It is often the case with folktales

It is often the case with folktales that they develop from actual happenings but in their
development lose much of their factual base; the story of Pocahontas quite possibly fits into this
category of folktale. This princess of the Powhatan tribe was firmly established in the lore1
of early
America and has been made even more famous by the Disney film based on the folktale that arose from
her life. She was a real-life person, but the actual story of her life most probably differed considerably
from the folktale and the movie based on the folktale.
Powhatan, the chief of a confederacy of tribes in Virginia, had several daughters, none of whom
was actually named Pocahontas. The nickname means “playful one,” and several of Powhatan’s
daughters were called Pocahontas. The daughter of Powhatan who became the subject of the folktale
was named Matoaka. What has been verified2
about Matoaka, or Pocahontas as she has come to be
known, is that she did marry an Englishman and that she did spend time in England before she died
there at a young age. In the spring of 1613, a young Pocahontas was captured by the English and taken
to Jamestown. There she was treated with courtesy3
as the daughter of chief Powhatan. While
Pocahontas was at Jamestown, English gentleman John Rolfe fell in love with her and asked her to
marry. Both the governor of the Jamestown colony and Pocahontas’s father Powhatan approved the
marriage as a means of securing4
peace between Powhatan’s tribe and the English at Jamestown. In1616, Pocahontas accompanied5 her new husband to England, where she was royally received. Shortly
before her planned return to Virginia in 1617, she contracted6
an illness and died rather suddenly.
A major part of the folktale of Pocahontas that is unverified concerns her love for English
Captain John Smith in the period of time before her capture by the British and her rescue of him from
almost certain death. Captain John Smith was indeed at the colony of Jamestown and was acquainted7
with Powhatan and his daughters; he even described meeting them in a 1612 journal. However, the
story of his rescue by the young maiden did not appear in his writings until 1624, well after Pocahontas
had aroused widespread interest in England by her marriage to an English gentleman and her visit to
England. It is this discrepancy8
in dates that has caused some historians to doubt the veracity9
of the
tale. However, other historians do argue quite persuasively 10that this incident did truly take place.