History of Virginia: Fact vs. Fiction
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.
J. K. Rowling
When the name John Smith has been heard the brain automatically replays the epic love story of a dashing and brave Englishman and his beautiful and spiritual Native American love. In the story Smith is nearly killed by the chief of Pocahontas’s tribe, who incidentally happens to be the girl’s father. Pocahontas then endangers her own life and risks her father’s wrath by jumping in front of the executioner for her hero and thus begins an epic story that inspired not one, but two Disney movies. The truth though is that so much of the story, the true story of Pocahontas has been manipulated and …show more content…
(Tratner, 131) Smith later amended his story in 1624 when he wrote Generall Historie of Virginia, after the death of the famed Pocahontas, whose real name was Mataoka, which Smith wrote about the dramatic save Pocahontas provided him with. Smith’s story was in doubt even then with only two of the colonists supporting the story and his only proof at the time was a missing letter to Queen Anne about the rescue. (Tremblay, …show more content…
Smith did his part in quelling the colonists of Jamestown and he helped to map the lay of the land helping others who followed after him to find their own ways. Perhaps Smith was not correctly depicted in Pocahontas in that he was never in love with the Princess, but he was correctly depicted in being a swashbuckling adventurer who believed heartily in King and Country. John Smith is an icon because he embodies the spirit of the New World, with all the passions and rages and tall tales that made a newly found continent into a whole New
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.
J. K. Rowling
When the name John Smith has been heard the brain automatically replays the epic love story of a dashing and brave Englishman and his beautiful and spiritual Native American love. In the story Smith is nearly killed by the chief of Pocahontas’s tribe, who incidentally happens to be the girl’s father. Pocahontas then endangers her own life and risks her father’s wrath by jumping in front of the executioner for her hero and thus begins an epic story that inspired not one, but two Disney movies. The truth though is that so much of the story, the true story of Pocahontas has been manipulated and …show more content…
(Tratner, 131) Smith later amended his story in 1624 when he wrote Generall Historie of Virginia, after the death of the famed Pocahontas, whose real name was Mataoka, which Smith wrote about the dramatic save Pocahontas provided him with. Smith’s story was in doubt even then with only two of the colonists supporting the story and his only proof at the time was a missing letter to Queen Anne about the rescue. (Tremblay, …show more content…
Smith did his part in quelling the colonists of Jamestown and he helped to map the lay of the land helping others who followed after him to find their own ways. Perhaps Smith was not correctly depicted in Pocahontas in that he was never in love with the Princess, but he was correctly depicted in being a swashbuckling adventurer who believed heartily in King and Country. John Smith is an icon because he embodies the spirit of the New World, with all the passions and rages and tall tales that made a newly found continent into a whole New