00:20:04.520 The Rolfe family toured England for about seven months,

00:20:07.200 but in 1617, they were ready to return to the colonies.

00:20:10.420 In March, they boarded a ship, but before they even reached the open ocean,

00:20:14.000 Pocahontas had become seriously ill and had to be taken ashore.

00:20:17.480 In the town of Gravesend, Pocahontas died of an unspecified illness.

00:20:21.440 Many historians believe that she suffered from some sort of upper respiratory ailment,

00:20:25.200 such as pneumonia, while others think that she may have died from some form of dysentery

00:20:29.500 or tuberculosis. According to Rolfe, Pocahontas said on her deathbed, all must die, but tis enough

00:20:35.740 that my child live. At the age of about 21, she was buried at St. George's Church on March 21,

00:20:42.280 1617. John Rolfe returned to Virginia, but left his young son with relatives in England.

00:20:49.120 Father and son would never see each other again. John Rolfe died in 1622, and his son would not

00:20:54.900 returned to Virginia until 1635. Chief Powhatan was devastated upon learning of his daughter's

00:21:00.660 death. He died about a year later, and relations between the Powhatan and Virginia colonists

00:21:04.980 declined rapidly from that point forward. So if that's the true story, a tragedy of a young woman

00:21:10.680 separated from her family and dying in a strange country, rather than the romantic tale of a woman

00:21:15.920 risking her life to save a square-jawed man who sounds a lot like Mel Gibson, then why is that

00:21:21.580 the story most of us grew up knowing? Well, the answer to that question is a white man's ego,

00:21:27.120 because of course it is, and I suppose also the gullibility of the English looking for an

00:21:31.580 entertaining story. And in this case, the white man in question is John Smith himself.

00:21:36.840 After Pocahontas became a celebrity in England and verbally sucker-punched John Smith in 1616, 0.74

00:21:42.720 Smith began writing his memoirs. He published The General History of Virginia in 1624 and The True 0.82

00:21:48.740 adventures and observations of Captain John Smith in 1630. Notably, both of these are published well

00:21:54.840 after the death of Pocahontas, John Rolfe, Governor Thomas Dale, Reverend Alexander Whitaker, you know,

00:22:00.660 all the people who might have actually been able to question his narrative. So he writes a memoir

00:22:05.560 with all the narrative truth of a man in a bar telling his friends about how he once caught a

00:22:10.180 fish and it was this big, I swear. Or more accurately, a high school boy telling all his

00:22:16.540 friends about how he totally banged his older sister's hot college roommate last summer. 0.98

00:22:21.340 You know, like a liar. These two publications include a number of significant additions and

00:22:26.520 changes. Most specifically, the 1624 edition is the first time in any of his published works

00:22:32.080 that the story of Pocahontas saving Smith's life appears in print. This is also when that story

00:22:37.420 about Pocahontas sneaking into the forest to warn Smith that his life is in danger appears as well,

00:22:42.380 which is why I said earlier that I have some reservations about that story.

00:22:46.540 His version of the story is as follows.

00:22:49.700 Oh, and as a side note, Smith writes about himself in third person in his own memoir.

00:22:54.880 He's a walking red flag.

00:22:57.040 Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held.

00:23:02.060 But the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan.

00:23:06.360 Then as many as could be laid hands on him dragged him to them and thereon laid his head.

00:23:11.240 and being ready with their clubs to beat out his brains, Pocahontas, the king's dearest daughter,

00:23:16.560 when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him

00:23:21.780 from death. After this major change, he mentions Pocahontas in the story far more often than she

00:23:27.880 was ever mentioned in his previous works. He also increases her age from the 10-year-old that he

00:23:32.780 mentioned in the letter in 1608, now describing her as 13 years old. He also inserts her into

00:23:38.960 another previous story that had not contained any mention of her. A story in which he is entertained

00:23:43.980 by a bevy of naked young women that dance around a bonfire and have an orgy. Then they invite him 0.99

00:23:49.580 back to their home and torment him with crowding, pressing, and hanging about him. Yeah, sounds like

00:23:55.100 real torture to me, buddy. What is this, penthouse letters? The point is that John Smith waited until

00:24:00.160 a story couldn't be contradicted by any living person, and then he self-aggrandized his own

00:24:04.980 history shamelessly. And not just in regards to Pocahontas. Smith described being saved from

00:24:10.300 execution by beautiful women more than once in his memoir. Not only that, but it's likely that

00:24:15.640 he greatly exaggerated many of his early accomplishments as well. There are just a few

00:24:20.120 too many wild stories about his life between 1596 and 1607, when he would have been between 16 and

00:24:26.480 27 years old. This includes fighting in wars ranging from the English War with Spain, the Dutch

00:24:31.940 revolt against spain and fighting in the holy roman empire's army against the turks where he

00:24:37.060 supposedly killed and beheaded three ottoman challengers in single combat duels for which he

00:24:42.860 was apparently knighted by the prince of transylvania and given a horse and a coat of arms

00:24:47.160 that depicted three turks heads then he's wounded in battle sold the slave to a turkish man who

00:24:52.680 gives him as a gift to his mistress in constantinople she promptly falls in love with him

00:24:57.380 helps him escape death then helps him escape through russia and all the way back to england

00:25:01.380 I've seen seasons of Doctor Who that involved less travel and excitement.

00:25:06.340 When it comes down to it, as historically inaccurate as the 1995 Disney Pocahontas film is,

00:25:12.380 I can almost forgive it.

00:25:14.060 If we look at the script compared to Smith's account in 1624,

00:25:17.760 the differences become less stark.

00:25:19.860 So if we look at that film as being based on Smith's writing, not history,

00:25:23.520 well, it's not that far off the mark.

00:25:25.720 And at the very least, the soundtrack was fantastic.

00:25:28.180 If you haven't listened to the Radcliffe side of the song Savages lately, you should.

00:25:33.160 It's an absolutely brutal takedown of white supremacy.

00:25:36.440 So I will reluctantly give the 1995 movie a pass.

00:25:40.740 Somewhat, anyway.

00:25:42.260 But there is no excuse for Pocahontas 2.

00:25:44.780 I despise that film on a soul-deep level that the first Pocahontas could never make me feel.

00:25:50.340 Obviously, being kidnapped, married off, and dead by 21 makes for a poor children's film.

00:25:55.560 which is why they just shouldn't have made it in the first place

00:25:58.700 but the weird complete rewrite of the story

00:26:01.260 makes a lot more sense when you know that one of the writers

00:26:04.060 Alan Estrin co-founded PragerU

00:26:06.740 and served as the executive producer for the Dennis Prager show

00:26:10.040 there is nothing PragerU likes more than a good

00:26:13.180 whitewashed piece of American history that leaves out all the negative parts

00:26:16.700 of colonialism

00:26:17.340 well that was a longer episode than usual 0.99

00:26:20.460 thank you for showing up to listen to me bitch about history

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00:26:58.360 of How Did America Get Here

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Bitchy History - May 29, 2023

Episode 5： American History 101 - Pocahontas, Jamestown, and John Smith’s Tall Tales

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