Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma.
Since the beginning of times, humans have always find different ways to show their history, from old drawings, to hieroglyphic symbols, from legends to fairy tales, human kind has always a way to express and reflect their history. But as we have done that by now we know better, and understand that there will always be a second side to every story, in fact most of the times there can be a third or fourth side.
After reading Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, I got a new sense about a story that I’ve been told over and over again, only that this time I was told a completely different story, a story filled with cruelty and many conflict of interests, the second side of this story…
Pocahontas was the daughter of the powerful chief of the Alonquian Indians, which were located in the region of Virginian. Her father was name Powhatan, he had many wives and is often described as a calm man, wise and in communication with nature, after a further reading in the book, we found out that Powhatan was a though chief, who was willing to do whatever it took to protect his people, and also an intelligent man who made many negotiations throughout the years also in the best interest of his people, and those qualities were inherited by young Pocahontas.
There is not just one dilemma in this book, there are many. First of all the arrival of the English. The English convinced themselves that they were in the new world to help the “ignorant” and “savage people” but reality was completely different since most English had other things in mind, “the English wanted to be lords of the manor, and they wanted the Indians to be something akin to serfs (Townsend, XI).
The English thought of the Indians as savages, what they didn’t understood was that the Indians were in fact really smart and knew many thing that would result helpful for them. The English became hunger after a few time of settling and they decided to attack the Indians in order to get...