Pocahontas Movie Vs History

Of the fifty three full length animated films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studio, only two have been based – albeit loosely – on real characters or events. Disney’s 1995 rendition of the story of Pocahontas is the first of the two historically grounded animations; historically based, however, does not necessarily mean accurate. In this instance, the film’s creators plucked a handful of factual events and the names of a handful of people associated with those events. The bulk of Pocahontas was designed with entertainment, rather than history, as the primary objective. Pocahontas, in the form of her Disney counterpart, is the daughter of a Native American chieftain named Powhatan. A precocious child, she is a great source of worry for her father the chief; in order to both tame her and secure her place in the tribe, Chief Powhatan agrees on her behalf to a marriage proposal made by the tribe’s premier warrior, Kocoum. Pocahontas is uncertain if marriage to him will make her happy or not, because she feels like there must be more in store for her life than simply settling down with such a serious warrior as Kocoum and spending the rest of her days living in the typical manner of other women of her tribe.
In order to assist with her decision, Pocahontas goes to visit Grandmother Willow – an anthropomorphic
Rather than moving to a new location to search, he concludes that the natives in the area must have already located it; as a result, Ratcliffe orders his men to attack the nearby native settlement – the home of Pocahontas and her people. At this point John Smith realizes the risk to Pocahontas’ life, so he makes haste out of the encampment towards her village. He locates her speaking with Grandmother Willow, who convinces John that the only way he can be with Pocahontas is to speak with her father and attempt to stop the