The Messed Up Origins of Pocahontas | Disney Explained - Jon Solo

[Music] what is going on solo fam my name is John solo and welcome to another episode of your favorite Disney series messed up origins we have covered all kinds of stories since the series started some of them were fairy tales some of them were falling novels and some of them were real-life stories that last category is what today's subject falls into we are gonna explore the true story of Pocahontas and spoiler alert it is way different than the movie you'll see what I mean in just a moment first let's go over Disney's version of the tale so it's fresh in your hand before we get started I'm gonna ask you guys to do me a special favor and hit that like button so we can reach our goal the 5,000 likes and subscribe if you want weekly content just like this in your sub box and now without further ado let's get this started the movie starts by introducing us to the English settlers traveling to the recently discovered America to mined for gold on behalf of the Virginia Company and hunt down Indians meanwhile in North America Pocahontas the daughter of the chief of the Powhatan tribe fears being Wed to a great warrior named kocoum as she's more of a free spirit and he's very serious Pocahontas looks to her grandmother willow for guidance where she's told to follow her own dreams the English settlers land on the coast of America and Pocahontas is immediately interested in the mysterious new people they quickly established a settlement called Jamestown and start on their hunt for gold Captain John Smith ends up running into Pocahontas and through their interactions he learns these savages he came to America to kill are actually a friendly people meanwhile the tribe continues to avoid all contact with the settlers because they're afraid of their true intentions Pocahontas ignores the warning of her people and continues to bond with John Smith which ultimately leads to the death of her potential husband kocoum and causes even more problems between the Indians and settlers now the chief has decided to execute John Smith at daybreak and this brings the conflict between the two parties to a boiling point it takes Pocahontas risking her life to end the fighting and this causes everyone but governor Ratcliffe to accept peace insistent that these savages are hiding gold he takes a cheap shot at the chief accidentally shoots John Smith when he dives in front of him this causes the settlers to turn against Ratcliffe and capture him to bring back to England due to his injury John Smith is also forced to leave for England but he receives the Powhatan's blessing to return whenever he wants and Pocahontas chooses to remain with her people what a good movie I just watched her for the first time and I don't know how many years and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed sadly it's a complete work of fiction the unfortunate reality is that Pocahontas lived a tragic life and adored some horrible treatment she didn't deserve in the slightest I want to warn you I know we have talked about some dark topics in this series but this one probably takes the cake it involves genocide kidnapping rape it's a hard story to listen to it's also important to remember that these events took place all the way back in the early 1600s it because that was so long ago it's hard to say for certain what exactly happened and there's a good chance you may have been taught something different and that's why I'm using an incredibly well researched article by the native guy in the vest and tie vincent shilling as my main source he interviewed historians tribal members council members and even the real-life Chiefs of Native American tribes if you feel like reading his article I put a link in the description as I always do with my sources so Pocahontas was born in 1596 but early on she was given the name mata oka which means the flower between two streams it's thought she was given this name because she was born between two rivers she was the daughter of the paramount poet in chief that means the top dog of the entire tribe and a woman named Pocahontas who actually died during childbirth without her mother around she was raised by her aunts and other women in the village her father had several kids with many different women in different villages which is pretty typical of the paramount chief mata oka was always his favorite because she reminded him of her mother and because of this he often referred to her as Pocahontas which is also what I'm going to do going forward for the sake of clarity the English settlers didn't arrive until the spring of 1608 when Pocahontas was about 10 years old the infamous John Smith was among these settlers and was 27 when he sailed to America he also didn't have any kind of romantic relationship with Pocahontas so we're already seeing a few differences between the movie and what actually happened another big difference is in real life John Smith was a total scumbag in the movie he's portrayed as a friend to the Native Americans and a hero to his men when in actuality he was a dishonest manipulative garbage person and that's not even being harsh as the colonists explored their new country Smith built a terrifying reputation for himself by sneaking into Native American villages putting guns to the heads of chiefs and demanding food and supplies when winter came around the POW at ins captured John Smith and forced him to live in their village it's time past Pocahontas his father and John Smith grew closer and they decided to form an alliance as they both had a common enemy in the Spanish with this alliance the chief gave John the title of where Lance or chief of the colonists the Indians showed the settlers a better place to make their camp hunt and fish and help them survive the winter some historical accounts claim that Pocahontas brought the settlers of Jamestown food and supplies against her father's wishes but this is most likely fake news her village was about 12 miles away from Jamestown and required crossing a large body of water and a 400 pound canoe which would be pretty difficult for a ten-year-old girl and myself as well John Smith also claimed that Pocahontas saved his life during the four-day process of becoming aware of ants but this is also a lie as there's no reason his life would be put in danger after being given such a high honor by the chief not to mention ten-year olds were not allowed to be around during the ceremony a lot of these false ridiculous claims come from a book John Smith wrote when he moved back to England and wanted to make some money from his adventure interestingly when you look at the letters that he wrote while in America he makes no mention of having any kind of relationship with Pocahontas it is thought that she might have been present during some of the interactions between her tribe and the settlers but that's solely because she was a child and acted as a symbol of peace anyways John Smith ended up being a terrible where lands the settlers didn't listen to the poet ins instructions on how to farm in the new land so he went back to his old ways of threatening village chiefs for food and supplies and things just got worse from there as you would guess the natives had a very different style of clothing than the English and during the summer months it wasn't uncommon for women and children to walk around naked because of the heat this made the women and children sexual targets for the colonists and oftentimes the poets and mothers would have to offer themselves to the settlers in order to protect their children rape was a very rare crime among Native Americans it was often thought of as unforgivable in most of the time the perpetrator would find himself banished from the tribe so when the settlers kept doing this the tribes considered going to war in order to keep the peace between the two factions the colonizers came up with a solution of kidnapping the Chiefs favorite daughter because there's no way they would get attacked if they could easily kill her at this point she was about 14 and had gone through her coming-of-age ceremony where she had made the official decision to change her name to Pocahontas she ended up marrying the brother of village chief Jabba's aw and having a daughter when she was 16 is when a special scumbag named captain Samuel Argyll decided to put the kidnapping plan into action he discovered the village Pocahontas was living in and threatened chief Jabba's all with an attack unless he gave her over under the impression that she would only be gone temporarily the chief gave her up Pocahontas was forced to give her daughter to the women in her village thinking her husband would eventually return but what she didn't know is that shortly after she was brought to the boat where she was held captive he was killed and sadly that was the last time Pocahontas was ever considered a resident of one of her tribes villages but her story isn't over yet actually it gets much worse surprise surprise the tribal chiefs never retaliated for her kidnapping fearing they would be captured and killed themselves not only that they were also afraid that the beloved daughter of the paramount chief and the peace symbol of the Politan would be harmed while being held captive Pocahontas developed some serious depression and anxiety and it actually got so bad that her captors allowed her sister and sister's husband to pay her some visits during their first visit Pocahontas confided in her sister that she'd been raped and it's believed that this happened multiple times with different men to make matters worse her captors often pressure her to become civilized like the English and would often tell her that her father didn't love her because come to rescue her yet Pocahontas eventually got pregnant and gave birth to a son out of wedlock Thomas Roth the supposed son of John Wall she was also forced to convert to Christianity he changed her name to Rebecca and we're English clothes but she often tore those off because they were so uncomfortable around this time is when John Rolfe started receiving pressure from England to make Jamestown profitable by the year 1616 he knew the best way to do this would be growing tobacco but the Native Americans were the only ones who could do so effectively and to no surprise they didn't want to share their secrets with rapists and murderers realizing the political advantages of aligning himself with the natives Rolfe decided to marry Pocahontas some historians truly believe the couple married for love like maybe Rolfe was the only one of the captors that treated Pocahontas like a human being and she really appreciated that other experts disagree though and I'm inclined to side with them because after the marriage Pocahontas still wasn't allowed to see her child her family friends or father one of these saddest parts about this marriage is that despite it being Powhatan tradition for a father to give his daughter away at her wedding her father couldn't attend out of fear of being killed or kidnapped so instead he sent a pearl necklace made out of giant pearls as a wedding gift I'm not totally sure if this is where the inspiration came from for Pocahontas necklace in the movie but it would make sense after the English learned how to farm tobacco Jamestown finally became profitable and things got even worse for the Powhatan because now their land was sought-after even more and as a result many were captured or killed in territory Wars Pocahontas was then brought to England by her captors alongside her sister her son Thomas role and some other Native Americans the English elite didn't approve of the mistreatment of the natives so she was used to mislead the elites into thinking the two factions were at peace and this might be the saddest part after Pocahontas served her purpose they made plans to bring her back to Virginia but after eating a dinner with Rolfe and Argyll she vomited and died it's believed that she was poisoned by the two men as the tribe members that were with her on that trip said that she was in perfect health before the journey and also she was only 21 so a sudden death was not normal those same natives were then sold this servant and carnival attractions in England and Bermuda instead of being buried alongside her people in Virginia Pocahontas was laid to rest in graves and England throughout the past several centuries members of her tribe have requested time and time again her remains be moved to Virginia but the exact location of her burial has been lost after her father learned that she died he passed away within the year from grief from not being able to save her her two children went on to continue her lineage though the Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton is a descendant of Pocahontas and her son Thomas Rolfe eventually moved back to Virginia where he married the daughter of a wealthy landowner and had a daughter himself named Jane and that was the unfortunately true story of Pocahontas thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this video and are happy with my presentation this was a pretty serious topic so I handled it as respectfully as I could if you liked this episode and series and want to show your support you can hit that like button so we can reach our goal of 5,000 likes and if we somehow get to say 10,000 likes I'm gonna cover another messed up origin next week don't forget to subscribe and turn notifications on for new Disney content every single week share this video with a friend or family member who you know will enjoy it and follow me on social media for exclusive looks at what my next project is gonna be links to my patreon and discord can also be found in the description consider checking those out if you want to support the series I'll be seeing you in just a few days with a video I am very excited for until then my name is John solo and remember John shot first [Music]

Channel: Jon Solo

Views: 658,713

Keywords: Messed Up Origins of Pocahontas, Messed Up Origins, Disney Explained, Jon Solo, Disturbing True Story, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Tarzan, Winnie the Pooh, TheJongasm, Disney Theory, Disney Pixar, Pocahontas True Story, Pocahontas Real Story, Powhatan, Werowance, John Smith, John Rolfe, John Smith Execution, Kocoum Scream, Kocoum Meme, Pocahontas Kissing John Smith, History, Kocoum Death, CollegeHumor, Adam Ruins Everything, True Messed Up Story of Pocahontas, Family Friendly, Pocahontas

Id: pBvZL4gp8U8

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 21 2018