Prof. Alice Nash                                                                                                      Spring 2007
UMass History Dept.

Hist 393I – Indigenous Women

Guidelines for Assignment 2
“Pocahontas” v. Pocahontas

Due February 22, 2007
(2-3 pages)

Pocahontas is one of the best-known women in American History, not just one of the best known indigenous women. As might not be too surprising to you by this point in the class, most of what we “know” falls into the category of romantic stereotype, or specular history. Familiar narratives about Pocahontas carry the message, implicitly or blatently, that Pocahontas loved and welcomed the English, making the latter heroic figures rather than invaders. The frame of the story is an early example of what becomes a ubiquitous paradigm for European explorers: America, the “New World,” as a (passive and beautiful) Indian maiden just waiting to be explored. (Sir Walter Raleigh, who established the failed English colony of Roanoke in Virginia in 1584, wrote at his departure that he did not want to be torn from "the sweet embraces of...Virginia." (fn *)

Pocahontas became such a beloved icon that when Virginia passed its infamous miscegenation law in 1924 – a/k/a the Racial Integrity Law of 1924 – it declared that the descendants of Pocahontas and her husband John Rolfe should be classified as “white” rather than “colored.”

Researching the historical person of Pocahontas is difficult because there is so little documentation. This assignment asks you to compare two studies of Pocahontas that draw on this small body of information – one a short biographical article, the other a book-length study. Do not reiterate all the facts of Pocahontas' life. Your understanding of the texts will be evident in how you construct your argument and choose the most important points to discuss.

Unlike the fish fertilizer assignment, this exercise does not ask you to decide which work you like best, or which is “better.” The goal is for you to analyze the choices made by each author and identify the strengths and weakness of the resulting text.

Assignment

Read Helen Rountree's article on Pocahontas in Sifters and Camilla Townsend's book, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma . Choose ONE of the following questions as a focus for your comparison of these texts. Be sure to include an introduction and conclusion and use proper citation format throughout.

•  What are the primary and secondary sources used in each text? Where the authors use the same sources, compare their interpretation of these texts. How does the selection of sources affect the author's depiction of Pocahontas?

•  Length is an obvious difference between these two works. What scholarly and writing choices did the authors make to include or exclude material? What are the implications for each our understanding of indigenous women in American history?

fn * Annette Kolodny, The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 3.