Within the historical novel, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, Camila Townsend engenders/recounts the complexity that is the story of Pocahontas and Native Americans within the Americas’, during their horrid enslavement and colonization from the Europeans (specifically the Spanish). Though Townsend’s text is not a primary source, the credibility and importance of the novel is nonetheless very crucial regarding, exclaiming the ‘true’ story of the powerful Pocahontas and the Powhatan. Townsend makes it crisp/clear that depictions of Pocahontas within contemporary society, often romanticized, are far from the actuality of what was experienced, endured, forced, and tortured onto not just Pocahontas but Native Americans (being exploited) as a whole. Through a diverse encompassment of sources, Townsend embeds such advantage to further move away from the Disney/gentrified image
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Most perceptions embraced by Europeans, Americans, and seemingly most of the world, about Pocahontas are to a full extent a myth rather than a reality. Pocahontas has often been perceived as a prisoner and hostage, Townsend clarifies that “misrepresentation has often failed to grant Pocahontas any real control over her own behavior” (Camila Townsend, 118) Evidently, such portrayal of the young Native American girl (‘girl’ utilized considering Pocahontas was only 14 when kidnapped) enforces a sexist/racist image open for direct objectification. Moreover, many historians allude to the idea that Pocahontas “had no independent agendas and desires of her own and that she worshipped unquestioningly the white male figures of [their] legends” (Townsend, 118) Townsend criticizes such conclusions as it further infiltrates the lens of Pocahontas, as previously mentioned, as depriving “her of a the full range of human feelings and reactions” (Townsend, 118). Hence, why it was stated that many portrayals of Pocahontas, at least
Most perceptions embraced by Europeans, Americans, and seemingly most of the world, about Pocahontas are to a full extent a myth rather than a reality. Pocahontas has often been perceived as a prisoner and hostage, Townsend clarifies that “misrepresentation has often failed to grant Pocahontas any real control over her own behavior” (Camila Townsend, 118) Evidently, such portrayal of the young Native American girl (‘girl’ utilized considering Pocahontas was only 14 when kidnapped) enforces a sexist/racist image open for direct objectification. Moreover, many historians allude to the idea that Pocahontas “had no independent agendas and desires of her own and that she worshipped unquestioningly the white male figures of [their] legends” (Townsend, 118) Townsend criticizes such conclusions as it further infiltrates the lens of Pocahontas, as previously mentioned, as depriving “her of a the full range of human feelings and reactions” (Townsend, 118). Hence, why it was stated that many portrayals of Pocahontas, at least