Pocahontas Was 12-Years-Old During The Events Of The Movie
Here’s another Disney love story that gets very disturbing when you learn the truth behind the fiction. In 1995’s Pocahontas, the Native American princess falls for the dashing British (well, we think that’s the accent Mel Gibson is trying to pull off) soldier John Smith. The film presents the duo as stuck in the classic Romeo and Juliet scenario of being from two warring communities. In real life, though, things weren’t quite so sweet.
When John Smith first came to America, Matoaka – Pocahontas was actually a derogatory nickname meaning “spoiled child” – is documented to be somewhere between 10 and 12-years-old. As such, there was no romance between them, though the story goes that Matoaka flung herself in front of Smith in a bid to stop him from being executed by her people. However, we’re not even sure if this is true, as Smith was known to be a teller of tall tales.
To be fair, the character in the film is clearly a lot older than 12. However, once you know the cold, hard historical facts, you just can’t see the movie’s romance between Pocahontas and John Smith as anything other than weird.
And don’t even get us started on Pocahontas’ next beau, John Rolfe, in Pocahontas: Journey to A New World. Suffice it to say that her marriage to him in real life involved a year-long kidnapping and a potentially forced conversion to Christianity. Oh, and she died at just 21. Anyone know why Disney thought this was perfect material for a family movie?