(upbeat music)
- The real story of Pocahontas
is way darker than the animated movie.
Let's start at the top.
While it's true that
Pocahontas was the daughter
of a powerful chief, she
would never have been
romantically involved with John Smith.
- In this new world, I will
find not only adventure,
but also love.
- Because when John Smith
arrived in Jamestown
in 1607, Pocahontas was only 10 years old.
(sniffles)
- Maybe love is, uh, deeper in the woods.
- And Pocahontas never
saved John Smith's life
because no one was trying to kill him.
(struggling)
Smith either made the whole thing up,
or misunderstood a religious ceremony
welcoming him to the tribe.
(gasps)
- Welcome, friend.
- The violent native seeks to crush me
in his bear-like grip.
- What?
No.
- Man, this guy is dense.
- But the biggest mistake
is that John Smith
wasn't the hero of this story.
Frankly, he and the
British were total jerks.
When the Jamestown settlers first arrived,
Chief Powhatan welcomed them
and give them badly-needed supplies.
That is, until the autumn of 1608
when a particularly bad harvest meant
the Powhatan people didn't
have any more to give.
- My apologies, we barely have enough
to get our own people through the winter.
- [Adam] But the British
reaction to this was, uh,
pretty violent.
(gun clicks)
- Merry Christmas.
- I can't believe I tried to hug you.
- [Adam] The British threatened
and harassed them so much
that Chief Powhatan ended
up moving the entire village
further from Jamestown just
so they'd be left alone.
- Ugh, these guys are the worst.
Let's get out of here.
(grunting)
- Even if I was an adult,
I wouldn't marry that jerk.
- [Adam] Pocahontas ended up
marrying the warrior Kocoum,
who she actually liked quite a bit.
- You know what I like most about you?
You didn't violently threaten my people.
- [Adam] Meanwhile, back in Jamestown,
John Smith the intrepid
explorer was lighting his pipe.
(yells)
And accidentally blew
himself up with gunpowder
and had to return to England to recover.
- [Man] What a maroon, so
that's the end of the story?
Weird.
- Nope, from there, things
only got worse for Pocahontas.
- [Man] I should have guessed.
- [Adam] After John Smith's departure,
Pocahontas was kidnapped
by another British settler
who was also feuding with her father.
- You feud with us, we steal your kids.
- You know what?
I'm going to say it,
these people are assholes.
(calm music)
- While in captivity, Pocahontas
converted to Christianity,
learned English, and married
a man named John Rolfe.
- From the second I saw you,
ripped from your family
and cultural context,
I knew you were the one.
I vow to love you always.
- And I vow to make the best
of the worst possible situation.
- That's the British spirit.
- Then Pocahontas, John Rolfe,
and their newborn son went to
England on a publicity trip
meant to stir up more
investment for Jamestown.
- Come one, come all,
to look at John Rolfe
and his beautiful native wife.
(crowd murmurs)
- [Man] Wait, wait, wait,
they used a kidnapped woman
as a marketing tool, that's terrible.
- Yes, it was, and
unfortunately, after this visit
to London, Pocahontas died
of disease at the age of 21.
She'd never see her home
or her people again.
- [Man] How in the world did
we get a sweet love story
from such a sad tale?
- Well, for that, you can thank that old
exploding sleazebag John Smith,
because in 1612, he wrote
a bestselling account
of his adventures that
falsely depicted Pocahontas
as grown-up, beautiful, and into him.
- And after Pocahontas saved my life,
her beautiful adult body embraced me.
"You're such a hero, you'd
never blow yourself up
"with gunpowder!" she exclaimed.
- [Adam] This dude also
claimed in another book,
that Pocahontas and 30
other women in her tribe
attacked him with a dance
and demanded sexual favors.
- And then things started
to get really hot,
oh yeah, everybody wanted
a piece of John Smith.
(giggles)
- [Man] Oh, what a creep.
- Creepily influential.
Smith's account became
the basis for centuries
of mythologizing, and it was those myths
that made their way into the
animated movie 350 years later.
- 30 women, sexual favors?
I smell a G-rated children's film!
(beeping)
(harp music)
