Can she really paint the colors of the wind?

For the start of my research project, their was one name which immediately jumped out at me: Pocahontas. I grew up with Disney movies, and I figured a familiar figure might be a good place to start. I soon found Pocahontas was much more then an attractive Native American who feel in love with a white man, but that her story goes much deeper. Although her birth date is unclear, historians believe Pocahontas was born around 1595. Pocahontas stumbled into Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and unlike the rest of her people, she found herself comfortable among the white people. She grew up being fascinated by the whites, and befriended many of them, to the disapprovel of her father, who was chief of the Potwatan tribe. Pocahontas began to warn the whites when her father was planning on attacking them, and further helped by teaching the whites the ways of the Native Americans, helping them with trades they wished to make with the Natives. The Native American Powhatan princess even saved a white man, John Smith. As her father was about to kill Smith for intruding into the Natives territory, she quickly placed his head on his, and her father refused to attack. Although this idea is also present in the Disney movie, I was interested to read that she was perhaps not actually protecting Smith, but rather "Pocahontas was actually participating in an elaborate adoption ritual that Smith simply misinterpreted". After her saving of Smith and many other white Americans, Pochohantas fell in love with John Rolfe. They fell in love, and they were quickly married. Their marriage helped bond the realationships of Whites and Native Americans across Virgina. Pochohantas changed her releigion and faith after he marrige, going by the name Rebbeca under the Catholic faith. Pocahontas shows how a connection can be made between differnt faiths, and displays a symbol of acceptance from the Native American people.

"Pocahontas." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .