"The Most Myth-Encrusted Figure in Early America"

"She was born Matoaka, in the mid-1590s, the daughter of Powhatan, who ruled a native empire in what is now eastern Virginia. Powhatan had dozens of children, and power in his culture passed between males. But she did attract special notice for her beauty and liveliness; hence Pocahontas, a nickname meaning, roughly, 'playful one.' This was also the name she was known by to the English who settled near her home in 1607. John Smith, an early leader in Jamestown, described her as beautiful in  'feature, countenance, and proportion' and filled with 'wit and spirit.'

"But contrary to her depiction in films by Disney and others, Pocahontas wasn’t a busty teenager when the English encountered her. Smith called her 'A child of ten years old,' while another colonist described her as a 'young girle,' cartwheeling naked through Jamestown. There is no evidence of romance between her and Smith (a lifelong bachelor, who, to judge from his own portrait, was far from handsome). Nor is there a firm basis for the tale of Pocahontas saving the English captain from execution by flinging her body across his. The only source for this story is Smith, who exaggerated many of his exploits and didn’t mention his rescue by Pocahontas until 17 years after it allegedly occurred."

 

Tony Horwitz in Smithsonian looks at the life and legend of Pocahontas.