Disney’s 1995 film Pocahontas captivated audiences with its romantic storyline, gorgeous animation, and wonderful soundtrack, but it bears little resemblance to the real story. By turning a ten-year-old peacemaker into a love interest for John Smith, Disney reinforces myths that continue to shape the current understanding of early America.
The film is inaccurate in several ways. It portrays two young adults, Pocahontas and English colonizer John Smith, who fall in love despite their cultural differences. Historically, however, Pocahontas was around ten years old when they first met, while Smith was twenty-eight. There is no credible evidence of a romantic relationship between the two. In fact, John Smith and his colonists kidnapped and held her for ransom in 1613, where she was likely taken to Henrico.
Disney’s sequel, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, likely attempts to address history more directly by depicting her journey to England and her marriage to John Rolfe. But this version fabricates their marriage into a freely chosen romance rather than a political arrangement made out of fear for her and her people’s safety. Pocahontas married Rolfe at about seventeen or eighteen when he was thirty. Their uniting was less of a love story and more of a tragedy meant to secure peace between the two territories.
Lucas Escorcio, a current ninth grader at Bishop O’Dowd High School, expresses his concerns on the topic. He explains, “I remember learning a little bit of the real story in history class a while ago, but I don’t recall the movie being this inaccurate. Watching it, I thought it was cool how Disney raised awareness of the dangers of colonization and stuff, but why use the story of Pocahontas if it’s so historically inaccurate and just plain disrespectful? They could have easily just created a new story. It’s pretty sad to see such horrible things all enhanced and turned into false information.”
This type of historical revisionism is not harmless. By distorting and rewriting the stories of real people, companies like Disney contribute to the erasure of important, accurate information that deserves to be remembered. When Pocahontas’s true story is replaced with fictional romantic love stories, audiences walk away with a misleading and incomplete understanding of history.
Not only is it damaging to audiences, though, but to Pocahontas herself. Honoring the dead means telling the true, complete story of their lives, not reshaping them into comforting myths. Fabricating her story as a romance completely ignores the struggles and hardships she faced. She deserves to be remembered for her sacrifices rather than romanticized into something she never was.
Ultimately, Pocahontas is a big waste of potential. The stunning animation and soundtrack were squandered on a false story that disregards the experiences of real people. If only the movie had been portrayed as simply fantasy, told the real story, or created an original story inspired by Indigenous cultures rather than fabricating a real person’s life, it could have been appreciated. But by distorting the story of a real historical figure who suffered due to colonization, Disney turned an opportunity to educate into one that offends and misleads.
