13. Pocahontas Never Had a Relationship With John Smith
In the Disney version of Pocahontas, she is a grown woman who falls in love with John Smith. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Pocahontas was somewhere between the ages of 9 and 11 years old when John Smith first met the Powhatan tribe, and he was 27 years old. He also terrorized the villages by sneaking into people’s houses at night and holding guns to their heads, demanding that they give him supplies. John Smith was eventually arrested for attempted murder and kept prisoner. It only makes sense that Smith portrayed himself as the hero of the story, rather than a criminal who was trying to steal from innocent people.
Pocahontas’ father only agreed to work together with John Smith when the Spanish began to attack the Powhatan tribe. Since Spain was a common enemy, they were able to work together to fight them off. Chief Wahunsenaca declared that John Smith was the chief of the white men, and they began to live in peace.
John Smith wrote that young Pocahontas would bring food to the settlers and that she would play together with the children of English settlers. But this is also likely to be a lie. She lived 12 miles away from Jamestown, and they were divided by a large river. She would have had to disobey her father’s wishes and would have likely spent days traveling back and forth, on top of carrying a canoe to cross the river.