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Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
" There are few chapters in American history less understood than Pocahontas. Camilla Townsend's fascinating new book has rescued Powhatan's daughter from both myth and mistakes. By applying the insides of recent scholars to the contemporary texts she knows so well. Townsend has done more than provide a brief biography of a crucial figure. She has made Pocahontas understandable to a twenty-first- century audience, and she has done so with elegant and spare prose. Her book should be read by everyone interested in the early colonial era or the Native American Past." (quoted from Peter Mancall, University of Southern California, as printed on the backcover)
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Camilla Townsend
34 books135 followersCamilla Townsend (Ph.D., Rutgers University) is professor of history at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ). Her special interest is in the relations between indigenous peoples and Europeans throughout the Americas.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
January 2, 2012
A pithy, fascinating, and fair-minded history. Townsend doesn’t sugarcoat the horror of the European settlers treatment of the Native Americans, but rather than just giving us a blow-by-blow tale of bad-faith, violence, and genocide, she explores the motivations of the individuals involved. This not only brings these historical characters to life, it creates a picture of how the English and Powhatans saw each other, themselves, and their destinies. Townsend does conjecture a lot about what the historical players likely thought and felt, but I found her convincing.
October 13, 2025
One of the problems with loving audiobooks is that you grow so accustomed to multitasking while listening to them that it becomes harder to focus when you try to sit down and read a traditional book. So it speaks to just how much I enjoyed this book (which isn't available in audiobook format for some reason) that I found it hard to put down. Camilla Townsend has crafted a remarkable profile of a woman whose short life we have only limited information about (if she ever wrote any of her thoughts down herself, they have been lost to time). Having been on a Jamestown kick these past few weeks, it was refreshing to read an in-depth analysis of Pocahontas herself, and not just the role she played in the settlement's founding. Granted, because our resources are so limited, much of what is inferred about her is based on conjecture, but Townsend does a great job of extracting clues from the sources we do have, and explaining her rationale for the conclusions she draws. Much time is given to the ongoing mechanisms of the settlement, from the perspectives of both the colonists and the Powhatans, but all this is necessary to understanding Pocahontas' life and legacy.
Among these crucial details are the scientific explanation for why Native Americans remained nomadic for as long as they did (there were fewer high-protein crops native to North America, making hunting necessary for survival) and how the Powhatan explained Europeans' advanced technology (as polytheists, they believed that the European gods were "stronger" than their own, even if they still felt loyalty to the pantheon they were raised to honor). It's nearly impossible to write about Native American history without falling into the trope of the noble savages whose enlightened connection to nature was destroyed by white settlers, or by infantilizing them as an inferior people who needed to be ushered into modernity by an outside force. These stereotypes run so deep in our culture that walking the tightrope between them is the kind of skin-crawling feat that most writers (and readers) would rather simply avoid, but Townsend does so admirably, only rarely ever straying off course.
Like many modern historians, Townsend doesn't buy the famous story of Pocahontas rescuing John Smith from execution, noting that he had written about the ceremony where he met Chief Powhatan numerous times, but only included the rescue scene years after both she and most everyone involved had died. Naturally, Townsend refutes the possibility of a romance between them, seeing as Pocahontas was only nine or ten when they met, but she also goes a step further, suggesting that Smith may well have been attracted to her in spite of her age and may have even been reprimanded for comments he made about the girl by his own comrades. Townsend finds evidence of Smith's chauvinism in his language (such as when he refers to Powhatan's wives as "wenches") and the many stories he included in his memoirs of exotic women coming to his defense. While writers like David Price probably went too far in valorizing John Smith, Townsend may have overcorrected here. If Smith were a lecher, wouldn't there be some record of him pursuing any of the hundreds of other Indian women and girls he would have encountered in Virginia (as other men in Jamestown clearly did*)? Would Chief Powhatan have let his daughter act as an envoy to Jamestown if there was any suspicion that Smith intended to harm her? John Smith was clearly a braggart and a fantasist, but it seems a reach to suggest he was a sexual predator.
The likelihood of Pocahontas having married a fellow Powhatan in her early teens (and been widowed shortly thereafter) is one that Townsend argues is not just possible, but probable. She throws cold water on the theory that Pocahontas also had a child with her first husband that long outlived her, however, given the lack of contemporaneous evidence and the unlikelihood that Pocahontas would not have wanted to keep the child with her. Unlike every other book I've read so far, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma is the first to provide some insight into her marriage to John Rolfe, and the years they lived together in the English settlement. While Rolfe was a commoner, Pocahontas' marriage to the young planter who successfully introduced tobacco farming to Virginia might have given her a boost in status that she didn't have as a younger daughter of more than twenty children (unlike most historians, Townsend doesn't claim that Pocahontas was her father's favorite child, even if he clearly loved her). She wasn't cut off from her tribe, either--nearly everyone employed by the Rolfes, whether in the field or as servants, were Native American, likely including the Powhatan girls who eventually accompanied Pocahontas to London. Even Pocahontas converting to a new religion and adopting a new name wouldn't have been unusual for her, since both were common marriage customs among her people.
Townsend admits that Rolfe is a surprisingly elusive figure despite his significance in early colonial history and the number of written records of his that have survived to today. Even his personality is somewhat split between a kind, straightforward frontiersman who seems to have been well-liked by most of the people he met, and what can only be described as a tortured soul who relied on his spirituality to endure a long string of tragedies. Although the likeliest answer for his and Pocahontas' connection is probably the same as for most couples--the two just clicked--Townsend speculates on a few other reasons that she may have been drawn to Rolfe, including novelty (he was as exotic to her as she was to him), the way the two challenged each other intellectually, and a shared idealism to unite their warring factions and cultivate a thriving community. Townsend even discusses some of the guilt Rolfe appears to have experienced as a widower who had now found love with someone else. Most of all, Townsend makes a strong case for this having been a union that Pocahontas fully consented to and that brought her happiness, however brief it ultimately was. (I also enjoyed learning about the eccentric Reverend Whitaker, who played a central role in Pocahontas' religious conversion.)
Townsend doesn't dig too deeply into the growing cultural divide between the colonists and the British, save for mentioning a snarky remark aimed at Rolfe and George Yeardley for supposedly getting ideas above their station. It would have been interesting to know what Pocahontas thought of the British class system, which would have been prejudiced against someone like her husband, but that may simply be too far outside the bounds of what information we have about her (although Townsend does provide some interesting analysis on her decision to wear a Puritan-style frontier hat for her portrait rather than something more aristocratic.) It's hard not to smile at the fears expressed by some in Britain that moving to the New World would change the English settlers and possibly turn them into "savages" themselves. Sure enough, the settlers did change, but it would be more than a century before it became apparent how much.
If there was one part of this book that left me feeling particularly torn, however, it was the conclusion. After recapping what became of Jamestown and the Powhatans in the decades after Pocahontas' death, Townsend dismisses the notion that things may have turned out differently had she lived. The Powhatans' ultimate defeat was sealed from the moment Europeans began farming--centuries before Native Americans did--and settlers' desire for land ensured that the two groups would always be at loggerheads. While I can agree that one individual's survival would not have stemmed the tide of history, we see how integration between natives and settlers, particularly through marriage, had a profound effect on everyone involved just within the confines of this book. The settlers who spent more time among the Powhatan (even the women who were taken as hostages in 1622) showed a higher regard for them and a greater willingness to find common ground. But most of all, intermarriage allowed land to remain in natives' hands, as we saw with Thomas Rolfe, who inherited land from both his father and Chief Powhatan. We'll never know for certain whether greater integration would have created a fairer outcome for the Indians. But looking back now, it's hard to argue that it wouldn't have been worth a shot.
*Townsend mentions that many of the single men in Jamestown were cohabitating with Indian women. This opens up a whole new can of worms. We're told that cavorting with native women was a punishable offense in Jamestown, hence why John Rolfe had to beg for the governor's permission to marry Pocahontas, so how did so many of these relationships fly under the radar? That the women were living with the men, and not just dropping by periodically, would imply that there was a degree of commitment involved as well, if not formal unions. And surely some children would have come out of this--what became of them? I really wish we had been given more information about this. (Update: Other books have claimed that Chief Powhatan dispatched a group of women, and probably a few men alongside them, to teach the original settlers how to grow their own food, which would explain why they had been briefly living in Jamestown. William Strachey later claimed, second-hand, that some of the women were pimped out to the settlers, but another chronicler, Robert Beverley, denounced this as a slander against the women decades later.)
Among these crucial details are the scientific explanation for why Native Americans remained nomadic for as long as they did (there were fewer high-protein crops native to North America, making hunting necessary for survival) and how the Powhatan explained Europeans' advanced technology (as polytheists, they believed that the European gods were "stronger" than their own, even if they still felt loyalty to the pantheon they were raised to honor). It's nearly impossible to write about Native American history without falling into the trope of the noble savages whose enlightened connection to nature was destroyed by white settlers, or by infantilizing them as an inferior people who needed to be ushered into modernity by an outside force. These stereotypes run so deep in our culture that walking the tightrope between them is the kind of skin-crawling feat that most writers (and readers) would rather simply avoid, but Townsend does so admirably, only rarely ever straying off course.
Like many modern historians, Townsend doesn't buy the famous story of Pocahontas rescuing John Smith from execution, noting that he had written about the ceremony where he met Chief Powhatan numerous times, but only included the rescue scene years after both she and most everyone involved had died. Naturally, Townsend refutes the possibility of a romance between them, seeing as Pocahontas was only nine or ten when they met, but she also goes a step further, suggesting that Smith may well have been attracted to her in spite of her age and may have even been reprimanded for comments he made about the girl by his own comrades. Townsend finds evidence of Smith's chauvinism in his language (such as when he refers to Powhatan's wives as "wenches") and the many stories he included in his memoirs of exotic women coming to his defense. While writers like David Price probably went too far in valorizing John Smith, Townsend may have overcorrected here. If Smith were a lecher, wouldn't there be some record of him pursuing any of the hundreds of other Indian women and girls he would have encountered in Virginia (as other men in Jamestown clearly did*)? Would Chief Powhatan have let his daughter act as an envoy to Jamestown if there was any suspicion that Smith intended to harm her? John Smith was clearly a braggart and a fantasist, but it seems a reach to suggest he was a sexual predator.
The likelihood of Pocahontas having married a fellow Powhatan in her early teens (and been widowed shortly thereafter) is one that Townsend argues is not just possible, but probable. She throws cold water on the theory that Pocahontas also had a child with her first husband that long outlived her, however, given the lack of contemporaneous evidence and the unlikelihood that Pocahontas would not have wanted to keep the child with her. Unlike every other book I've read so far, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma is the first to provide some insight into her marriage to John Rolfe, and the years they lived together in the English settlement. While Rolfe was a commoner, Pocahontas' marriage to the young planter who successfully introduced tobacco farming to Virginia might have given her a boost in status that she didn't have as a younger daughter of more than twenty children (unlike most historians, Townsend doesn't claim that Pocahontas was her father's favorite child, even if he clearly loved her). She wasn't cut off from her tribe, either--nearly everyone employed by the Rolfes, whether in the field or as servants, were Native American, likely including the Powhatan girls who eventually accompanied Pocahontas to London. Even Pocahontas converting to a new religion and adopting a new name wouldn't have been unusual for her, since both were common marriage customs among her people.
Townsend admits that Rolfe is a surprisingly elusive figure despite his significance in early colonial history and the number of written records of his that have survived to today. Even his personality is somewhat split between a kind, straightforward frontiersman who seems to have been well-liked by most of the people he met, and what can only be described as a tortured soul who relied on his spirituality to endure a long string of tragedies. Although the likeliest answer for his and Pocahontas' connection is probably the same as for most couples--the two just clicked--Townsend speculates on a few other reasons that she may have been drawn to Rolfe, including novelty (he was as exotic to her as she was to him), the way the two challenged each other intellectually, and a shared idealism to unite their warring factions and cultivate a thriving community. Townsend even discusses some of the guilt Rolfe appears to have experienced as a widower who had now found love with someone else. Most of all, Townsend makes a strong case for this having been a union that Pocahontas fully consented to and that brought her happiness, however brief it ultimately was. (I also enjoyed learning about the eccentric Reverend Whitaker, who played a central role in Pocahontas' religious conversion.)
Townsend doesn't dig too deeply into the growing cultural divide between the colonists and the British, save for mentioning a snarky remark aimed at Rolfe and George Yeardley for supposedly getting ideas above their station. It would have been interesting to know what Pocahontas thought of the British class system, which would have been prejudiced against someone like her husband, but that may simply be too far outside the bounds of what information we have about her (although Townsend does provide some interesting analysis on her decision to wear a Puritan-style frontier hat for her portrait rather than something more aristocratic.) It's hard not to smile at the fears expressed by some in Britain that moving to the New World would change the English settlers and possibly turn them into "savages" themselves. Sure enough, the settlers did change, but it would be more than a century before it became apparent how much.
If there was one part of this book that left me feeling particularly torn, however, it was the conclusion. After recapping what became of Jamestown and the Powhatans in the decades after Pocahontas' death, Townsend dismisses the notion that things may have turned out differently had she lived. The Powhatans' ultimate defeat was sealed from the moment Europeans began farming--centuries before Native Americans did--and settlers' desire for land ensured that the two groups would always be at loggerheads. While I can agree that one individual's survival would not have stemmed the tide of history, we see how integration between natives and settlers, particularly through marriage, had a profound effect on everyone involved just within the confines of this book. The settlers who spent more time among the Powhatan (even the women who were taken as hostages in 1622) showed a higher regard for them and a greater willingness to find common ground. But most of all, intermarriage allowed land to remain in natives' hands, as we saw with Thomas Rolfe, who inherited land from both his father and Chief Powhatan. We'll never know for certain whether greater integration would have created a fairer outcome for the Indians. But looking back now, it's hard to argue that it wouldn't have been worth a shot.
*Townsend mentions that many of the single men in Jamestown were cohabitating with Indian women. This opens up a whole new can of worms. We're told that cavorting with native women was a punishable offense in Jamestown, hence why John Rolfe had to beg for the governor's permission to marry Pocahontas, so how did so many of these relationships fly under the radar? That the women were living with the men, and not just dropping by periodically, would imply that there was a degree of commitment involved as well, if not formal unions. And surely some children would have come out of this--what became of them? I really wish we had been given more information about this. (Update: Other books have claimed that Chief Powhatan dispatched a group of women, and probably a few men alongside them, to teach the original settlers how to grow their own food, which would explain why they had been briefly living in Jamestown. William Strachey later claimed, second-hand, that some of the women were pimped out to the settlers, but another chronicler, Robert Beverley, denounced this as a slander against the women decades later.)
September 26, 2019
Townsend attempts a real thankless job of explaining the life and culture of a woman about whom we have pretty much no reliable record for. Pocahontas never wrote or kept a diary and all of her life is told through the lens of white men. Most of her language is lost to time and most of her life is shrouded in uncertainty. Still, despite this, Townsend manages to create a credible and researched argument about the life of this mysterious and deeply misunderstood woman. Definitely recommend for those interested in the topic.
September 26, 2011
Great great book. If you're not the biggest early American history enthusiast, or you just don't know as much as you think you should, this book holds your hand all the way. The writing is very easy to read and like-able, it reads almost as historical fiction. But most importantly if you were ever curious to know more about Pocahontas, this book is a great place to start and dispel the Disney myths.
February 9, 2016
I surprised myself by enjoying this book. I thought it was going to be a book about all the wonderful things Pocahontas and the Native Americans did, and all the awful things the Europeans did to them. In fact, it was a well-documented book that honestly looked at what happened.
One of the things that has always caused me to think was why the colonization of North America resulted in the US being a more prosperous country, while the colonization of Central and South America resulted in many less-prosperous countries. Following are some of the reasons and the new perspective, which reading this book gave me:
1) The North American colonists came over to settle, while the Central and South American colonists came over for riches: gold and silver, etc. The author of this book stated that the North American colonists were just as interested in treasure, but since they didn’t immediately find any, realized that they’d have to colonize instead.
2) The mindset of the people of England in 1600 was already changing toward democracy and individual freedom, while Spain was still a monarchy. The English questioned what right they had to disinherit the Indians (which didn’t ultimately stop them, but at least they were more aware of it), while the Spanish had no problem enslaving and/or killing the natives. The author of this book discussed this. It was interesting to read how the English took some of the Indians to England to learn the language, so they could return and be translators. The English wanted to communicate with the Indians. On the other hand, in Mexico, there was an Indian woman, Malinche, who learned Spanish and was a translator between the Spanish and the Aztecs, yet Cortez made a treaty with Montezuma, only to not only not keep his commitment, but he killed Montezuma. This is scary to say, but it seems the English were more humane to the natives than the Spanish.
3) The English came to build, create farms and cities, while the Spanish came to conquer and get the treasure. John Smith said, “… what the Spaniard got, was only the spoile and pillage of those countrie people, and not the labours of their own hands.” (p.82)
4) An idea was brought up in this book that I’d never heard before. The British compared the Indians to the early Britons, who weren’t as advanced as the Roman conquerors. When the Romans arrived, the early Britons were educated in the more “civilized” ways of the Romans and were “brought up” to the standards of Rome. The English colonizers thought of Native Americans the same way. For example, the Indians weren’t using the land as efficiently as the English, so the English would teach them and raise them up. The English thinking was that the Indians would be happy and willing to learn from them, hopefully eventually paying tribute to the English king. This showed prejudice on the part of the English, that the Indians weren’t as civilized. On the other hand, it showed a complete lack of prejudice. They were certain that the Indians had the same intelligence and abilities as the English, they merely weren’t as advanced.
One of the things that has always caused me to think was why the colonization of North America resulted in the US being a more prosperous country, while the colonization of Central and South America resulted in many less-prosperous countries. Following are some of the reasons and the new perspective, which reading this book gave me:
1) The North American colonists came over to settle, while the Central and South American colonists came over for riches: gold and silver, etc. The author of this book stated that the North American colonists were just as interested in treasure, but since they didn’t immediately find any, realized that they’d have to colonize instead.
2) The mindset of the people of England in 1600 was already changing toward democracy and individual freedom, while Spain was still a monarchy. The English questioned what right they had to disinherit the Indians (which didn’t ultimately stop them, but at least they were more aware of it), while the Spanish had no problem enslaving and/or killing the natives. The author of this book discussed this. It was interesting to read how the English took some of the Indians to England to learn the language, so they could return and be translators. The English wanted to communicate with the Indians. On the other hand, in Mexico, there was an Indian woman, Malinche, who learned Spanish and was a translator between the Spanish and the Aztecs, yet Cortez made a treaty with Montezuma, only to not only not keep his commitment, but he killed Montezuma. This is scary to say, but it seems the English were more humane to the natives than the Spanish.
3) The English came to build, create farms and cities, while the Spanish came to conquer and get the treasure. John Smith said, “… what the Spaniard got, was only the spoile and pillage of those countrie people, and not the labours of their own hands.” (p.82)
4) An idea was brought up in this book that I’d never heard before. The British compared the Indians to the early Britons, who weren’t as advanced as the Roman conquerors. When the Romans arrived, the early Britons were educated in the more “civilized” ways of the Romans and were “brought up” to the standards of Rome. The English colonizers thought of Native Americans the same way. For example, the Indians weren’t using the land as efficiently as the English, so the English would teach them and raise them up. The English thinking was that the Indians would be happy and willing to learn from them, hopefully eventually paying tribute to the English king. This showed prejudice on the part of the English, that the Indians weren’t as civilized. On the other hand, it showed a complete lack of prejudice. They were certain that the Indians had the same intelligence and abilities as the English, they merely weren’t as advanced.
September 5, 2024
Read for class
September 24, 2024
I had to read this for school in a faster pace than I usually do. It was interesting although the writing was in Old English so it made my brain have to think more than i normally do when I’m reading.
December 27, 2024
I appreciate reading this as I’m thinking about teaching some “stories of Virginia” for a class next year. This gives good context to one of the oldest.
February 7, 2020
An engaging narrative about an oft-misunderstood people. Very illuminating for readers unfamiliar with historiographical methods (like me).
September 2, 2010
The topic of this book is how Pocahontas, and other Native Americans like her, responded to the English invasion of their ancestral homeland. Faced with powerful adversaries like the English, this book goes into detail how she, her father Powhatan, and her people deftly embraced, engaged, resisted, or manipulated the English to try and protect their way of life. Specifically it attempts to explain Pocahontas’s actions through other’s eyes since she left no written record herself. It is a biography not just of her but a tale of her people and their struggle for independence in a rapidly changing world.
The author's argument is that Pocahontas, and by association her people, were not acquiescent admirers of English culture or helpless victims of English imperialism. The author argues that Pocahontas was a brave and intelligent woman who sacrificed and dared to protect her people. The author also shows how the Powhatans and the other Native American peoples were not ignorant savages but were a sophisticated and wise people using their own subtle cunning to fight against the English’s vast technological advantage. She shows how through engagement, manipulation, and resistance the Native American’s were able to resist English domination and maintain their independence. She disputes the common stereotype that Pocahontas was a supplicant admirer and convert to European ways but instead made a choice for her people to serve and protect them. Overall the author meant to rewrite the understanding of early colonial relations with Native Americans and give Pocahontas the respect she deserves.
The premise of the book is highly probably and her argument is very convincing. It is completely unrealistic to believe the Native Americans were only supplicant admirers of English culture and technology. Far more likely is the view that they were only trying to maintain their independence from the English and resisted serf-like servitude. The author’s depiction of Pocahontas is the only area that I truly have questions about. Since she left no writings or letters and the only written historical record of her is what the English wrote or saw it is extremely difficult to determine what she thought or felt. It is highly likely that the author is correct about Pocahontas motives and goals about protecting her people. However, I do wish there was more proof. As a whole the tale was compelling and extremely readable. The light the author shed on Pocahontas and her life makes her more a real person and less like the fairy tale rendition that has traditionally been told. I wish the last chapter had been a little longer and told more of the tale of what happened after the Powhatan and other tribes were defeated and put on reservations rather than just jumping to the present. However, it was a satisfying ending and a very enjoyable book.
The author's argument is that Pocahontas, and by association her people, were not acquiescent admirers of English culture or helpless victims of English imperialism. The author argues that Pocahontas was a brave and intelligent woman who sacrificed and dared to protect her people. The author also shows how the Powhatans and the other Native American peoples were not ignorant savages but were a sophisticated and wise people using their own subtle cunning to fight against the English’s vast technological advantage. She shows how through engagement, manipulation, and resistance the Native American’s were able to resist English domination and maintain their independence. She disputes the common stereotype that Pocahontas was a supplicant admirer and convert to European ways but instead made a choice for her people to serve and protect them. Overall the author meant to rewrite the understanding of early colonial relations with Native Americans and give Pocahontas the respect she deserves.
The premise of the book is highly probably and her argument is very convincing. It is completely unrealistic to believe the Native Americans were only supplicant admirers of English culture and technology. Far more likely is the view that they were only trying to maintain their independence from the English and resisted serf-like servitude. The author’s depiction of Pocahontas is the only area that I truly have questions about. Since she left no writings or letters and the only written historical record of her is what the English wrote or saw it is extremely difficult to determine what she thought or felt. It is highly likely that the author is correct about Pocahontas motives and goals about protecting her people. However, I do wish there was more proof. As a whole the tale was compelling and extremely readable. The light the author shed on Pocahontas and her life makes her more a real person and less like the fairy tale rendition that has traditionally been told. I wish the last chapter had been a little longer and told more of the tale of what happened after the Powhatan and other tribes were defeated and put on reservations rather than just jumping to the present. However, it was a satisfying ending and a very enjoyable book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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August 6, 2009A week ago or so I was just struck by the historical figure of Pocahontas, and the fact that I know next to nothing about her, except what I learned through the Disney film, which, while beautiful to look at, is hardly history. I had a sudden burning urge to learn more about her, her people, her time and place, and the true dynamic of her situation and the situation of the Virginia Company coming to Virginia, (or Werewocomoco). I found this book in the store and it seems to meet all the criteria of a book I was looking for at this time...
September 27, 2010
Meh - if there ever was conjecture in a book I feel like this is the best example of revisionist or gap filled historical fiction.
While Townsend uses the sources that are at her disposal she really takes a ton of liberty in her presentation of the material.
I prefer the Disney version if I'm going to get the watered down "true story".
While Townsend uses the sources that are at her disposal she really takes a ton of liberty in her presentation of the material.
I prefer the Disney version if I'm going to get the watered down "true story".
November 5, 2017
Read for Hist 220--but an interesting read and insight into early colonies and 17th century Native American tribes. Very impressive biography of Pocahontas, considering the complete lack of her own words/writings.
September 9, 2011
Easy read and a defeat of the myth behind Pocahontas...an insulting myth which was created by the conquering English male and one without much validity or regard for Pocahontas or her people.
September 17, 2012
While a bit drier than it needed to be, this book contained a lot of information that was both new and interesting. Beyond that, there's really not much to review about this book.
July 19, 2020
Being raised on all Disney everything, only to later learn how problematic the beautifully hand-made animated fantasies were, I'm always a ran of learning the REAL history of mythologized people and events. Truth, in these instances, proves more fascinating than the fantasies. Real life, it always turns out, doesn't follow the neat, tried-and-true tropes of popular mythology.
I'm not going to recap the entire Pocahontas life story, which this book covers. There are too many surprising twists and turns, and I don't want to leave anything out. Surely, this is just one story of one tribe dealing with one set of invaders from a people that look almost alien and have some unfathomable technology. I appreciate how Townsend here follows the circumstantial path of history: the "fertile crescent" developed agriculture so early because of its fertility and the nutritional properties of the native plants, while the various peoples in the Americas took much longer as they had to wait for new plants to be traded to them and/or required more complicated farming techniques to be viable.
Townsend also rightly reminds readers (or "students" as she calls us) to continually assume that Pocahontas, her father Powhatan, and all other people of these tribes are just as intelligent as the invading English, if not more so. This is something colonizers often, if not always, fail to do. And, since the colonizers "win" here, that is the story that perpetuates: smarter, more advanced, more holy Whites defeat the others. Yet this is not true. Townsend does her best to put readers into the minds of tribal leaders, consistently offering more reasonable explanations for what the tribes are doing and why. The story that unfolds is one that makes perfect logical sense and shows the Powhatan tribe putting up a stupendous fight against an enemy with vastly more people, resources, luck, and technology. In the end, all the tribes can do is slow the inevitable spread of the colonies, but the extent to which they succeed in this is quite impressive.
I learned a ridiculous amount from this book, and it's a good one to help reframe the view of America and its indigenous populations. It's a sad, horrible genocide that's still taking place, but Townsend keeps this all to the facts, remaining apolitical and always clearly noting where statements aren't fully supported by evidence, merely common sense. I would highly recommend this book to all Americans. The only way I could recommend it more is if Townsend had set out to produce a LITERARY nonfiction telling of this story. However, this academic retelling still reads quite like a novel full of power struggles, espionage, diplomatic maneuvering, war, and more. There's even what MAY amount to a love story, but it's not between Pocahontas and the John that Disney is making you think of.
I'm not going to recap the entire Pocahontas life story, which this book covers. There are too many surprising twists and turns, and I don't want to leave anything out. Surely, this is just one story of one tribe dealing with one set of invaders from a people that look almost alien and have some unfathomable technology. I appreciate how Townsend here follows the circumstantial path of history: the "fertile crescent" developed agriculture so early because of its fertility and the nutritional properties of the native plants, while the various peoples in the Americas took much longer as they had to wait for new plants to be traded to them and/or required more complicated farming techniques to be viable.
Townsend also rightly reminds readers (or "students" as she calls us) to continually assume that Pocahontas, her father Powhatan, and all other people of these tribes are just as intelligent as the invading English, if not more so. This is something colonizers often, if not always, fail to do. And, since the colonizers "win" here, that is the story that perpetuates: smarter, more advanced, more holy Whites defeat the others. Yet this is not true. Townsend does her best to put readers into the minds of tribal leaders, consistently offering more reasonable explanations for what the tribes are doing and why. The story that unfolds is one that makes perfect logical sense and shows the Powhatan tribe putting up a stupendous fight against an enemy with vastly more people, resources, luck, and technology. In the end, all the tribes can do is slow the inevitable spread of the colonies, but the extent to which they succeed in this is quite impressive.
I learned a ridiculous amount from this book, and it's a good one to help reframe the view of America and its indigenous populations. It's a sad, horrible genocide that's still taking place, but Townsend keeps this all to the facts, remaining apolitical and always clearly noting where statements aren't fully supported by evidence, merely common sense. I would highly recommend this book to all Americans. The only way I could recommend it more is if Townsend had set out to produce a LITERARY nonfiction telling of this story. However, this academic retelling still reads quite like a novel full of power struggles, espionage, diplomatic maneuvering, war, and more. There's even what MAY amount to a love story, but it's not between Pocahontas and the John that Disney is making you think of.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2017
This very readable book's strengths lay in its not imagining Pocahontas as she is "traditionally" imagined in American minds (and certainly not in Disney minds). As what we know about Powhatan culture is primarily--and 99.9% exclusively) through the filter of the biased English minds that encountered the nation in the early 1600's, there is difficulty in postulating some of the motivations that led to her marrying John Rolfe. An easier task is postulating the motivations of her father Powhatan, whose marriage alliances and assimilation of neighboring tribes into his control shows his astute political sense. What Townsend does for Pocahontas is to ground her in what is known about Powhatan culture and the role of king's daughters and women in that culture. Though not "royal" in one sense because her mother was woman in the lower social order, Pocahontas was recognized by her father. The glimpses we have of the child and young adolescent Pocahontas suggest she was inquisitive, somewhat impulsive, curious, and self-confident, all personality traits that would sustain her during her marriage, removal to England, and role as the "savage" curiosity piece that she became. The "dilemma" is how did Powhatan's views of the English presence change, what revealed to him the inevitability of their staying in his territories, and what could he do about it to position his tribe and successor as best as he could to maintain their nation. What role Pocahontas might have been expected by him to play in all this maneuvering is the thesis of the book.
I highly recommend this book--I read it in two days because it was fascinating and made clear what is known and what can be reasonably speculated, though our course syllabus spread the reading out over a week.
I highly recommend this book--I read it in two days because it was fascinating and made clear what is known and what can be reasonably speculated, though our course syllabus spread the reading out over a week.
March 4, 2024
Amazing scholarly work. I read this after I heard Camilla Townsend speak on a podcast about how her aim in this work was to treat the subject of Pocahontas fairly and about how she spoke with some of the descendant tribes of the Powhatan confederacy such as the Pamunkey and Mattaponi. There are so many misconceptions about Pocahontas, and Townsend definitely debunks them. She also presents a very balanced account of Pocahontas that doesn't make it seem like she adored British culture, Christianity, British men etc. but that also doesn't make it seem like she was a passive victim with no agency. I know that this historian mainly writes about the Aztecs, so there were times when the Aztec empire was brought up to show how the Powhatan confederacy functioned differently. I found these comparisons helpful. I also found it amazing how Townsend considers questions about the feelings of Pocahontas, Smith, Rofe and Kocouum to be important ones to ask. What kind of emotions were they really motivated by in their personal relationships? I thought historians would ignore these questions because they are too hard to know for sure about or that they would be treated as though they are not important to answer. Or worse, that they would make incorrect assumptions. But Townsend uses her understanding of the norms of Algonkian culture to try to figure out what Kocouum and Pocahontas's courtship must have been like, for example. Or for pointing out how marriage alliances were a common way to settle disputes in Powhatan society so it would not have felt unusual to Pocahontas to marry Rolfe at a time of conflict. I really loved this book and look forward to reading more of this author's work, especially her books about the Aztecs!
January 12, 2020
This look at Pocahontas is readable - too readable. In an effort (perhaps) to create that feeling of readability, Townsend builds the scene as one would in a novel: describing sights and sounds and using phrases that describe how the person (Pocahontas, but also others) would have surely felt lonely or sad or happy, etc. To me, that combined with the lack of notes saying how she would know the way the person felt made it difficult to buy into the credibility of certain sections.
It is hard to write an entire book on Pocahontas because of how little we actually, definitively, know about her, and so you will find many pages where she is not mentioned because Townsend is filling you in about cultures or people surrounding her. I did appreciate this because they did a good job of putting her world into context, though I admit I did not agree with some of her conclusions based on the evidence presented. I would say that this work definitely has merit and is worth checking out but, as with reading about any historic person whose life has been particularly prone to mythologizing, I suggest not having this be your only source on her life.
It is hard to write an entire book on Pocahontas because of how little we actually, definitively, know about her, and so you will find many pages where she is not mentioned because Townsend is filling you in about cultures or people surrounding her. I did appreciate this because they did a good job of putting her world into context, though I admit I did not agree with some of her conclusions based on the evidence presented. I would say that this work definitely has merit and is worth checking out but, as with reading about any historic person whose life has been particularly prone to mythologizing, I suggest not having this be your only source on her life.
April 5, 2025
My second book by this author. I preferred her 2019 book over this 2004 one. In the later years it's clear her skills as a writer improved, especially when it came to historical accuracy. The Pocahontas book lacked in a lot of areas. Mainly there were a lot of conjecture words/phrases. In just the first 43 pages, I counted 26 of them (words such as "may have"/ "probably"/ "it is possible"/ "possibility"/etc.) So there were more opinion based terms rather than actual facts. And what little the author had to offer it made it hard to believe. Words like 'in fact' made it seem that the author was trying to hard to prove her point, but it had the opposite effect. Using terms such as 'likely wondered'- the author is making assumptions of other people's thoughts which cannot be validated. It's like me making a general statement of 'oh you must have felt this way when you experienced this event.' There's no purpose or actual truth. Then the author's writing was choppy and sometimes she would jump from one topic to the next without a clear direction or point as to why she started talking about another subject.
August 19, 2024
I visited Jamestown recently. I found it intriguing that Pocahontas played a significant role at Jamestown. I found this book in their gift shop. With the encouragement of my daughter, a teacher, I decided to read it.
I love the way the book is written and appreciate the authors research and discussion when it was not possible to tell Pocahontas story from her perspective. Pocahontas did not leave historians with any writings.
This book is eye opening as to what actually happened to Pocahontas at Jamestown, Henricus and London. It is definitely not Disney’s version, I am hopeful that somebody will make a Pocahontas movie with the real story.
This book is the beginning of my reading journey about the settlement of America. I’m excited to read other books including Marooned.
I love the way the book is written and appreciate the authors research and discussion when it was not possible to tell Pocahontas story from her perspective. Pocahontas did not leave historians with any writings.
This book is eye opening as to what actually happened to Pocahontas at Jamestown, Henricus and London. It is definitely not Disney’s version, I am hopeful that somebody will make a Pocahontas movie with the real story.
This book is the beginning of my reading journey about the settlement of America. I’m excited to read other books including Marooned.
March 29, 2021
I loved this book. I have always wandered at the truth of Pocahontas' life. When I was a child, like so many, my family had a story that there was Native American blood in our line. I have since found only one uncertain source for this claim, but ever since being told this I wanted to know everything about Native American cultures. In this book Pocahontas' story is told as fully as it can be. And wish there was a children's book that illustrated this story for my niece and nephew. As it is I will never show a child the Disney version without emphasizing this is complete fiction and telling them all i can recall of this book. Thanks Camilla Townsend for all your thought provoking beautifully written and researched works.
October 1, 2019
I don't normally include books that I read for class on Goodreads (besides Literature classes, of course), but I read this for my American History class and I was so so fascinated by it. It really taught me a lot about Pocahontas and the Native Americans and John Smith and it totally flipped everything that I've ever been taught about Pocahontas UPSIDE DOWN! Like, Pocahontas was ten (10) years old when John Smith came to America!! TEN!! And John Smith was a total creep!! Don't listen to Disney!! Anyway, I learned so much and I am going to be thinking about Pocahontas for a while after reading this so there was no way I was going to not include this book on my Goodreads.
September 24, 2024
This book was crazy. Townsend is able to come up with a lot of good arguments for how and why Pocahontas may have felt at various points throughout her life. I wish that the woman herself could have kept her own written record and passed it on through the centuries to us. But she didn't, so Townsend takes us on a historian's treasure hunt, explaining her sources and why she makes each argument. There is still so much we don't know. Readers who don't like ambiguity should maybe skip this one.
June 11, 2021
I really enjoyed this book because it looks at Pocahontas and gives you a better understanding of the factual history and the embellished history. This book emphasizes what a horrible person John Smith was and how he cared only about himself and increasing his wealth. We explore public perceptions of Pocahontas and the Native Americans. We see the impact of colonization and the British versus the Native Americans. This was a great monograph outlining who Pocahontas was perceived to be and what she could have actually been.
January 25, 2022
I think Townsend does a great job of painting a picture of what life was like between the colonist and Indians of that time. She doesn't sugar coat what happened and is fair to both sides. Neither side was perfect and did what they had to do. Townsend is truthful of what she writes and gives about 17 pages of proof to back up her book. I recommend this book it's a good read if you like history.
January 14, 2024
Disappointing
Although I know our knowledge of this fascinating woman is incomplete, I was hoping for some thing a bit more satisfying. The information on Pocahontas' childhood was very interesting, but adulthood seemed more like conjecture. Maybe we don't know more, but in that case I thought the book was miss represented.
Although I know our knowledge of this fascinating woman is incomplete, I was hoping for some thing a bit more satisfying. The information on Pocahontas' childhood was very interesting, but adulthood seemed more like conjecture. Maybe we don't know more, but in that case I thought the book was miss represented.
July 25, 2025
really nice to have a scholarly woman's perspective on a story written by men and usually interpreted by men. Since she didn't leave any accounts it is difficult to know her thoughts, but I think they were able to pull out good evidence as to likely impressions.
the last book I read made me feel rather positive toward John Smith. This one makes him seem rather skeezy
the last book I read made me feel rather positive toward John Smith. This one makes him seem rather skeezy
January 26, 2021
This was for my history class and it was quite interesting and naturally very informational. I liked the way Townsend approached both sides and perspectives. Generally just a well done book.
(anything I possibly still romanticized about the Disney movie is completely gone now though haha).
(anything I possibly still romanticized about the Disney movie is completely gone now though haha).
January 2, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed the accompanying notes in the back. I appreciated her attempt to remove the myths of Pocahontas and display the human condition in all of us told through the story of this one woman in history.
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