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Pocahontas the star of Jamestown's 400th
Exhibit stirs new view of the legacy of famed Native American woman
 | Shawn Moore places a plaque on a display of a bust of Pocahontas at the Virginia Historical Society's new exhibit in Richmond, Va. The exhibit takes a look at the traditional view of Pocahontas as well as a new view of her legacy. |
Steve Helber / AP |
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RICHMOND, Va. - She has the saintly glow of Joan of Arc, the enigmatic aura of the Mona Lisa and more personas than Madonna.
In her 22 years, Pocahontas left a legacy that endures in history texts, in stone relief at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and in a beguiling parable about the settlement of Jamestown by commerce-minded explorers.
But 400 years after America's first lasting English settlement was established in a marshy peninsula on the James River, history's version of the favored daughter of a powerful Indian leader is being looked at anew, and quite critically.
Scholars say the lithe teenager often portrayed with a sexuality beyond her years was a creation of white, English males, who embellished the story of a daring but innocent child. Some Virginia Indians, too, are speaking out on what they say is the true story of Pocahontas, drawing from oral histories. They say they are reclaiming a narrative that for years was written by people who had little knowledge of their culture and low regard for their generational recollections.
It is more than righting history books, they say.
"This is more personal," said Angela L. Daniel "Silver Star," an anthropologist who co-authored a new book, "The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History," with Dr. Linwood "Little Bear" Custalow. He is a member of the Mattaponi tribe, one of eight recognized tribes in Virginia. "She was part of their family."
The traditional view of Pocahontas is on display at the Virginia Historical Society. The exhibit, which opened in February, comes amid an 18-month state commemoration of the four centuries since Jamestown's settlement in 1607. The highlight of the 400th anniversary celebration is expected to be May 11-13, "America's Anniversary Weekend" at Jamestown Settlement and Historic Jamestowne. Queen Elizabeth II is also expected to visit Virginia some time in May.
The short life of Pocahontas is presented in an almost biblical tableau in the Historical Society exhibit. In paintings, prints, sculpture and gaudy popular representations, she is shown rescuing Capt. John Smith in 1607 from an execution ordered by her father, Powhatan; warning Smith that her father was planning again to kill him; being kidnapped by settlers; converting to Christianity and marrying Englishman John Rolfe; and dying in England in 1617.
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"This is what we know, and this is all we know," William M.S. Rasmussen, a curator of the exhibit, said in an interview. "And it's all the English perspective, all by men."
Pocahontas "left us no statements as to why she did what she did," he said in an e-mail.
Rasmussen said the exhibit does not purport to be the only accounting of the subject's life and is intended to engage the visitor. "What I want the viewer to do is form an opinion about Pocahontas," he said.
Camilla Townsend, author of "Pocahontas and Powhatan Dilemma," used a variety of sources and arrived at a sharply different view.
Townsend raises many of the questions cited by other historians and Indian critics of the Pocahontas story.
Smith wrote about his dramatic rescue in 1624, after the deaths of Pocahontas and many of the principals who could have corroborated his story. Critics argue that his capture could have been a misinterpreted Indian ritual, such as an adoption ceremony.
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