#THE REAL POCAHONTAS ARCHIVE#
#THE REAL POCAHONTAS PATCH#

Her Story is not only an individual tale of survival and heroism, but the story of a wholesale plundering and robbery of Native American land and resources. So Pocahontas will find herself born in a point in history where the 10,000 year old history of her people would come to an end. If not murder, atrocity, brutality and all those things that come along with colonization would befall them. And the question I wondered was had they heard about the Spanish conquest of their neighbors to the South? If so, of course they wanted to keep the English contained. And other times they raided and murdered the settlers when they wandered off too far. Pocahontas' father, who the settlers called Chief Powhatan, his native name was Wahunsenaca.Д«ut he ruled over 15,000 people or 30 tribes in his powerful kingdom and at times the Powhatan dealt with the English with hospitality and goodwill. The group that Pocahontas was part of and the colonists encountered first were the Powhatan nation. Historians estimate that there were 50,000 natives living in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia. You already know how the story turns out for the Native Americans unfortunately. So with this backdrop, you could literally know nothing about Native American history and put two and two together and see how this story is about to play out. And not only this but they also had Guns, Germs and Steel, nod to Jared Diamond for that wonderful book. They were ravenous for gold and they had a pig like appetite for more and more land.

These were settlers that were starving for food.

Anthropologist Doug Owsley says, 'by the butcher marks on her skull and shin bone the assailants were clearly interested in the cheek meat muscles of the face, tongue, and brain.' Now not to start this show off on a morbid note but this builds a picture of the condition of the settlers Pocahontas and her tribe would but come in contact with. It's easy for us to say we wouldn't do this from the comfort of our chairs or the grocery store up the street, but just remember throughout history a higher percentage of people have resorted to cannibalism than you would like to imagine.ДЄnd in this Jamestown colony a 14 year old girl was murdered in eaten. Or to be driven mad with the all consuming thought of just a bite of food, hunger pangs that cripple you. After 24 hours, I was eating like a wolf, but I can't begin to understand being so hungry that I'd consider eating the flesh of my own species. I can't imagine what it feels like to starve. The situation was so grave in fact, so desperate by winter, they resorted to the whore that has followed a great deal of famine since forever, cannibalism. This refusal to work, or plant crops, or to dig fresh water wells, which would sustain them, brought them crippling famine. Instead of hunting and planting, they did what any good businessmen would do when they prospected for gold. So they had no real practical survival skills. You see, many of them were wealthy businessmen and most wealthy businessmen don't get wealthy by working. There's no other way to put it, but in many ways, the colonists had brought this on themselves. All contracted by drinking untreated swamp water. So we don't think about things like dysentery, fever, typhoid. Then almost immediately suffered tremendously from diseases that we probably take for granted today, right? We have modern medicine. These small group of settlers had traveled nearly 4,000 miles over ocean. It was the first English settlement in what will be known as America.

#THE REAL POCAHONTAS PATCH#

So just a couple of years earlier, these roughly 100 people settled a small patch of land bordering the Chesapeake Bay under the banner of the Virginia Company and King James of England. You see these settlers history is inextricably linked with a story of Pocahontas and if you stick with me, I'll show you how. But let's first start the story off in August of 1609, when the people dwelling in the fort at Jamestown, Virginia were in a state of utter panic.

Yet I wonder how many of you have heard the story the way that I'm going to tell it? The way that Pocahontas' people probably wanted it to be told. I don't think it's a stretch to say that most of you are familiar with the story of Pocahontas, the Native American woman so famous in the story of American colonization. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Transcripts are made before the show is produced, so they are not word for word. Writing canвЂ™t produce the emotion of the recorded show. If you can we highly suggest you listen to the audio.

#THE REAL POCAHONTAS ARCHIVE#

Note: The Humanity Archive is recorded to be heard and felt.

The real pocahontas