The General History: Historical Account or Falsehood?

Pocahontas didn’t risk her life to save Smith’s. She was a child who barely would have known him as someone other than an Englishman who came to her village to stay a while. He was a storyteller, feeding people lies to make them think his venture into the New World was, ostensibly, dangerous and life-threatening, to advertise his life as important to a princess to gain popularity that he didn’t deserve. John Smith’s life was not saved by the king’s daughter.

To start, John wrote A True Relation in 1608 during his stay at Jamestown. He wrote it before Pocahontas blew up in English media, before she died and couldn’t catch him in a lie. It was only until after Pocahontas’s death that he concocted a new story to publish. Especially, if the stories were true and he published them while Pocahontas was still alive, they would be the two biggest celebrities in England. The only explanation was that he was afraid she would speak up and disprove him. Reveal the liar that he was.

Smith saw Pocahontas’ surge of popularity in his homeland as a chance to gain back what recognition he’d lost when the talk about his adventure to the New World had worn out. He took advantage of his travels to her village and started to take credit for Pocahontas’ conversion to Christianity and her emigration to England. Carefully, though, starting with just footnotes then adding to his entire account after she died, when Smith was free to lie all he wanted. “Pocahontas, the king’s dearest daughter took my head in her arms and laid down her own upon it to save me from death” (Smith). Suddenly, the whole narrative changed in The General History to an exaggerated, almost fairy tale-like love story. His story about Pocahontas saving his life was how he continued to gain reputation because of and after her death.

Pocahontas didn’t save John Smith’s life, for there wasn’t a reason to. In A True Relation, Smith wrote “the emperor welcomed me with good words and great platters of food…and so, with all of his kindness, he sent me hoe” (Smith). Contradictorily, in The General History, Smith notes that “two great stones were brought before Powhatan. Then I was dragged by many hands and they laid my head on the stones, ready to beat out my brains” (Smith). The Indian people, in the second version, were made to seem much less civilized than they were described to be in the original story, A True Relation. He made his tales appear more dramatic, more perilous.

Based on the evidence and timings in this argument, I can safely say that Pocahontas’ hadn’t the smallest reason to risk her life to save Smith’s. The second version of his account of his time in Jamestown was a lie to gain attention.

Works Cited

Smith, John. The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles. James Maclehose & Sons, 1907

Smith, John. Captain John Smith's True Relation, 1608. P.P. Simmons Co., 1917.