Who is Pocahontas?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:40

This week we are shining a light on one of the most famous individuals in American history, and perhaps the most famous individual in Native American history, thanks to a certain Disney movie.

Her journey begins by the Chesapeake Bay and according to some, ended in gravesend, just a few miles from my home, actually, in Southeast England, where a statue still stands in her honour. But today we're going to explore her life and see separate some of the myths from the reality. As I ask, who is Pocahontas?

Welcome to America, a history podcast.

I'm Niam Heffernan and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is today. To discuss this, I am joined by the author of Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma.

She is also a distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University and is one of the world's foremost scholars on Native American history. Her work has vastly improved our understanding of Native people. So it's a real privilege to welcome Camilla Townsend.

Camilla Townsend: 00:02:06

Oh, thank you so much. It's an honour to be here.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:08

It's really, really great to have you on the podcast and I guess a sort of behind the scenes look for anyone listening. We've been talking about this for. It must have been about a year and a half now when we first made contact.

So I'm really excited to finally do this episode.

Camilla Townsend: 00:02:23

I am too.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:25

Let's just kick off by setting some expectations because as I mentioned in the intro to this podcast, I think most people's understanding of Pocahontas will probably come from the Disney movie. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how closely is her real story going to resemble that?

Camilla Townsend: 00:02:44

Probably a one or a two. Disney didn't get absolutely everything wrong, but they didn't get a lot right either.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:50

Yeah, I think there's probably a whole other episode in why that movie is problematic, but problematic in some ways, but.

Camilla Townsend: 00:02:58

Not in all ways. I'm sure we'll talk about it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:00

I'm sure we will. Yeah.

But yeah, I guess for anyone listening whose entire understanding of Pocahontas is based on that film, I guess there might be some things that surprise them in the discussion we're going to have.

Camilla Townsend: 00:03:12

I think so.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:14

Yeah. So let's start at the very beginning and talk about her early life. What do we know about that?

Camilla Townsend: 00:03:21

that she was born in the late: 1590

He had inherited some power through his mother and some through his father because some tribes were matrilineal and some were patrilineal. And then he had banded together these tribes whose chieftainships he had inherited. And made war against his neighbors.

So that by the time she was born, by the time Pocahontas appeared on Earth, he. Her father, Powhatan was his name, was chief over about 30 tribes. So she was the daughter of an important man.

On the other hand, we have reason to believe that her mother was, in effect, a prisoner wife. A wife who had been taken in one of the wars. We know that the girl Pocahontas was not anybody terribly important.

Pocahontas and her father actually refer in written records to her more important sisters born to royal wives. So she would not have been considered a princess, but rather the daughter of one of her father's women.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:25

And what I think is really interesting about that is when we focus on conflicts around Native American tribes, We tend to think about conflict between Native Americans and settlers. But actually, from what you've just said, there was also a lot of conflicts between Native American tribes.

Camilla Townsend: 00:04:43

Absolutely. And in fact, I think that is something people often miss.

When Pocahontas father, Powhatan, was dealing with the English, he was always dealing with his own arms race, so to speak, that is, his own wars or potential wars against his neighbors. And was always thinking about his own power in a local sense.

Far more than he was at first thinking about his relations with these newcomers who were not expected to stay very long. Spaniards and even some English had been tootling around that coast for quite a while, camping here, trading there, attacking occasionally.

He didn't expect this to be a long term problem.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:21

And so Pocahontas being, I guess, one of the lesser important siblings in the family. What was her upbringing like and what sort of character did she have?

Camilla Townsend: 00:05:34

Well, we know that she would have worked even though her father was the High King, so to speak, because everybody worked.

That is, you couldn't live in a partially hunter gatherer, partially agricultural society and not work leading warriors, spent part of their time gathering food.

So she would have been, like all the girls in her world, someone who knew what her role was and who was expected to do it and who did it, you know, without complaints and without question. In terms of her personality, it's hard to get a sense in that.

We don't have any diaries or letters, but we do have everything that the English wrote down about her. Because they interacted quite a bit with her after they arrived. And it is very clear that she had quite the personality.

They talk about somersaults and what do you call it, cartwheels that kids are always doing. And she clearly learned languages very quickly. She learned quite a bit of English rather rapidly. So she was a smart, eager, active young thing.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:30

Thinking about her tribe more broadly, what was the culture and in particular, what were the sort of expectations of women in the tribe?

Camilla Townsend: 00:06:39

Women were, in effect, equals. That is to say, it was understood that the sexes were complementary, that men needed women and women needed men.

You know, if you had an argument a man couldn't go and leave his kids with the daycare or buy food at McDonald's, everything that the woman did for the tribe was just as essential as hunting and fighting. There were no alternatives. On the other hand, in a society that is actively warring, warriors and men will have somewhat more power.

So again, I would say. I think I did use the word equal a minute or two ago and I shouldn't have. I also said complementary. Complementary is more technically correct.

Equal means that their roles are the same or that they are understood to have the same potential futures. And of course, that would be nonsense. In their worldview.

Women took care of the crops and took care of the children and took care of the cooking, and men took care of hunting and making war. So they were understood to be different.

But again, we mustn't fall into a sort of modern trap of thinking that men's roles were understood to be more important and that women, anyone who chose to stay home, quote unquote, was in some way a loser. This would be ridiculous. They were understood to be. Women were understood to be equally important in that sense, equal.

So she certainly would not have had any kind inferiority complex. She wouldn't have been embattled on that level. She would never have thought, why can't I be the chief? Nothing like that.

Nobody thought in those terms. It wasn't a world of individualism for the guys either. Everybody played their part and kept the society going in that way.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:15

It's interesting because there's a sort of stereotype of Native Americans that, or certainly there was when the settlers arrived, that Native Americans were the barbarians. They were the ones who, you know, lived a simpler life.

But actually, from all the discussions I've had on the podcast since, and from what you've just said, there's an immense respect for the land and for each other, and that really is reflected in the way that they lived and worked.

Camilla Townsend: 00:08:45

Yes, I think psychiatrists and psychologists would tend to agree that their attitudes were or healthier. They hadn't gotten caught up in the way Western civilization had you know, sort of since the Middle Ages and the ideas of good and evil.

They understood that sometimes people did bad things and that bad things happened, obviously, but they didn't think that some people had a monopoly on those bad things and others had a monopoly on those good things. They, they understood that each of us is always trying to figure out what is the right thing to do and trying to get ourselves to do the right thing.

And that this is sometimes a struggle. Had a much more sort of postmodern understanding of the human psyche than Westerners have until quite recently.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:22

So when we talk about the relationship between the Powhatan people and the colonists, firstly, to put this in sort of context, what age was Pocahontas at the time that they first met the British colonists?

Camilla Townsend: 00:09:36

. When the British arrived in: 1607

The Disney movie, one of its most basic inaccuracies is that they present her, of course, as this beautiful young woman ready to jump into a relationship when in fact we're talking about a child.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:57

Then I guess that sort of maybe in line with a broader kind of cultural turning a blind eye to what it used to be like sort of several hundred years ago when women were generally a lot younger, when they were not even courted by men, but sort of married off to men. Right.

Camilla Townsend: 00:10:13

Yes. Well, it's quite interesting. John Smith was later accused of having made moves on sexual moves on Pocahontas when he knew her.

Not that they were worried about sexual harassment or child abuse, but rather he was accused of having tried to do this in order to marry her, this probably nine year old child, so that he could then become very powerful because he would be married to the king's daughter.

And he who had been there for some time and had spoken to the poet and Indians, said quite rightly in his own defense, even if I had done that, and he stopped and said, maybe I did paw her a little bit when I was in my cups, when I was drinking, but if I had had any idea of marrying her and thereby gaining power, I would have been nuts. Because she wasn't really the important daughter, she was just the daughter of some woman.

So he actually understood the situation, but in acknowledging that he also gave away that he had harassed her. And she expresses some rage to him and about him later on when she is an adult and sees him in London.

So he was treating her a 9 year old, maybe 10 by the time he left, as if she were older than she was now, as you say, it Was wrong. But as you say, there was a different understanding of what was okay then and when a girl might be expected to marry or to enter into relationships.

Liam Heffernan: 00:11:42

Yeah.

And I guess it's really important to sort of understand it in the context of its time because, you know, by our standards, obviously, that's horrific. But perhaps wasn't seen as immediately as wrong back then.

Camilla Townsend: 00:11:55

Right. Although we are not to understand that she liked it. She expressed real rage to him later. So.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:00

Yeah, yeah, of course. Right. So thinking about the relationship between the Powhatan and the British people, what was that like?

Camilla Townsend: 00:12:10

When they first arrived, there was constant skirmishing. Various members of the Powhatan Confederacy were interested in trading with the newcomers and others just wanted them to go away.

Powhatan as high chief, her father ruled over all of these people, but that didn't mean that he had total control over them. They each had their own chief and they had different agendas.

Those who were closest to the place where the Jamestown colonists were settling were least comfortable having them there.

And those who were at a greater distance were more interested in keeping them as trade partners because they didn't expect to have to deal with them on a daily basis. So some people, some of the indigenous people were reaching out sort of, you know, with raising white flags, so to speak.

Others were attacking the English and likewise sometimes.

And I say English because most of them were English, but I should say the British because, as you know, there were some Scots and Irish involved and some Welsh. So sometimes they behaved quite well. At other times they grabbed local girls. So they were constantly in a state of sort of low grade warfare.

Eventually John Smith, who was not the head of the colony, just a member, went up the river to try to the James river to try to trade for food because they were running out of food. And, you know, he was making all sorts of signs that he was peaceful, but his little boat was attacked and actually at least one guy was killed.

He was taken prisoner.

And it's in that period, while he lives as a prisoner at Werowocomoco, the poet and capital, so to speak, their leading village, that he comes to know Pocahontas. And she, because she learns languages quite quickly, is put to trying to teach him some of their language and learning some English from him.

He lives with them for a number of weeks before they take him back to the settlement, thinking, now we have him as our intermediary, we'll deliver him back to the English. Not long after, he suffers a major accident, Major burns from some gunpowder and actually returns to England There was no marriage with Pocahontas.

With. She did not marry Po. She did not marry Captain John Smith. He left when she was still a girl.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:23

Yeah. And I think that's a common misconception, probably because of how it was sort of told in the film.

The Pocahontas and John Smith fell in love in America and then moved back to the UK for a better life. And by the sounds of it, and quite understandably, relationships were a lot more hostile than that.

Camilla Townsend: 00:14:45

Yeah. In fact, after John Smith was gone, the English decided to violently kidnap Pocahontas. They wanted any sort of chiefly family members.

This was something that the Spaniards had often done, kidnap leading members of indigenous communities so that they could become intermediaries. And one of their captains, a Captain Samuel Argall, was lucky enough to come across her when she was visiting in a. Another village and kidnapped her.

And so she lived as a prisoner among the English for a year before she did in fact, eventually marry an Englishman, one John Rolfe, one of the colonists whose own wife had recently died. But this was long after John Smith.

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:23

Was gone, going back to the days when Pocontus was still in America. That time when John Smith was being taught by her and was. Was in their settlement, was that the first time that they'd met?

Camilla Townsend: 00:15:39

As far as we know, and almost certainly, yes. Later she came to the fort, the colony, the Jamestown fort, a number of times as a visitor.

But at that point it was almost certainly true that she wouldn't have been to the fort, nor would John Smith. Nor would John Smith have had reason to come across her.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:00

Yeah. So then what was the series of events that led to Pocahontas then being kidnapped?

Because as you've already pointed out, she wasn't the most important daughter. And it just seems like what was the incentive there?

Camilla Townsend: 00:16:15

Why did they choose her? Right. If they were trying to copy the Spaniards and choosing important people. So again, John Smith was gone. They were trying.

The remaining British colonists were trying to both intimidate the Indians, but then also by being violent towards them, but then also establish peace. Their policies were rather contradictory.

And they received orders actually from the head of the Virginia Company over in England that they should attempt to kidnap important people if they could. And one of the few people whom they knew was Pocahontas, because she had made those visits to the fort.

And then it was really pure luck, pure coincidence that Samuel Argall came across her.

A captain of a ship came across her when she was visiting people up near today's Washington D.C. actually, some relatives who Lived up near the Potomac, on the Potomac River. So it wasn't as if they said, let's go out and get Pocahontas. They just said, as possible, let us kidnap important people.

Then they came across her, and she seemed like a good candidate to them. They didn't know. John Smith knew the difference between her and the. And princesses.

People who were royal on both sides, but most of the English didn't. They knew her. That's probably partly why she was willing to come onto the ship. That she knew them a little bit.

But then they grabbed her and took her, we don't think in chains, we don't think it was necessary. But took her by force back to Jamestown. And then later kept her in a house in Henrico, another settlement that they had.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:46

Was there maybe an element of expendability with Pocahontas. Because the other daughters were seen as more important.

That actually it was quite strategic for her to be the one to be the mediator between them and the British. Because if something did happen, you know, that's interesting.

Camilla Townsend: 00:18:02

Certainly her people had not sent her to be kidnapped. So it wasn't on purpose. But once she had been kidnapped and was a prisoner of the English. The fact that she wasn't quite such an important daughter.

May well have affected events. You're not wrong. So, for example, while she was still a prisoner.

The English took her upriver towards Werowocomoco, her father's village almost, let us say, figuratively speaking. With a gun to her head or a sword to her throat. The idea was that she would be a very visible, very vulnerable hostage.

And they would say to her father when she was there on the river, within eyesight of the village, she's in danger unless you make a peace with us. At that very moment, John Rolfe, a colonist who some say had helped to teach her English.

That may be true, although we can't be sure, proposed marriage. And we know that's true because we still have the letter that he wrote to Thomas Dale, the then governor of the colony.

In which he said, I know you're going to think this is pure lust. That I want to marry a savage who has not even become a Christian yet. Because she had militantly refused to convert.

But I swear it is more than just lust. I really have come to care about her. And the kids will be raised Christian. And this will serve a lot of goals if I marry her.

So they sent messengers to her father, who said, sure, this is a great idea. She should go ahead and marry this guy.

Now, it was true that it was very normal for the daughters and younger sisters of chiefs to marry with the enemy. This would not have been an unfamiliar pattern to him. It was very common. In fact, her own mother may have been a sort of forced wife like that.

On the other hand, had she been a leading daughter whom he really wanted for his own internal power structures at home, he might not have said yes. But she was, as you say, somewhat expendable. If things went awry with her, she was a daughter. Daughter he could live without.

That might well have explained why. He rather easily said, sure, sent the message back. Interestingly, she then converted to Christianity within three days and then married a week later.

So her conversion, which has often been touted as something that she wanted to do, she loved Englishmen, actually, was very clearly part of the marriage bargain. She accepts her husband to be his God and then she marries him a few days later. And these are documented facts.

We know when she converted, which minister did it, you know, when she married, where she married, etc.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:33

Yeah. And remind me, did they marry in the US and then.

Camilla Townsend: 00:20:36

Oh, yes, this. All of this was still happening in Virginia. Absolutely.

It was only two years later that she and her husband, John Rolfe, received an invitation from the Virginia Company to come to England and serve as a sort of walking advertisement.

Their marriage had been going well enough, and a sort of tentative peace had been made in the wake of the marriage so that they had good news to share with potential investors over in England. So, yes, all of this was still happening very much in the Americas.

John Rolfe had some tobacco seeds that he had gotten from someone who had been to South America, and they became tobacco farmers right there in Virginia after they married.

Liam Heffernan: 00:21:18

Wow. So how long had Pocahontas and John Rolfe known each other before they married?

Camilla Townsend: 00:21:24

as kidnapped in the spring of: 1613

So somewhere during that year, judging from his letter, I would say a minimum of months. This letter was not written about someone that he'd only known for days or weeks. He clearly did really love her.

What she felt about him we cannot really know, but I would say she was not unhappy with him.

If she had been literally just sort of a rape victim dragged around by her hair, the Virginia Company would not have wanted her to go over to England as a walking advertisement. So something must have been passable. Her husband actually wrote, not about the marriage particularly, but he said about her people.

And I would bet he was talking about her partly, too. They have a certain joy about them.

And no matter how many times I tell them how to be a good Christian, they just keep doing whatever they want to do. I'm changing the quotation a little bit here, but as he put it, walking headlong, yea, with joy, into the arms of the devil.

I think that's an exact quote. So we have every reason to think that she continued to kind of do what she wanted to do.

We know there were other poet and people living on the farm with them. She was not, you know, entirely at the mercy of John Rolfe.

And judging from the letter and the things he said about her, he clearly did really care about her. So I think it is likely that she was happy enough, let's put it that way. I won't speculate about whether she loved him or not.

Liam Heffernan: 00:22:52

Yeah, of course. But presumably at this point, she was still just a teenage girl.

Camilla Townsend: 00:22:56

hink she was born in the late: 1590

So let us say she was a minimum of 15, you know, probably a bit older than that, probably 16, 17.

Liam Heffernan: 00:23:12

So it's possible then that, you know, she was. It's not like she went there willingly.

So perhaps she was smart enough to understand that, you know, this was a situation that she could make the most of. And I can't imagine it was a willing marriage so much as a compliant one. Right?

Camilla Townsend: 00:23:30

Yes. Right. And yet sometimes even compliant marriages work out to some extent. As you say, she was making the most of it.

She would have understood very clearly all of her life that the daughters and sisters of chiefs sometimes marry with the enemy. And the whole point is to make it go well so that you can have peace and things can get better.

It was a way of becoming someone important to her people. And remember, she hadn't been a terribly important daughter before, so this had a possibility of working for her, too.

I mean, in the long run, I would argue that it did not, but we will get to that later. But certainly at first, we have no reason to think she was unhappy.

It makes no sense for the Virginia Company to have paid for her to come to England with her little boy who had been born, if she was clearly miserable, clearly a prisoner. You don't bring a prisoner in chains out as an advertisement about how well things are going. That just doesn't add up.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:26

How did John Rolfe treat Pocahontas relative to how husbands treated their wives back.

Camilla Townsend: 00:24:32

Then, well, again, we can't know for sure.

But I keep coming back to this comment that he made in his later writings, that these indigenous people whom he had known, and that would be his wife and her friends and relatives just keep joyfully running headlong, yay. Into the very arms of the devil.

In other words, my sense is that he was fighting, finding it impossible to control them, but he wasn't in these writings. He wasn't particularly bitter about this. One doesn't get a sense of someone who is slapping people around and yelling and screaming.

I think just feeling rather overwhelmed as he realizes how different they are.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:07

Yeah. I mean, and as she said, it seemed like there were genuine feelings of love towards Pocahontas.

Camilla Townsend: 00:25:13

The letter certainly indicates. I mean, he admits that it's lust, too, although he says, but it's not only that.

And that just the way he describes her, I think he did care about her. I really do.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:23

And how many children did they have together?

Camilla Townsend: 00:25:26

Only Thomas. They went off to England then when he was barely two years old. And she dies over there, as you say, at Gravesend, not long after.

So there wasn't time to have any more.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:39

Yeah. So what happened when they did arrive in Britain? Where did they live and what sort of life did she have?

Camilla Townsend: 00:25:45

Right. They stayed at an inn in London and that later made its way into various plays.

They went to a masque and saw the King and Queen, and that made its way into several diaries at the time. We know, though, that she wasn't terribly happy.

She was probably being hit from very early on with the many microbes in Europe that she had never been exposed to, because at a certain point, after a few months, we're not sure exactly when, they secured lodgings out in the countryside, which they felt would be better for her health and the health of the members of her party. We also know that she wasn't terribly happy because at one point she met with John Smith.

And both he and other observers agree that she was enraged at him, saying that he had lied to them, her people, and treated them badly. I suppose he had promised them that all would be well. And, of course, in fact, things were not going well for the indigenous people.

The British colonists were not behaving well. We don't have detailed quotes, except that she said, you and your countrymen do lie much, you know, do meaning tell untruths.

So it's interesting to me that rather than saying, oh, my old friend John Smith, she is recorded as having gone into a real rage and spat forth a great deal of feeling.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:01

Yeah. And just that language of, you know, addressing them as you. And, you know, your people suggest that she never fully acclimatized her life as.

As a Brit. She always still identified fully as a Native American.

Camilla Townsend: 00:27:13

Oh, absolutely.

In fact, they had an ingredient done of her when she was still living at the inn in London so that they could sell it, make it like a souvenir to prove how well the Virginia Company was doing. And around the edge of the image of her, there's a ribbon of words.

And rather than saying that she was Rebecca, you know, wife of John Rolfe, something like that, it says that she's Matoka, this daughter of a Powhatan, who was the king of Tsenokomoco, which is the name in their language of the region that he ruled. Well, the English wouldn't have described her that way with those names. They wouldn't even known the name of his kingdom as Tsenacomoko.

They would have said Virginia. So who was insisting on what she be called and who she was? That had to be Pocahontas herself.

And she's describing herself with these words in her own people's language as her father's daughter. So, yeah, I have no reason to think that she ever thought she had become British or ever wanted to, frankly.

In fact, one British charity organization gave them money to help them convert more Indians when they got back.

And the instruction she gave to John Rolfe for his answer was, okay, we'll accept the money, but you must understand, it is as much a thank you gift for anything that has already happened as it is a promise for the future. By no means were they willing to swear to force more Indians to become Christians. This was very clear in the. In the thank you that they wrote.

So I don't think she was thinking of herself as a terribly devout Christian, and I don't think she was thinking of herself as British.

Liam Heffernan: 00:28:42

It almost plays into the narrative, though, that the British wanted to spin by sort of holding her up as an example of how, you know, we all love each other, really, and we're not trying to force anything on them. You know, we can all be ourselves and happy and live together. You know, it's almost. There's an irony there, right?

Camilla Townsend: 00:28:58

Absolutely. I mean, that's exactly the image they wanted to portray.

That's why they brought her, dressed her up, you know, had the engraving done, took her to these various events and etc. At one point, she was speaking to the Bishop of London.

I mean, it was a real promotional tour along the lines of the very ideas you've just described, what she was thinking, what her reasons for being there were, and what she was thinking, I think were quite different. A couple of her father's advisors, including a man named Udamaramakan, were there, I think really as sort of on a fact finding mission, if you will.

Because once they got back to Virginia, because they did not all die.

She did, and several others died there at Gravesend, but several others went back to Virginia and this Uttamaramakan in particular complained a great deal about the English, their behavior, what their plans were, etc. So we have no reason to think that either Pocahontas or the people in her party were truly complacent or compliant.

They were there for their own reasons, finding out what they could, and had their own people's interests at heart.

But the English or the Brits in general could imagine, could fantasize that all was well and that the Indians, of course, wanted whatever the Brits wanted.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:03

Yeah, easy. Easy to paint that picture when you're thousands of miles away, right across the ocean.

So you said that Pocahontas didn't live very long once she arrived in Britain. What were the circumstances around her death?

Camilla Townsend: 00:30:17

It's very sad. So they were there for a year and then they left very suddenly.

It seems like from the evidence that we have, it looks like they were trying to get her home because she was sick and she really wanted to go home.

So they got on the ship in London and were partway down the Thames and then stopped at Gravesend because she and a number of the people in her party were sick. Nobody exactly described the illness.

And so some people have assumed that it was some sort of intestinal bug, but it couldn't have been because weeks later several of them were still, still were said to be still, you know, nursing the effects or still under the effects of the illness. This is clearly some sort of flu or lung ailment because as you know, intestinal bugs go through quickly and then you die or you don't die.

And it makes more sense too that since there was discussion of her being ill and needing to go back, that they were struggling with, you know, ongoing bronchial conditions.

So at Gravesend they decide that she's so sick she needs to, to get off the boat and they go to an inn there at Gravesend, which was right near the church that is still there.

I have been there and you know, she was buried, I think, under the chancery, although later that was all dug up and we don't know now where her bones are. But the entry about her death and funeral is still there in the church records. Anyone who goes can. Can see it.

There is a myth that was started that she said as she lay dying, I don't mind, you know, dying for my husband's peace people, it's enough that the child liveth. There is no comment anywhere to that effect.

However, one Englishman did say that her father said when they brought him the news many months later that he could handle her death. You know, people do die. And that he said, tis enough that her child liveth and that he really wanted to see the child.

And that would have been a very, very indigenous thing to say. The family continues, bring me my grandchild. Right.

So I think she would have been only experiencing the horror that any 20 or 21 year old or maybe even 18 year old, we're not sure exactly, would experience as she lies dying with her lungs filling, knowing that she's unlikely now to live to see her people.

Liam Heffernan: 00:32:32

Yeah, it's very sad.

Camilla Townsend: 00:32:34

It was very sad. Yeah.

Liam Heffernan: 00:32:36

What happens to Thomas?

Camilla Townsend: 00:32:38

Great question. So John Rolfe wasn't sure what to do. They were still there for, you know, a couple of weeks because so many in their party had this horrible flu.

And he did write that he felt that he couldn't take the child with him because the child's nurses, meaning those, you know, the indigenous servants who were there to take care of them, were themselves still so sick with this lung ailment. So he sent the child, we don't know with whom, probably some English servant to his brother.

And Thomas was raised in England by John Rolfe's brother and his wife. He went to Virginia. As soon as he attained his majority at age 21, he sailed off to Virginia, but he had meanwhile grown up in England.

John Rolfe, on the other hand, did return right away.

Well, right away, a couple weeks later, after they had straightened out what they were going to do, he did return and he later remarried, but he died rather young, as many, many colonists did over in Virginia.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:38

Yeah. And I guess, you know, the mortality rate was a lot younger than now.

Camilla Townsend: 00:33:42

Right, right. Yeah.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:44

Before we bring this to a close, I think we have to address the elephant in the room.

And we've touched on the Disney film already, but I'm keen to understand how this has damaged our understanding, you know, of Pocahontas and of Native American tribes more broadly.

Camilla Townsend: 00:34:01

Right. You know, in some ways, the movie did a lot of good. You won't remember this and many of your listeners won't, but I'm an old lady, and I do.

And really, anyone sort of over 40 would remember that in the old days, it was understood, it was imagined, that Pocahontas just loved Englishmen more than she loved her own people, and that good Indians were just dying to throw in their lots with the English. You know, the myth that she. She didn't mind dying in England because it was for her husband, blah, blah, blah.

So in some ways, the Disney movie did a great deal of good by saying, that's nonsense. She had her own culture and her own people and her own love. And it was a beautiful, wonderful and compelling culture in that way. It was very helpful.

And many young Native American girls, children to this day love watching that movie because it's a movie that makes them feel like they're someone and they have a history and they're beautiful. So it's not all bad.

The problem is that the movie makers, I think, in the 90s, were so keen to show Indigenous people as strong and as proud of their culture that they forgot about the other part of the story, that it was hellish, that they were going through a terrible cataclysm, that disease was striking, that the English were fighting them in terrible and violent attacks, and that the people were gradually losing and being driven from their homes, from further inland into Virginia, away from the rivers. None of that is even alluded to in the story of the film. You're given no understanding of what the indigenous people were really going through.

It's a kind of beautiful, sanitized version of the. Of the meeting with white men. There's a little bit of struggle, but the idea is they're going to learn to get along and all will be well. And that's.

That elides all the pain and agony that they were experiencing, including Pocahontas.

Liam Heffernan: 00:35:48

Do you think so, playing devil's advocate a bit here.

Do you think that the historical accuracies in the Disney film are offset, at least partially, by the fact that they at least got the conversation started and got more people interested in Native American history?

Camilla Townsend: 00:36:02

I do. I do. I. I actually think it is, as a film, an excellent film. And as I said, many young Indigenous girls grow up feeling better for that movie.

Now, others, especially activists, would argue, oh, no.

Even on that level, it's no good, because it assumes that all Indigenous girls must be buxom, with long, gorgeous hair and sort of sexually interested in white men. These are very damaging stereotypes, and there's an element of truth to that, too.

But I would say that life is complicated and symbols and the Human imagination is very complicated.

And if lots of young Native American girls, children, are telling me and telling people who have studied this question that they loved that movie and that it made them feel like someone, then I would say that's worth something. And as you say, it got a lot of people interested. Many of my students come to my classes because they loved that movie as a child.

So if it gets a conversation going and opens interest, I think that's probably much more a good thing than a bad thing.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:03

And, I mean, I'm not going to throw too much credit Disney's way, but I think there's something a tiny bit noble about the fact that they sort of put themselves on the wrong side of that conversation just for the sake, I guess, of getting people interested in that conversation to begin with.

Camilla Townsend: 00:37:17

Right. You know, it's funny, there were quite a few good movies made in the 90s along those very lines.

As you say, they threw themselves into the conversation, even if they ended up taking the wrong role, so to speak, and got a lot of conversations going. There's another one called the Last of the Mohicans, which, again, problematic but really quick, got a lot of people thinking. And you.

You wouldn't find people doing that now, you know, 25 to 30 years later. It's. It's frankly too politically dangerous. It's too complicated now to risk taking the wrong view of something. So I hear what you're saying.

There's something good about that moment when people were truly interested in the other, so to speak, in people's cultures who were different and were unafraid to just try out various points of view. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:04

Yeah. And of course, you know, things.

Things are, you know, linear to an extent, and we wouldn't be where we are today, and we wouldn't be at a point of political, you know, correctness that we are today without going on that journey. Right.

Camilla Townsend: 00:38:17

I absolutely agree. In fact, that's exactly how I talk to my students. If we don't like something that gets said. Think about what they were talking about at that time.

You know, at that time, they were addressing the whole idea that Pocahontas just blindly fell in love with white men. So it was a great step forward to have her say, whoa, who are you, an Englishman? To tell me what to think and feel. Right.

I mean, she says that in the film, in not so many words. That was an important step forward. And we have to look at sort of the international ongoing conversation in that way.

In any one generation, we say, what needs to be said then. Exactly.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:54

And so, all things considered, what do you think Pocahontas legacy is today and how is she remembered?

Camilla Townsend: 00:39:02

Sadly, some people still think of her as the Indian girl who loved white men.

And I wish that were not the case because I think that what we should focus on is the extraordinary courage, sort of dexterity and savvy with which she and her peers approached an incredibly difficult and sometimes even horrific situation. She really was an extraordinary person, a language learner, a diplomat, in some ways, an activist on behalf of her people.

She was doing it all as a teenager in very terrifying circumstances. And we should remember that and give her some credit and not just think of her really ever as the girl who married the white boy, you know?

Liam Heffernan: 00:39:53

Yeah, it's a great note to end on, and we've only really just gotten started on fully understanding Pocahontas, but, I mean, I can't urge our listeners enough to check out your book on that, which I'll link to on the Show Notes if anyone wants to learn more. Camilla, thank you so much for joining me for this episode.

It's been fascinating and it's been a long time coming, but an episode that I think was incredibly important to do. So I can't thank you enough.

Camilla Townsend: 00:40:19

Thank you. It's been a joy.

Liam Heffernan: 00:40:20

Yeah, thank you. And if anyone wants to connect with you following this, where can they do that?

Camilla Townsend: 00:40:25

I have an email address that's easily accessible at Rutgers University. If you just look up Camilla Townsend and Rutgers University, you will find me online.

Liam Heffernan: 00:40:34

Excellent. Thank you. And for anyone who cares to connect with me, you can just search for my name and I'll pop up on various social media platforms.

And if you enjoy the podcast, please remember to leave us a rating and a review. And. And if you follow the show, all future episodes will appear in your feed as well.

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