“She Pocahontas never talked about herself, she never represented her emotions, her presence or her story. He [John Smith] spoke for her and represented her” – Edward Said Orientalism 6 Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Pocahontas, a Powhatan Indian princess, emerged from a culture of dark superstitions and improved relationships with a small group of English settlers in Jamestown and the English rulers of the New World. His father, Chief Powhatan, was a respected and influential leader who, in the seventeenth century, had made his people no less primitive, but certainly stronger and more formidable than before. In 1605 the English were just discovering the new nation of America, and the Indians were just discovering the Europeans. Young Pocahontas was able to support moral relations between the Powhatan Indians and the first English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, through John Smith and an English captain. Pocahontas created one of the few eras of harmony between the Indians and the European settlers. John Smith and two of his troops were shot from behind bushes and wounded by the Powhatans. John Smith took the gun and started shooting; killing four of the fifteen Indians, but the Indians backed Smith to a river. He fell and could have let go of the gun or drowned. Smith released the weapon and accepted the Indians' help. Pocahontas, whom Smith remembered as "a child of ten years old," witnessed this catastrophe and "took his head in his arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death: whereupon the emperor was glad that he had to live to make it hatches." John Smith was brought before Chief Powhaton and questioned. Many historians speculate on the authenticity of the "execution and salvation" story told by Smith. His English forces landed at Jamestown, twelve miles from the Indian reservation. The Powhatons were a ceremonious people who welcomed important visitors formally with a great feast and festive dancing. However, it was not uncommon to put prisoners to death in a public ceremony, no more savage than the English customs of publicly disemboweling thieves and burning women accused of being witches. John Smith was captured and forced to lie down on two flat stones, then the little Indian girl came over and placed herself on his body as if to say, "Kill me instead." After "rescuing" him, Smith and the Indians became friends for the next year. Smith remained in Jamestown, Virginia, and Pocahontas visited him often. He carried messages from his father and other Indians carried food, furs and then traded hatchets and trinkets. The Virginia Company of London quickly recognized the enormous propaganda value of Pocahontas as an example of Anglo-Indian harmony, of missionary success among the natives, and of the prospect that Indians could be persuaded to adopt English customs. "If I were not afraid to enter my father's land, and caused fear in him and all his people and feared you here, I should call you father: I tell you I will, and you will call me child, and so I will be forever of the centuries your fellow citizen." However, from Pocahontas to John Smith Relations between the Powhatans and the English remained unstable. Captain Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas in 1613 in hopes of exchanging her for the return of English prisoners, food, and weapons the Powhatans had taken. The plan failed when Pocahontas' father refused to comply with their requests and sent only a small portion of what the English requested. Pocahontas remained with the English and soon adapted to her new circumstances. In 1614, with the help of Reverend Alexander Whitaker and colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas rejected her tribal religious beliefs and converted to.”