Vulgar History - The Real Story Of Pocahontas (Whose Name Was Actually Matoaka)

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00:00:30.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne

00:00:35.420 Foster. And today's topic was actually, I want to shout out, this was suggested by Christy,

00:00:40.560 who is a member of the Patreon community. And it was her suggestion to talk about the person who

00:00:47.100 is known as Pocahontas. She's also aka Matoka. So we're going to kind of use mostly Matoka,

00:00:53.420 but both names. And we're going to explain in the episode how and why she has both of these names.

00:00:58.400 and it was a topic that has interested me for a long time just like as a person who during my main

00:01:04.700 babysitting era as a teenager i was babysitting a girl who loved this movie and i watched it

00:01:12.180 probably every week for a year um so i'm very familiar i felt like i was very familiar with

00:01:17.900 the disney film but i also haven't watched it in i don't know 20 30 years and so anyway i just

00:01:24.600 know that Pocahontas, the myth, the legend is so well known. And there's so many things about it

00:01:30.360 that are, that people think that are incorrect. And then I remember that there's this project

00:01:35.640 from a few years ago, the Missing Matoka project, which is, we're going to talk about it as well,

00:01:41.020 because my guest Lauren DeLeary was the screenwriter for Missing Matoka. And so what it

00:01:45.240 is, is an audio track that tells the real story that you can sync up to play while you're watching

00:01:50.360 the Disney's Pocahontas movie. Anyway, so I was looking up the project. I contacted Lauren. I

00:01:54.780 was so excited that she agreed to come and be on the podcast because the story is so important to

00:01:58.800 her. And so we're going to listen to Lauren helping us understand the story of the real

00:02:05.180 Matoka. But first I wanted to situate this whole story in the history we've already talked about

00:02:10.640 on the podcast and the history you may or may not know about the colonization of America because

00:02:15.940 you know, all of us, we live in a specific era, the way that the world is affects their lives

00:02:22.160 in certain ways, but the way that Matoka's life, like the way it went was entirely because of

00:02:28.640 what happened. So on this podcast, we've talked before about when Spain went to colonize Mexico,

00:02:35.460 we did that episode about Malinzine, aka La Malinche. So that was all happening around 1512.

00:02:43.620 The English had not really come over to North America yet.

00:02:48.520 But what had happened is that Spain went to like around the Caribbean, like Central America, Mexico region.

00:02:54.900 And they found like, oh, hey, guess what is here?

00:02:57.060 Gold, a thing we value a lot.

00:02:59.120 The English were like, OK, we want to do this too, but we don't want to like go to war with Spain.

00:03:03.940 So let's find a place where Spain hasn't gone.

00:03:05.780 So they just kind of like went up the coast more and more north, hoping that they would find gold also.

00:03:10.720 They didn't.

00:03:11.920 What they found, though, was tobacco.

00:03:14.700 And so the English colonization of America,

00:03:17.840 like they had already successfully colonized Ireland.

00:03:20.720 And so many of the early colonists of North America

00:03:22.640 had their start in colonizing Ireland.

00:03:24.260 And they were like, let's do the same thing,

00:03:26.440 but in kind of like North America region.

00:03:29.300 And where they went, where this story takes place,

00:03:31.800 is around what is modern-day Virginia.

00:03:34.480 Virginia, named after Elizabeth I,

00:03:37.420 who was the queen when they started doing all this kind of stuff.

00:03:41.300 So the first expedition of English people went to Roanoke Island in 1584, but they were poorly

00:03:49.660 prepared to live there. And by six years later, they had all disappeared. And there's numerous

00:03:55.600 podcasts about what happened to those people. But so that colony did not work for the English.

00:04:03.480 1606. So this is like about 20 years after Roanoke. By this time, the king in England is a person

00:04:10.240 that many listeners will be familiar with from my Mary Queen of Scots series, James I, the son of

00:04:15.460 Mary Queen of Scots, he's the king. He granted charters to the London Company for the purpose

00:04:20.720 of establishing a permanent settlement in North America. And so they headed over and they

00:04:25.760 established a permanent colony that they called Jamestown, named after him on the Chesapeake Bay

00:04:31.940 in what is now Virginia. So at this time, I think they had a couple hundred people were on the ship

00:04:38.440 When they arrived, there was about 30,000 Indigenous people living in that region at that time. One of them was a 10-year-old girl named Matoka. And yeah, so I'll just go right from here into my discussion with Lauren DeLeary talking about the story of Matoka and what happened to her, what she did, what her story is.

00:05:00.420 so i'm joined today by lauren deliri and first of all can we talk about the name of the person

00:05:12.900 we're talking about today because we're not calling her pocahontas right so i mean i will

00:05:19.660 probably interchangeably call her pocahontas and matoka which that's her um born given name

00:05:25.920 is Matoaca. And yeah, so everybody knows about Pocahontas, but that was her. She chose that 1.00

00:05:32.160 name later on. She was about 14 when she chose it. But also as a kid, her father called her

00:05:38.020 Pocahontas endearingly because that was her mother's name. And yeah, so either way, Matoaca

00:05:45.400 or Pocahontas, like I said, I'll probably use it interchangeably.

00:05:50.020 Let's talk about the Missing Matoaca Project.

00:05:51.980 yeah so the missing motoica project it's in an audio track that goes alongside disney's pocahontas

00:06:01.920 so it's an alternative audio track you can play um there's a countdown so you pull up disney's

00:06:07.460 pocahontas on you know one tab or like on your you know disney plus whatever wherever you're

00:06:13.000 watching and then you also go to missingmatoika.ca and you press play um while you also press play on

00:06:22.080 pocahontas um on mute so it'll like coincide with the what you're seeing visually we lined

00:06:29.620 everything up every single like moment every second every millisecond i like i wrote the

00:06:36.360 script to line up to what you're seeing on on the screen but telling her story accurately which was

00:06:43.760 quite a feat because Disney's Pocahontas was not accurate very much at all so yeah when I was

00:06:52.340 watching it I found it so it was so perfectly lined up I was just like this is wow you know

00:06:57.800 the dialogue that other people are saying or when there's like a silly thing happens with like the

00:07:01.680 hummingbird or the raccoon like the sound effect is there and everything but as the movie went on

00:07:06.820 and the story got more and more preposterous I'm just like how are they gonna do this because

00:07:10.420 there's these like montages of Pocahontas and John Smith like frolicking into fields and I'm

00:07:15.880 just like how but I love the way you wrote it I love that the dialogue she often is just like are

00:07:21.120 you gonna leave now like can you please leave as on the screen they're like lying in a meadow

00:07:26.340 together looking dreamy and she's and he's like no I have to stay here until I've completed the

00:07:30.360 genocide like right right it's like a bit ironic you have to write it a little ironic because

00:07:37.600 even still it's not like pocahontas it's not like matoka and john smith had these sort of

00:07:43.860 conversations at all so like but we're all we're kind of pretending as if they did and if they did

00:07:51.340 she would say something along the lines of like i'm 10 years old you're a creep like you know

00:07:56.500 yeah um so even even though it was like the correct story her correct story it was still

00:08:04.020 a version of it because you know the visuals are just so inaccurate yeah it just got at first i'm

00:08:12.420 like okay you're explaining the story and i'm just like wow this must have been so challenging

00:08:15.340 the story gets more and more wild but also can we talk for a minute about john smith

00:08:21.320 because from what i've been reading about him like the reason the reason why the myth of pocahontas

00:08:29.700 is what it is is based because he's the one who told the story initially yeah so um john smith

00:08:38.800 yeah he ended up writing like a memoir like of his adventures when it was published when he wrote

00:08:44.940 it and published it like people who could have you know counteracted or like told the truth of

00:08:51.440 what actually happened were like long gone or not in contact or had no idea it was it had come out

00:08:57.380 or anything like that so he just got to tell his version of the story which is you know we've seen

00:09:04.120 many times in history uh that history can be quite um colonized and whitewashed so um this is no 0.78

00:09:10.880 different so john smith himself though um i mean he was a crook he was um known to be just a terrible

00:09:19.080 person people did not like him he was not the charming blonde you know stud that disney portrayed

00:09:28.240 him to be at all he was about 27 years old when he arrived and when he did arrive though he was

00:09:36.200 like very sickly like he was actually a very because he was imprisoned on the boats because

00:09:41.940 he was a crook like he was he was known for being a terrible horrible person so he was not well not 0.70

00:09:50.140 the stud we have been taught to believe within that he ended up being captured and he ended up 0.98

00:10:00.600 being aware once the Pohotten made him one because he actually ended up liking him so

00:10:05.700 I'm definitely feeling John Smith was definitely a narcissist and I know that's like something we

00:10:12.460 kind of throw around now but I feel like it's pretty easy to see that he was a terrible person 0.99

00:10:17.960 but then he gained favor with the Pohotten and so he was made aware once which basically makes him 0.97

00:10:24.980 a leader of the colonists in a way and helps them like kind of have this inside, basically an inside

00:10:31.080 with the villages and gave him rights that he actually really took advantage of and just

00:10:38.980 continued to be a terrible, terrible person. So yeah, so John Smith was not a good guy.

00:10:46.420 Yeah. And I was looking at stuff about his other writings because before he came to America,

00:10:52.220 he was being sort of a dirtbag adventurer around other like eastern europe and different places

00:10:57.560 and it's a interesting coincidence everywhere he went like the beautiful daughter of a king

00:11:02.360 would throw herself at him to save his life it's a interesting how that kept happening to him

00:11:08.520 that's funny i actually didn't know that about john smith like about his other writings and other

00:11:13.680 places he went that's interesting because obviously i my focus was on macho and like

00:11:18.020 her life story yeah but that's that's fascinating wow yeah i would definitely see that's just another

00:11:24.000 thing john smith was a narcissist or he just i don't know he wrote that story once and it went

00:11:30.680 over well he's like oh i'll just say that that kept happening to me when i read that no no i was

00:11:35.440 just like god yeah i know that's the thing okay so he's out of the way let's talk about matoka

00:11:41.880 and who she really was and what her story was and to sort of set the scene like this is like

00:11:47.460 the first successful English colony in the new world. So when they encounter John Smith and

00:11:56.360 everybody, this is like the first time this has really happened, right? Yeah. Yeah. So,

00:12:03.160 well, first of all, if people don't know, like her story was, she was probably born around

00:12:10.100 the late 1500s or early 1600s so that was about 400 years ago over 400 years ago and yeah she was

00:12:19.840 touted around as like a successful colonization was used for trade used as like this proof of oh

00:12:28.020 we're like you know we're friendly she was kidnapped which is how she was used by the way

00:12:33.000 like she was taken away and she was forced to marry she was raped and forced to marry so anyway

00:12:38.220 and they converted her to christianity and they touted her around um as that like successful

00:12:45.020 token of like oh look at all the good things that we're doing over in that land um we're saving them

00:12:52.100 we're we're um making them quote-unquote civilized um so yeah but when she so when

00:13:00.080 when the european invaders made their way uh over she was probably about uh 10 years old

00:13:07.460 and um like i mentioned she was the pohotton's daughter so the the chief's daughter um and so 0.90

00:13:15.620 she had a lot of people in the tribe like taking care of her looking after her she was not like

00:13:23.700 this little sex cat in the woods you know unlike the false narrative she did not abandon her people

00:13:30.480 at all um and like i said european invaders kidnapped her and held her hostage and so

00:13:35.700 her father felt threatened that if he came to rescue her that she would be harmed and so he

00:13:41.760 kind of kept his distance with her but that's later on so from 10 years old to you know 14

00:13:49.240 the idea that like she had any sort of like conversation or any type of relationship with

00:13:56.220 john smith is just absolutely crazy because she would have been so like watched after and like

00:14:00.620 cared for by so many of the people in the tribe she also had you know lots of siblings probably 0.99

00:14:05.840 as a pohot and he probably uh he likely had multiple wives too so there was there was a lot 1.00

00:14:11.920 of people looking after her and the only time that she would ever be going into like jamestown 0.99

00:14:19.520 which wasn't just like down the street it was like kind of a a travel day away um she would

00:14:27.940 have gone with her people and the and she was taken one time with her people as kind of this

00:14:35.040 reflection this token as like innocence because she was a kid and they're like hey by the way

00:14:40.580 we're showing up but we come in peace because look like we're bringing our most prized possession

00:14:45.360 like our child like our pohontan's daughter his favorite one at that and so that would be the only

00:14:51.840 time that she would be in jamestown so she didn't escape she wasn't running to john smith

00:14:56.560 she was with her her family and with those who were like looking after her and a fun part of

00:15:04.420 her story a bit is that she was her dad's favorite her mother died and so when after her death

00:15:12.800 obviously her father was like devastated and because she looks like her I think he really

00:15:18.560 loved her and like favored her and that's why he like would give her the name Pocahontas because

00:15:23.060 that was her mom's name and so it's like a loving endearing thing and they chose to call her

00:15:27.940 pocahontas around the european invaders um to kind of keep her identity sacred you know keep that

00:15:36.520 protected um which is why you see that her name as pocahontas is the most known um however when

00:15:45.040 she was 14 she was in this um in a ceremony where she got to choose her name and she did choose

00:15:52.460 pocahontas so anyway um atoka is very much her name and so is pocahontas and later in life she

00:15:57.960 actually had a third name rebecca so it was a lot it's a lot it's a lot for a very short life

00:16:05.280 so if we're just going to do some myth busting so there's the john smith told and like commonly

00:16:12.340 retold story including in the disney film that pocahontas's father was going to kill john smith

00:16:20.340 And then she came and like threw herself over him to be like, no, don't kill him.

00:16:24.340 What's interesting is just from what I was reading, too, is that when that allegedly

00:16:27.600 happened, which it didn't, John Smith didn't write about it.

00:16:30.620 It's only later on.

00:16:31.480 He's like, oh, yeah, like 20 years later, he's like, yeah, this thing happened to me

00:16:35.680 and he was going to kill me.

00:16:36.780 So it's like maybe there is some ceremony.

00:16:39.380 Maybe it's like when he was named a werewolf and he's just kind of like embellishing.

00:16:45.180 Oh, yeah.

00:16:45.540 So, well, the thing is, there is a ceremony when someone is made aware of once, and children would not have been allowed.

00:16:54.320 So she wouldn't have even been there.

00:16:55.800 She wouldn't have been in that sort of ceremony.

00:16:59.260 Also, this ceremony is an honor.

00:17:01.940 It was not any sort of, like, the Pohan did not have any intentions of killing John Smith.

00:17:07.480 He was honoring him. 0.90

00:17:09.180 So he definitely very much got that twisted. 0.96

00:17:12.720 and yeah so there's no way that Matoaka Pocahontas would have been there at all um and his life was 1.00

00:17:20.400 not in danger either John Smith was guy so what I found really interesting too when I was watching

00:17:28.820 the your audio track of the film and just remembering when I first watched it too

00:17:33.640 I didn't realize that Cocoa was a real person yeah like everybody else in the in the film he's

00:17:41.240 like done so dirty. Yes. So she ended up marrying Kokum. So I'll kind of go like go backwards. She

00:17:48.220 she married Kokum at around 14 or 15. So before that, like she was just a kid. And that's why in

00:17:57.920 that ceremony, she got to like choose somebody to dance with. And she chose Kokum. It was likely

00:18:03.360 kind of set up as well like within the village like who who was who and they had a kid they

00:18:11.560 actually she got pregnant like pretty much like right away and for a long time the child was just

00:18:16.880 called little cookworm because people didn't know like who like what the name was of the child or

00:18:22.380 even like if it was like a boy or girl like they didn't know but later on we did find out that she

00:18:27.880 ended up having a girl and was raised by obviously the village so that the story of

00:18:35.480 cocoon was he was not some like angry like just disney's portrayal of him he was also like younger

00:18:43.040 and he was he was actually killed when they kidnapped pocahontas when they killed when they

00:18:50.540 kidnapped her they they didn't want him going after her like rescuing her so they actually

00:18:55.920 killed him off um which is just horrible because honestly it was just so so much was unnecessary

00:19:01.600 obviously but like even that i think watching it back watch like watching the movie as i'm like

00:19:07.580 writing the script it's just so sad to see how he was portrayed when really it was just all all

00:19:14.760 these stories like the native people were a lot of times so innocent in this um and and made out

00:19:21.300 to be well savages as the the movie and the song kind of makes people uh see it i appreciated in

00:19:32.360 with your audio tracks i was watching it and then i don't know just the settings on my tv like i had

00:19:37.040 the closed captioning on for the actual script and then i was listening so i it was interesting

00:19:41.340 at times because i could see what what they were saying and then what was so it was funny because

00:19:46.060 the the actual film is saying like oh kokoum he's so serious i don't like him and in the audio track

00:19:51.600 it's being like kokoum is a great warrior and i appreciate him i was like i love what you've done

00:19:56.300 yeah yeah a lot of the time because it was like a roadmap honestly i was like okay what's the

00:20:03.380 opposite of what she's saying sometimes it kind of it was crazy but yeah so that that was a a

00:20:11.380 really a story that was very much convoluted um all of it was but that to me i don't know it just

00:20:17.080 really stuck out when i was rewriting it because she also chose him so i don't know if it was like

00:20:22.680 was a story of love but like she did have the autonomy of choosing who she ended up marrying

00:20:27.880 and then having a child and then she never got to see that child again either it's sad and she

00:20:32.900 ended up having another child but that was out of one luck and due to rape um so that was a

00:20:39.440 completely different situation um later on and just to keep up with like how young she is so 0.75

00:20:45.720 like she's around 10 years old when the colonists first arrive she um gets married to kokoom when

00:20:51.660 she's around 14 has this child so in the chronology which is like not weird in their culture that's

00:20:58.620 just like no yeah yeah yeah i mean it's i'd be 14 14 or 15 like that's yeah that would be very

00:21:06.460 appropriate age at that point i mean even i mean you look at even today like she would have been

00:21:13.200 have had hit puberty already and everything would have been like just totally appropriate again

00:21:17.900 pohaten's daughter like her life was set up like she was good like she was she was okay she was

00:21:23.280 taken care of um and she she was favored so yeah she was already living she was clearly living with

00:21:30.340 kokoom at the time when she was kidnapped um and that was like when the the anglo-pohatan war

00:21:37.240 began and that's why she was captured by uh samuel argall because he he wanted to

00:21:46.640 to keep them from attacking keep the the natives from attacking them like well if we have one of

00:21:53.700 yours then you won't hurt us um and so that was that was sort of the the attempt right and

00:22:00.320 And so it's sort of the flip side of what you just said, like she was the daughter of Powhatan, like of the chief.

00:22:05.240 She was so important.

00:22:06.500 She was so valued.

00:22:07.400 And that's the danger of that is they knew that if we're going to kidnap somebody, her, like she's the one who's the most valued.

00:22:13.240 She's the one, his favorite daughter, like she's the most precious person.

00:22:18.200 So that's why she was chosen.

00:22:20.780 Yep.

00:22:21.700 Yeah, exactly.

00:22:22.680 and and that's like again i what i was again really passionate about with with this retelling

00:22:30.320 was that she never abandoned her people i mean you can see it in in now corrective history that

00:22:37.460 she didn't she she just kind of like went she was she survived she survived it and didn't want her

00:22:44.860 people like any harm coming to her people so she just went along but when she was captured though

00:22:51.100 she was raped and probably raped by like multiple people and had gotten very like very anxious and

00:23:00.080 depressed for very obvious reasons and so they actually had her oldest sister come alongside

00:23:08.580 and like go with her to kind of help her with that depression and and fear so she like I said

00:23:17.800 she did end up getting pregnant and then was forced to marry John Rolfe who yeah so she she

00:23:25.140 had a son and she raised him for a couple years before before her death so John Rolfe I haven't

00:23:33.020 watched Pocahontas 2 after I finished watching the first one with the audio track I was like oh I

00:23:37.700 want to watch the second one I'm like no I don't actually want to watch the second one I would I

00:23:40.540 would want to watch the second one if you had done an audio track for it yeah yeah yeah but as I

00:23:44.960 understand it in the second one that's like she meets and falls in love with John Rolfe which is

00:23:49.220 like not true there's also the um I haven't watched this there's the movie the new world

00:23:54.080 the Terrence Malick one and I guess in that one they show her and John John Smith having a romantic

00:24:01.100 relationship and then her and John Rolfe having a romantic relationship it's like people just can't

00:24:06.860 stay away from this narrative of like these are love stories because if you look at what the

00:24:10.900 actual story is it's like oh this is horrific let's not make a movie this is not entertaining

00:24:16.080 yeah oh yeah well it's it's a horror story like it's not love like it's a horror story truly so

00:24:25.260 that doesn't exactly sell to kids no in their families so john rolf so she's there like she's

00:24:32.440 kidnapped actually can we just talk for a minute about the way that the missing matoka project and

00:24:37.300 of seen in other interviews you speak about um the missing and murdered indigenous women

00:24:42.100 and that aspect of her story can you talk about that as well yeah yeah absolutely so

00:24:49.140 this obviously her story yes it was over 400 years ago but this is still very much a problem

00:24:56.560 today um with missing and murdered indigenous women and girls um so with this project we're

00:25:03.140 just like we really were so passionate about helping support accurate indigenous representation

00:25:09.820 um in the media and and you know by telling the truth hopefully showing the harmful effects of

00:25:16.800 of stereotypes um and obviously like in this in the film she is seen as this like available sex 1.00

00:25:26.100 cat woman like who wants to betray her people and go be with the white guy and like you know 0.97

00:25:32.680 whatever so that depiction continues continues to shape like this false narrative about indigenous 0.97

00:25:40.360 women being more sexually available and and less worthy than non-indigenous women and that has

00:25:50.080 truly manifested into something um like the real world statistics of of indigenous women are that 0.80

00:25:58.200 they are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than any other demographic group.

00:26:04.180 And four out of five indigenous women experience violence in their lifetime. So that's, that's

00:26:09.960 real world statistics happening today, which is why this is such a big deal. And why we,

00:26:18.360 we need to change the narrative, why we need to like course correct. We need to tell the story

00:26:24.940 correctly because it does make an impact today and so the project you know i hope is inspiring

00:26:34.700 to other indigenous people that like we need to tell our stories and we need to you know um

00:26:39.960 feel like we are able to take up the space to to uh let our voices be heard and let our stories be

00:26:49.780 heard but also to not ignore the history um so hopefully like there's like proactive steps

00:26:59.380 that help break down stereotypes that hyper sexualize and demean indigenous women and um

00:27:05.420 and girls and to essentially end the practices that perpetuate the myth that indigenous women

00:27:11.240 are more sexually available and less worthy just because of their background or or their race

00:27:16.400 well and i think connected to that is just like watching this movie again which i haven't seen

00:27:21.240 since i was like 12 years old but watching it now it's just like oh my god like there's no other

00:27:26.780 disney princess who has this sexual of a story like her body is extremely curvaceous in a way

00:27:36.600 that like you're not seeing in frozen or cinderella like she's such a she's drawn as such

00:27:42.080 a sexual object the way she moves like you call this out in your audio track where she's like 0.74

00:27:45.780 prowling through the woods like this sex cat and then also her and john smith like they 0.53

00:27:50.780 kiss several times and i'm like pretty sure it's disturbing yeah there's not just the fact that

00:27:57.480 she's 10 and he's 27 but like i don't think there's any other i don't recall any other

00:28:03.580 disney animated movie where the main character is this sexual like and the fact that it's their

00:28:10.040 only indigenous character and then it leads to stuff like halloween costumes you know like 0.91

00:28:16.640 because her outfit is very sexy in this movie right so like who doesn't want to be like that

00:28:24.580 you know especially on halloween but kids yeah so my my passion for correcting her story began

00:28:33.520 very young for me. So if I haven't mentioned it yet, I am Indigenous. I'm Ojibwe. I was raised

00:28:41.820 knowing semi the truth of Pocahontas, right? I mean, you don't exactly tell like a six-year-old 0.85

00:28:47.320 her whole story, but I knew there was inaccuracy. And I also knew that, and I was taught by my

00:28:54.280 family that dressing up as as pocahontas was or like as a native american just like dressing up

00:29:04.100 as a native um is disturbing um we're not a costume we're not like something to just like

00:29:11.880 poke fun of especially because as a kid like where i grew up nobody knew that natives were like 0.85

00:29:18.020 that they still existed um it almost like quote-unquote indians right uh were

00:29:25.200 like from peter pan they were like similar to a mythical creature as like a mermaid

00:29:29.940 um and so i remember as a kid being proud of being indigenous and telling people i was and

00:29:38.040 telling kids and whatever and they would either tell me i'm lying because i thought again that

00:29:44.040 I was saying I was a mermaid you know they're like no you're not um or they would be like well

00:29:48.240 where's your teepee or like where's your costume or you know whatever and there's no acknowledgement

00:29:55.180 there's no like there's no education on one the right history of natives but now we're we're

00:30:02.260 fixing that um but also as a kid especially again where I grew up like that we there that we live

00:30:08.900 today like there's modern indigenous people like we are here today which kind of just blows my mind

00:30:16.680 and depending on where you are in america some people know more than others but where i grew up

00:30:22.520 no they knew nothing i was the only indigenous person for miles and well besides my siblings

00:30:28.720 of course so there's a lot of just like education that i i just come out i came out swinging as a

00:30:34.200 little kid being like well you need to know that her name was called I'm like my dog and you know

00:30:39.480 so when this project came across like you know my when it showed up when they asked me to be a part

00:30:45.360 of it I was like yeah this is this is my passion like let's let's go let's tell her story right

00:30:50.820 I feel like what you just said like the the concept it's like being a mermaid like it's not

00:30:58.560 people not realizing that like there are still indigenous people today so if if your first

00:31:04.460 exposure to the entire concept of this is watching this film and there's stuff like and you talk

00:31:09.560 about this in the audio track like the song savages is just like oh god like yeah i uh i

00:31:18.120 remember the first time so i had this little friend i was young i probably was like somewhere

00:31:23.860 between four and seven. And, um, I remember we, we were close to the, he loved, he loved native

00:31:33.280 stuff. He was like, I think he watched Pocahontas and, you know, really loved that I was native.

00:31:37.940 And it was just like this little cute, little friendship crush, whatever. Um, and then I

00:31:43.860 remember going to have a play date with him. And for some reason he decided to change his tune.

00:31:50.540 and he he was like he must have seen something with a cowboy or something because like I remember

00:31:54.980 he he got like stirrups and like got all cowboy got a cowboy hat whatever and I remember him 0.97

00:32:01.680 like pulling out his like little fake gun from his like whatever and he was like you're a dirty 0.91

00:32:07.080 savage blah blah and I was like well we were friends and now we're not um and that was like 0.95

00:32:13.560 the first time i had like experienced somebody i call well calling me a savage and pulling out 0.90

00:32:23.220 guns that pretending to kill me because i'm this dirty savage native um and i knew what he was

00:32:29.540 referencing because i i had seen pocahontas clearly um but i had i didn't i didn't fully 0.89

00:32:36.100 understand until that point that this this is bad this is bad for us this is bad for

00:32:42.620 for natives um and like I said I was like between four and seven so like how I processed it was

00:32:48.600 different but I just knew from that moment on we were not friends anymore well and it just it's

00:32:53.520 really speaks to the importance of if someone's not living in a place where there are indigenous

00:32:58.000 people around then everything you learn is from pop culture and it's like old pop culture it's 0.99

00:33:03.900 like cowboy movies or this Disney film and so there anyway oh that's terrible yeah I think

00:33:12.380 the two main films was pocahontas and peter pan that people knew about like just knew about natives 0.76

00:33:17.980 that was it like as kids especially like that's all they knew um so that's that's what they

00:33:23.460 referenced yeah and that's anyway the two extremely awful examples and now we're just

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00:35:58.260 and we're back and then the extremely awful actual story so she she became pregnant through

00:36:08.040 sexual assault and then she was married to this guy thomas ralph and his whole deal what i gleaned

00:36:13.900 is he well the whole reason why the colonists were there was really to try and find a crop

00:36:19.960 that they could sell to make money and they were like tobacco that's it let's do it and so there

00:36:25.940 was some sort of like techniques for curing tobacco that the poetin knew and he was like

00:36:33.080 well if i marry her then they'll teach me these techniques and then my tobacco will be the best

00:36:38.640 tobacco basically yeah i mean you got it i mean that's pretty much right um yeah so she had her

00:36:46.100 son thomas and then married john ralph um but yeah he he married her to like gain again gain

00:36:54.460 favor actually with both sides like um showing that there was progress happening and that there

00:37:02.400 were natives who liked them and you know were helping them and whatever so yeah they it became

00:37:10.020 very uh successful because they cultivated a whole like a new strain of tobacco that way

00:37:16.060 and like pillaged the lands, um, which was heart wrenching, gut wrenching for the native people

00:37:24.460 who like our whole sentiment, our whole like life, life's breath is like to live in harmony

00:37:32.760 with earth and with nature. So it was just as horrific to see the earth essentially be

00:37:42.880 brutalized as it was the people um because it was like one of the same so yeah it was the way that

00:37:50.420 the curing tobacco the way like that was part of ceremony and is part of ceremony it was it was

00:37:55.820 sacred um and so he had to marry her in order to like gain the permission to to know and to learn

00:38:04.520 just the way that they cured tobacco because they they were not doing it well by themselves so they

00:38:09.480 needed help um and so yeah that's that's why that's why she was forced to marry him and this

00:38:15.620 is around the same time she like converted to christianity and was given the name rebecca

00:38:21.120 yes so you know after they were married they yeah forced her to christianity and again it

00:38:29.020 was another level of like look look we're saving them we're making them civilized look at this one 0.80

00:38:35.180 Like she has a white name now and she's like, you know, married to a white man and whatever.

00:38:44.400 So it was just like further proof, quote unquote, of the success that they were having.

00:38:52.300 But it also, like I said, it worked in their favor on the side of like, well, then the Native people like didn't want to harm.

00:38:58.880 And like her father didn't come to rescue her because he was scared that she was going to be hurt if he did.

00:39:07.120 So he stayed away, which is just just so sad to think about.

00:39:12.660 Like, yeah. And, you know, fast forward, she did end up being poisoned.

00:39:20.320 so he was right to be concerned obviously but i think also the fact that he didn't come after her

00:39:26.300 i've seen that has been reframed by some retellings is saying that he didn't care

00:39:31.420 and that's why he didn't come after her yeah right that's what they told her which i mean

00:39:37.540 you can know all the truth in your heart but like if you're 17 years old and like you've been in

00:39:42.080 captivity and being touted around like you're essentially you're gonna believe it and like i

00:39:47.640 I hope it's like, you kind of hope that she like, didn't, but I mean, you're still a child

00:39:53.680 and like, aren't being rescued.

00:39:55.340 Like, what else do you think?

00:39:56.560 So that, that to me is just like, sad.

00:39:59.460 Like what, what her last few years were like, just with the mental torture, not just like

00:40:05.720 physical, but the mental torture.

00:40:06.980 Like, I, I truly can't even imagine.

00:40:10.060 Yeah.

00:40:10.440 When I'm on this podcast, like when I'm looking at stories, I really try to be like, here's

00:40:14.200 what the woman was doing and here's what she was thinking. 0.88

00:40:16.640 in here is but matoka is really just like she wasn't in a space to be able to do anything it's

00:40:22.440 just stuff was just happening to her and like every day all she could do is just survive really

00:40:28.280 yes exactly and i think because like again she didn't want to cause harm to her people 0.89

00:40:34.260 the total opposite of how she was portrayed like she was portrayed as if she wanted to

00:40:39.800 like betray her people um it was completely the opposite she went along with what she needed to do

00:40:45.720 to, for herself to survive and also like to not cause harm to her people.

00:40:51.120 And also there's not a roadmap for what was going on with her and with them. Like they,

00:40:57.840 they didn't know the end result of colonization, but also this is the first time there had been

00:41:02.760 this extended amount of time with colonists in America with indigenous people. Like they didn't 0.99

00:41:10.180 know where this was all headed nobody knew what was going on really right so how could they make

00:41:16.520 decisions of what to do next when no one really knows what is happening of course which you know

00:41:23.680 after she had been in england for a while they were they told her that she was going to be

00:41:28.900 going back to virginia quote unquote i say that because like it's not what it was called to her

00:41:35.840 But yeah, and the what what the history tells us and what like her sister had had noted that she was in really great health before she got on board to go home.

00:41:53.220 and she had hardly got they hardly even got going and she got very sick all of a sudden

00:42:00.180 and they took her off off the off the boat and she died shortly after which it points to a poisoning

00:42:09.560 i mean so yeah it's just it's just horrible um how her life ended and like who knows like

00:42:15.460 how why that was like needed if they were like nervous that they were likely they were nervous

00:42:22.780 that they were going to be harmed when they brought her back because they had essentially

00:42:27.100 kidnapped her for way longer than they had agreed to because it was at first an agreement of like

00:42:33.800 we'll take her for a while and she'll come back so they probably were scared of retaliation of

00:42:40.720 native people which it would have been warranted and so by her just dying it kind of like was like

00:42:46.660 in a way solved their problem and probably kept them from feeling fear that they were going to

00:42:52.240 be threatened by by the native people her time in england was basically they she and john ralph

00:42:58.540 and thomas and other people like she had her sister i think was with her and her sister's

00:43:03.100 husband and what they did in england is basically just they just kind of like dressed her up in like

00:43:07.500 european style clothes and they're like look it's rebecca like look how she's like

00:43:11.560 civilized just to and the the intent of that was to be like so if you could fund our further 0.86

00:43:18.560 missions that would be great yeah like she was just kind of there to advertise their success so

00:43:23.080 they could get more investors and once that was done i guess they're like okay we don't need her

00:43:28.720 anymore yep yep probably they're like thanks thanks for that goodbye like we literally don't

00:43:35.660 need you anymore which who knows what her like relationship and marriage was like to to rolf um

00:43:43.540 in that meantime now i do there there is record that she did see john smith during some point

00:43:49.800 when she was in england and she did express to him like how angry she was about the mistreatment

00:43:56.540 and especially because he was aware once um and made aware once like she told she let him have it

00:44:03.080 but yeah uh it's just little little cocoon obviously was like raised without her and then

00:44:11.480 And her son, Thomas, actually ended up, I'm pretty sure, returned to Virginia as well at some point.

00:44:21.160 Yeah, I've got this later on in my notes about her son, but that just reminded me about John Smith, because I think this is important for people to know, just in the continuing narrative of he sucks, is that in the original story, like, not the original story, he was over in the Virginia, quote unquote, area.

00:44:37.620 and then he went back early because of a gunpowder accident like whatever that means so he in the 0.94

00:44:46.040 movie it's like he was heroically shot and he was sent backwards like no he was just a dumbass 0.99

00:44:50.400 and then yeah yeah he like literally was stupid and then yeah had an injury and then go back yeah 0.67

00:44:59.580 yeah and so i think oh now i'm confusing what i read with like what this saga is but i think 0.82

00:45:04.600 Pocahontas was told he was dead and then she went back to England and it's like surprise he's not

00:45:09.460 dead and I think she was mad partially about being misled about that too. I mean yeah she had a lot

00:45:15.220 to be mad about. Yes and I do like and it was his recorded he recorded like what their interaction

00:45:20.840 was like and he was saying that she was so upset about things but also I think probably the fact

00:45:25.880 that she went to England and she was kind of a celebrity when she was there that's part of where

00:45:31.120 he was like oh if i write a book about how i met her then that's gonna bring me money like so that's

00:45:37.340 part of where she became well known which is why he kind of pounced on that to like make his own 0.91

00:45:43.780 living as a memoir writer but he sucks so just so everybody knows yeah he's awful nothing he did 0.86

00:45:50.720 was ever not awful yeah and just i think that watching the movie and like knowing that about 0.94

00:46:01.780 him i'm like how could you even do that like how how how did disney think that like writing this

00:46:09.680 story about this crook this horrible crook that like was known to be a crook like it that wasn't

00:46:16.080 something that needed to that wasn't even hidden in history like that was out there and this 0.61

00:46:22.380 creating like this love story between this crook and a 10 year old like that that's so so messed

00:46:29.340 up I don't know how they even like how that got approved everything about it just watching it now

00:46:34.840 like as an adult I was just like my eyes were just like so wide I'm just like what is happening how

00:46:40.560 does this exist like everything about it is just like oh god like this is like not to mention the

00:46:46.880 fact that she goes to talk to like a talking tree yeah that further points to the the mythical

00:46:54.220 creature magical power story about native americans again that's like oh they're like

00:47:01.420 mermaids they can do this they can they're like fairies they can i didn't all these little

00:47:06.260 magical powers that furthers that stereotype yeah of just being not like yeah this mythical

00:47:12.920 not human savage like just different like other like other they're not human yeah yeah

00:47:20.520 everything about that movie is oh my gosh i don't well the thing is too i think about i'm like they

00:47:27.460 could have they could have written a story about pocahontas as a child like before before even like

00:47:33.940 the european invaders like came like could have been like oh like this young girl was born in this

00:47:39.340 tribe and her she was her father's favorite she had lots of siblings and like you know they could

00:47:44.660 have even done up to like coco woman having a baby like and then i mean again it's like then

00:47:49.600 that's not the full truth but at least it would have been the truth like you could have done the

00:47:53.220 truth up to a certain point you know they decided to to just nope we're we're gonna make it all up

00:48:00.260 it's bizarre and it's the only i'm pretty sure the only disney princess movie where it's based

00:48:06.660 on a real person also right yes exactly exactly i'm like you could have chosen so many things

00:48:13.580 like why why that and the fact that it's the the fact that the other movies like in the princess

00:48:19.320 series are about fairy tale magical places it i can understand why a child would understand this

00:48:24.600 is also about a fairy tale made up thing yeah like why would you think this one actually is

00:48:28.700 based on fairytale books is it yeah well yeah like it's in fairytale books it's in princesses

00:48:34.280 books like it's yes it's it's open up i mean i had like this big fairytale book and where i had

00:48:40.720 like all the different stories yeah it was in there it was fairytale so it makes sense that

00:48:46.660 people would understand it as a fairytale as not a thing that happened yeah which is why we're

00:48:53.500 telling the the the truth of it yes i'm just myth busting here just yeah people need to know

00:48:59.580 so she died in england um and i found this really everything about her life from the time the

00:49:07.420 colonists came i guess from her kidnapping on is just awful but i find it awful that she was

00:49:13.120 buried in england that her remains were never returned yeah and then and then they say that

00:49:21.000 like we don't know where her remains are because some church was destroyed in a fire but i mean

00:49:28.580 some of that could be true but you know up to this point can we believe anything that's like

00:49:33.660 being said about her and like or do do they know and don't like want to like there's just so many

00:49:39.880 things i mean at this point i don't even know what her remains would be but i'm sure i'm sure at one

00:49:45.700 point it was like hey we don't want anybody looking into this because they might find out 1.00

00:49:49.260 she was poisoned yeah so um which is horrific because in native cultures like you need to be

00:49:55.940 with and buried with your family and like it's that's it's literally like beyond the it's a

00:50:02.680 beyond the grave beyond life it's still like an ongoing tragedy because her body was never

00:50:11.020 returned to her people yeah i find it kind of odd that there's like in the absence of no where her

00:50:17.520 remains are but there's like a statue there like in england yeah well she was made a celebrity like

00:50:24.220 you said yeah it's just an odd thing and then her father was so upset that she died that he died

00:50:29.560 shortly after yeah like of grief basically because horrible everything they went it's just horrible

00:50:37.000 yeah so her legacy i think yeah so her son i'm just looking at what i have here so her son stayed

00:50:45.660 in england for a while like was raised by like the rolfe family but then he later returned to

00:50:50.700 virginia as an adult um and he had many descendants like so her lineage lived on through

00:50:57.080 him um including the actor edward norton yeah yeah yeah that and like um her daughter

00:51:04.460 of who she had with coco um she she also had children as well so yeah her lineage did carry

00:51:13.600 on and um it's i mean it's it's cool to see that like she had people to kind of pass on her life

00:51:22.640 but yeah i mean every bit of when we tell her story i feel like we're able to give her that

00:51:30.720 the the rest in power you know rest in peace rest in power that she really truly deserved

00:51:37.260 yeah when we tell her real story because the made-up story was continues to be still so

00:51:44.740 widely understood and widely disseminated and I think what your project just in the on the website

00:51:53.100 it mentions one of the books that you looked at was that one the true story of Pocahontas and that

00:51:57.520 draws from the oral storytelling so a lot of what we know about what really happened is through

00:52:02.340 because there are people with her like her sister was with her when she was in England like

00:52:05.840 and went to stay with her when she was kidnapped so like they passed on like here's what she was

00:52:10.200 going through here's the depression she had like here's what the story is so i appreciate that that

00:52:14.540 we know her story through her people in that way yeah right yeah exactly i mean a lot of

00:52:21.680 a lot of native history is passed down orally um that's kind of tradition and yeah i'm glad i'm

00:52:28.680 glad somebody wrote it down you know i mean we have to because because of like the the genocide

00:52:35.280 and like the separation of families like eventually oral history can't exactly keep up but i'm glad we

00:52:42.380 have the bit that we do about her and grateful that her sister was with her in order to like

00:52:47.760 know what was going on and be able to kind of or else we wouldn't have known anything like

00:52:53.420 known the truth of any of this so um yeah i'm grateful that things were passed on to especially

00:53:01.020 if all we had to rely on and what a lot of people had to rely on for a long time was just the john

00:53:05.500 smith books yeah which is we all know now it's so messed up and not even kind of close to the truth

00:53:13.180 so at the end of all my episodes i think i sent you this but just as a reminder i sort of

00:53:19.680 i score everybody i talk about on the show in four different categories oh okay and it's just

00:53:25.620 sort of like i don't know because i i have the four categories to sort of be like because different

00:53:30.760 people different strengths and I want everybody to be able to get some points in one category

00:53:34.440 so it's on a scale of zero to ten and so the first category is a scandal how scandalous

00:53:41.280 do you think she was she was yeah I don't think she was scandalous at all frankly I think she was

00:53:48.220 always oh no I don't think she's scandalous um there's no record of her being scandalous at all 0.99

00:53:55.460 I mean, I think she was only with Kokwum by choice ever. So I'd say like zero or a one, 0.99

00:54:02.960 you know, I don't know if it begins out zero or one. I'd say zero. Like I think

00:54:06.160 nothing she ever did was in any way out of line with what was expected of her.

00:54:10.840 Yeah, no, exactly. So zero. The next category is scheminess,

00:54:16.240 which I contextualize as not just like a person coming up with like a scheme, but also just

00:54:21.360 somebody who is resilient they're put into different situations and they're able to figure

00:54:25.660 out what to do when they're in those situations and that sort of thing and i think she like she

00:54:29.340 did survive yeah no she yeah she survived until she like literally was blindly poisoned so like

00:54:35.660 she couldn't have even known so um as far as yeah like scheme yeah she she played she played the 0.97

00:54:42.220 game she had to play so i'd say she's like seven or eight yeah i'll give her an eight for that yeah

00:54:46.220 Like she, I mean, she was in this impossible, horrible situation and no one had ever been put

00:54:53.320 in that exact situation before, but she kept going. She was young. Oh my gosh. She was so

00:54:59.200 young. When she died, she was like 21 or something. Yeah. Uh-huh. 20 or 21. Yeah.

00:55:03.980 The next category is significance. Oh, well, obviously a 10. I feel like a 10. I feel like

00:55:09.560 a 10. Like, first of all, just like, she's like, her name is well known, but also just like the

00:55:14.480 context of her life like this was the first real interaction between like indigenous people of

00:55:20.220 north america with england right yeah and she was the missing and murdered indigenous woman first

00:55:26.840 documented rather so yeah she's pretty important for sure she's a 10 and then the final category

00:55:32.960 is i call it the sexism bonus so it's basically just like how much did sexism get in her way

00:55:40.180 and hold her back oh oh my god um a 10 like pretty close i think like there's so much

00:55:47.820 there's so much maybe a nine maybe because it's had also i mean most of it likely had to do with

00:55:55.080 her race yeah um but yeah i'd give that like a nine yeah i think it's like you can't really

00:56:01.600 differentiate the sexism from the just kind of like racism and everything but the fact that like

00:56:06.920 she was taking like she was raped like she was taken and used in these ways like it's very

00:56:11.960 gendered yeah yeah so her total score is a 27 um I just I maintain a score of just kind of like all

00:56:20.900 the people we talk about and where they all fit together um a 27 is definitely there's a lot of

00:56:27.680 people at that number a lot of a lot of notable people she'll fit right in can you tell everybody

00:56:34.000 just like to plug yourself and all the things you're doing and what you want people to know

00:56:38.220 about you oh yeah sure so first of all if anyone wants to watch and listen you can go to missing

00:56:47.820 motoica.ca and you press play on the track and play disney's pocahontas on mute and so that way

00:56:54.920 yeah and you can also just listen if you don't want to like watch i do recommend watching along

00:56:59.320 with but essentially you can play it like a podcast um if you'd like it's about an hour and

00:57:04.680 20 minutes i'd leave so yeah and then as far as uh myself so my all of my socials and places you

00:57:13.140 can find me is my name which is lauren deliri i am active mostly on my instagram but also on my

00:57:20.220 TikTok. Um, I have a podcast called Curio City and, um, we have weekly episodes there. Um,

00:57:28.840 but yeah, that's basically, you can find me on my socials. I'm, I'm always there.

00:57:33.680 Thank you so much for joining me today. I was so happy that you were able to take the time to do

00:57:38.240 this. Cause I felt like who, who can I bring on to talk about this story? And I'm like,

00:57:42.720 who knows it better than you at this point? Oh, well, thank you. I'm not, I'm no historian.

00:57:47.600 I will say like, I, I don't have a doctorate of, of history. I'm, I will say I'm just like,

00:57:54.060 I'm an indigenous girly who is passionate about this story and course correcting was honored to

00:57:59.460 be a part of this project and, um, to be able to, yeah, to tell her, her, her story, truly her

00:58:07.020 correct story. So, um, yeah, I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for having me on.

00:58:17.600 I love that conversation. I'm so happy that Lauren joined me on the podcast to talk about

00:58:23.720 this because I just feel like she sat with this story for so long. I couldn't think of anyone

00:58:27.920 better to invite on to help discuss this story and all the weird myths and things that built up

00:58:33.980 about it. I wanted to let you know a couple details, connections of this story to other

00:58:39.440 episodes we've done. When Matoka and John Rolfe went to London for that trip to England to be

00:58:45.120 like hey look how successful we are with tobacco like please invest in our company so king james

00:58:50.960 the first is still the king his wife and of denmark and so they did in fact at one point

00:58:55.560 attend a banquet dinner a mask um party um that was hosted by king james and queen anne so just

00:59:04.480 thinking about all the people we've talked about in that era like francis howard maybe was there

00:59:09.060 like this is the intersection and this is what we're really going to be looking at next season

00:59:14.800 the upcoming season, season seven, is a lot of these intersections between people from the

00:59:19.620 Western hemisphere, from like North and South America with people in Europe, because this is

00:59:24.820 when a lot of this kind of back and forth started happening. Um, Matoka being one of the first

00:59:29.440 indigenous people to ever go to England, but just the fact that she, so many awful things happening

00:59:35.060 to her in her life. And then on top of that, she had to go and attend a dinner party held by James

00:59:40.080 I and Anne of Denmark, like these nightmare people. If you watch Pocahontas 2, the Disney

00:59:46.640 film, which I've not yet watched, but I might, there is a scene where she meets them. So James

00:59:51.620 I and Anne of Denmark are in Pocahontas 2, which is wild to me. Anyway, so what happened to the

00:59:59.540 London company after all of this? So because of the success with growing tobacco, which John Rolfe,

01:00:05.480 When he learned how to cure the tobacco, his tobacco became really successful. So the population boomed in Virginia, although the London company itself was bankrupted in part due to frequent war with nearby indigenous people, which led King James to take direct control of the colony of Virginia.

01:00:25.060 because like these guys like john smith john rolfe like they were just dumb asses they didn't 0.90

01:00:29.680 know what they were doing anyway so following this just to try to populate this region um 0.96

01:00:35.720 the british started shipping over convicts so we've talked before in the podcast and you probably

01:00:42.000 have already heard about how australia the the british colony there started by shipping convicts

01:00:47.760 there but before they shipped convicts to australia they shipped them to america so something like up

01:00:53.820 to 120,000 convicts were eventually shipped over to North America before the American Revolution.

01:00:59.700 And then Britain wasn't able to do that anymore. Meanwhile, so in this Virginia area, like the

01:01:04.820 London Company, like the purpose of this colony was to be merchants, like to grow crops and to

01:01:11.180 make money. So it was very much about making money. And this is what develops into sort of

01:01:15.200 the plantation type economy driven by chattel slavery in the American South. Meanwhile, a bit

01:01:24.800 further north in New England, the Plymouth Council for New England sponsored several colonization

01:01:29.760 projects, including a colony established by a group of English Puritans, aka the Pilgrims.

01:01:35.700 So the Puritans, and this is all the same, like building out of the stuff we've talked about

01:01:40.660 before, especially in the Mary Queen of Scott season with John Knox and Calvinism. So the 0.72

01:01:45.400 Puritans were really into this intensely emotional form of Calvinist Protestantism. They wanted 0.97

01:01:50.460 independence from the Church of England and that's where they went over. So this is like

01:01:53.760 the Mayflower is a famous ship name, transported them over to the New England area. And this is

01:02:00.240 where they established the Plymouth Colony on Cape Cod. And actually these colonists in 1621,

01:02:07.240 the Plymouth Colony was able to establish an alliance with the nearby Wampanoag tribe.

01:02:12.220 I think that might be the story of, quote unquote, the first Thanksgiving. And this helped them. So

01:02:17.020 where Jamestown was constantly at war, having trouble, the Puritans, because of this alliance,

01:02:24.140 they were able to learn effective agricultural practices, and they're able to start doing like

01:02:28.880 fur trade and things. And so I just want to, this is like really laying some track for some

01:02:35.220 other episodes we've coming up in season seven, actually. So just to explain to you how the

01:02:42.560 English came to North America and how kind of America, like the United States of America kind

01:02:48.740 of started out, which was like these kind of dirt bag, like plantation owner, tobacco farmer type

01:02:56.100 people in the South. And then for the North and like New England, it's kind of the Puritans 0.94

01:03:01.900 working out there so it's already kind of like a the north versus the south vibe and it's all

01:03:07.080 kind of different anyway so that's just some for me honestly i'm telling this because i needed to

01:03:12.840 look this a lot for myself to better understand just kind of the history of north america and

01:03:18.340 where does matoka fit into all of this and what like was john smith with the puritans like i was

01:03:23.640 just when i was learning about all this i was sort of confused if you want to hear more about how 0.95

01:03:27.000 john smith sucks uh there's an episode of my patreon uh podcast so this asshole about john 0.97

01:03:34.140 smith and all of his stories about how he went to all these different places and um the daughters of 0.99

01:03:39.780 kings kept being topless and trying to save his life he had some interactions with the bathory 0.99

01:03:46.780 family of transylvania he had an interesting life let's just say john smith a person he sucks and 0.90

01:03:54.000 And he had an interesting life, but not as interesting as he tried to make it seem like

01:03:57.840 in his books. And remember, his writings were sponsored by Francis Howard, not the main

01:04:04.700 Francis Howard we know about on this podcast, but one of the other people also called Francis

01:04:08.220 Howard. Anyway, all these connections. If this is your first episode of Vulgar History you've

01:04:12.160 ever listened to, just know everything starts interrelating in all these intricate ways

01:04:16.840 in the various episodes. So this is Vulgar History. My name is Anne Foster. And so we

01:04:24.400 scored Pocahontas with a 27 on the Scandalicious Scale, the Fredigan Memorial Scandalicious Scale.

01:04:30.140 If you want to see who that makes her be in the neighborhood of, the whole scale is up

01:04:33.880 at vulgarhistory.com. You can look at the scale to see where all the people have talked about

01:04:38.520 on the show, where they all fit, what I find interesting. I was just trying to find people

01:04:42.660 who had a similar scale and she has a 27 and so does Anne of Denmark, who is the queen of England

01:04:49.620 when she went over there. And so this podcast, I want to let you know, if you want to see some

01:04:56.740 other stuff that I'm doing, I have a Substack newsletter now, which is where I write about

01:05:02.580 different people than who I talk about on the podcast. It's sort of a way to, it's just the

01:05:07.180 the vulgar history brand is expanding so if you just go to vulgarhistory.substack.com you can

01:05:12.380 subscribe there for either free or if you want um you can get a paid subscription currently i'm in

01:05:17.140 the midst of doing a series called tutor i hardly knew her where i'm talking about the six wives of

01:05:21.500 henry the eighth and then after that i'm going to talk about some other women from tutor history who

01:05:25.100 have never talked about on this podcast before uh you can support this podcast on patreon patreon.com

01:05:30.440 and foster writer where for one dollar a month you get early ad free access to all the episodes

01:05:35.040 for five dollars or more a month you get early ad free access to all the episodes as well as 0.56

01:05:39.360 bonus episodes like i said to this so this asshole series if you want to hear about how john smith 0.96

01:05:43.440 sucks i also did one about other colonizers i've done hernana cortez christopher columbus 0.95

01:05:49.160 like colonization is such an insidious awful genocidal thing and the fact that it was led by 0.99

01:05:55.360 these just useless dumbasses makes it i don't know there's just a lot to yell about and i do 0.99

01:06:01.480 in those episodes. I also have my bonus Patreon series, Vulgar Peace Theater, where I talk about 0.99

01:06:06.700 costume dramas with Alison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson. Most recently, we've talked about Bill

01:06:11.100 and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which you might not think is a costume drama, but it is. And then

01:06:16.280 also the Brotherhood of the Wolf, which in context with the story of Matoka is interesting because

01:06:21.620 there is a Native American character not played by a Native American actor in that film. And he

01:06:28.660 is very much presented as a mystical magical being so it really ties into that whole sort of

01:06:32.900 stereotype anyway so yeah if you join the patreon for five dollars or more a month you get access to

01:06:37.540 those bonus episodes and there's a big archive of them so if you just like really want to hear me

01:06:41.680 talk you can and also for people who join the patreon at five dollars or more a month i have

01:06:47.020 there's a chat on patreon which is where christy shout out to christy suggested doing an episode

01:06:52.660 about pocahontas and also we have a discord that you can access and join and i i like to hang out

01:06:59.160 there and talk to people and see what everyone's up to anyway if you want to listen to just specific

01:07:03.060 episodes of the patreon episodes like for instance like the john smith episode you can purchase those

01:07:07.800 for just five dollars each without having to like become a monthly patreon member you can just buy

01:07:13.380 an episode if you want to hear that i also want to mention our brand partner common era jewelry

01:07:17.880 This is a 100% woman-owned business that creates beautiful jewelry pieces inspired by the difficult women from history and classical mythology.

01:07:28.440 So there are some overlap in the pieces that they make.

01:07:31.500 There's not a Matoka necklace, although that could be an interesting choice.

01:07:36.800 Tori, if you're listening, consider it.

01:07:38.840 But there are people we've talked about on the podcast like Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn, Agrippina, Boudicca.

01:07:44.960 The jewelry is beautiful and they also have other accessories you can buy.

01:07:50.180 Like there's some beautiful like hair bows, scrunchies and things.

01:07:54.040 And you can always get 15% off anything from Common Era by going to commonera.com slash vulgar or using code vulgar at checkout.

01:08:04.240 Commonera.com slash vulgar or using code vulgar.

01:08:07.240 If you want to buy Vulgar History merch, it's available at vulgarhistory.com slash store.

01:08:11.160 or if you're outside the US, you can also shop at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com. If you want to

01:08:16.480 get in touch with me, you can. There's a form at vulgarhistory.com. You can email me directly,

01:08:21.800 vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com. I'm also on Instagram at vulgarhistorypod, and my DMs are

01:08:28.080 open there if you want to get in touch with me there as well. Transcripts of recent episodes

01:08:32.060 are available at vulgarhistory.com. Thank you to Aveline Malek for providing these transcripts.

01:08:36.660 And until next time, oh, I was going to tell you, I've started doing these teasers. Next week,

01:08:41.940 we're going to be talking more about Indigenous people of North America, specifically Canada,

01:08:48.380 specifically near where I live in Saskatchewan. So stay tuned for that next week. And until then,

01:08:53.940 keep your pants on and your tits out. 0.99

01:08:58.640 Folger History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina Lumagi. 0.99

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Vulgar History - April 10, 2024

The Real Story Of Pocahontas (Whose Name Was Actually Matoaka)

Episode Stats

Transcript