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Pocahontas Dbq

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Many people have heard the famous story of Pocahontas, but they still don’t know the true facts about her life. Pocahontas was estimated to be born around 1595 in the current state of Virginia as the Powhatan chief's daughter. It was early in her life that North American exploration began and settlers began to come to this ‘New World’ to settle colonies for their home countries. Instead of fighting the colonists, Pocahontas helped the Europeans settle and grow on the land and, thanks to her, they made a lot of profit. Many years later in 1995, Disney published the film Pocahontas; a exciting family movie about her life and her help to British colonists. The question of debate is: Did Disney accurately portray the story of Pocahontas? There is evidence saying that Disney did not tell the real story because they changed her name, made her several years older, and altered the relationship between her and John Smith.
First of all, Pocahontas was not her real name, it was just a nickname. Disney thought that they should use this name since it was well known, however, “"Pocahontas" was a nickname, meaning "the naughty one" or "spoiled child". Her real name was Matoaka” (Doc B). Even though they could have used her name they chose Pocahontas instead. They most likely chose to do this because it was a name that she was well known by and was easier to …show more content…
The movie Pocahontas is a young woman who is maybe around twenty, but actually, she was only around twelve when the settlers first came. From John Smith’s diary entry, we could she that she was “...but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age…” (Doc A). At the time, there were no Disney movies about kids. Disney felt like they had to change her life to fit into these standards. What happened in real life happened when she was young, but the movie told us that she was older. This is very confusing to someone who knows the actual story since it is messing with the

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