ShortHand: The Real Pocahontas

**SPEAKER_1** (0:13)
If your millennial childhood was anything like ours, you probably think you know all about Pocahontas and Pocahontas 2, featuring John Rolfe, who she actually married.
The Native American princess who saved a nation with just her flowing locks and trusty raccoon sidekick. And of course, the power of love.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
Of course.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:37)
And even before she got the Disney treatment, her legendary story became the heart of the United States' origin story, repeated in textbooks and classrooms for centuries. But who was the real Pocahontas?
Well, there's the story that we've been told, and there is the reality.
Which, let's just say, involved less whimsical frolicking and grandmotherly trees, and a whole lot more plague, cannibalism and good old colonial violence. Doesn't matter if you're ready or not, we're going to meet the woman behind the myth. This is the childhood destroying ShortHand.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:16)
Oh.
First of all, yes, Pocahontas was actually a real person. She was born in around 1596, in what we now know today as Virginia, USA. To the indigenous peoples who'd lived there for thousands of years before, the region was known as Alpha-Hell. Sena-Co-Mo-Co. Sena-Co-Mo-Co.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:40)
I buy it.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:40)
Thank you. It was home to a political alliance of around 30 Al-Kongwian speaking tribes, known by historians as the Powhatan Confederacy.
Pocahontas' father, Wahun Sanaka, better known as Chief Powhatan, was the paramount chief of this entire network of tribes. So yeah, it was kind of a big deal.
And his little bundle of joy? Well, Pocahontas wasn't actually her real name. Her frisbee name at birth was Amonute.
According to the Powhatan custom, she had another secret name known only to her. But then who gave it to her?

**SPEAKER_1** (2:18)
Says her community.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:19)
Oh, right.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:21)
Finish the sentence and then you'll find out.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:23)
Known only by her community, Mahatoka, which means, flower between two streams.
So where the hell did Pocahontas come from? It turns out that it was just a childhood nickname.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:37)
I used to call it Pokey Ponk.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:38)
That's adorable.
And this childhood nickname, Pocahontas. Historians think it roughly translates to little playful one. And she was said to be Chief Powhatan's delight and darling, as his only surviving daughter, and the child that he had a special soft spot for.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:59)
Which leads us on to the big question. Was Pocahontas a princess?
Yes or no?
As a daddy's girl to the head chief, Pocahontas most likely had special freedoms and privilege within her tribe. But she wasn't exactly wearing a tiara or lounging about on a throne. Pocahontas would have been expected to learn women's work, just like all the other girls in her tribe. Child care, cooking, foraging, gathering firewood, a million other jobs to keep things running smoothly while the guys were out hunting and battling rival tribes. And for the Powhatans, the succession system was nothing like the European courts. Power would pass first to the late chief's brothers and then his sisters in order of age, and then his oldest sister's children of both genders. In other words, Pocahontas wasn't an heir to any sort of throne in the way that we might see it. Not that any of that stopped the English from projecting their own ideals of royalty on to her later, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:03)
So Pocahontas spent the first 11 or so years of her life as the beloved daughter of a powerful chief, known for her cheerful smile and cartwheels around her village. But playtime would soon be over, because the English were coming just around the riverbend.
In April 1607, the first English colonists knocked up on Powhatan shores. Chartered by King James I and financed by the London-based Virginia Company, these lads had one goal, to milk the eastern coast of the New World for as much tasty gold and resources as they could find.
About a hundred explorers, tradespeople, and mercenaries built a fort they named Jamestown, on the marshy banks of a river in Powhatan territory. And look, we know the ending here, the effective genocide of the indigenous peoples and rapid colonization across the North American continent. But back then, the Powhatans didn't see these pasty imposters as much of a threat. They were utterly clueless about farming this strange soil and pretty quickly their fort was crippled by a lack of resources and disease outbreaks. Some Powhatans took pity on the newcomers doing trade and offering food. Others were more hostile, with several skirmishes breaking out along the river.

**SPEAKER_1** (5:19)
Out of this uneasy atmosphere, stepped a guy you just might have heard of, mainly because he's got the most boring name in the world, John Smith. We hate to disappoint you, but as usual, John Smith wasn't actually a romantic Disney prince.