Thanks to the Walt Disney Company, Pocahontas may be the most famous Native American who lived in the 17th century. The animated film version of her early life included her speaking with a willow tree, befriending animals, singing about “the colors of the wind,” and being caught up in an ill-fated romance with Captain John Smith.

The 1995 film created an enduring visual image of Pocahontas, and contained some details drawn from the historical record, though plenty is pure fiction. Smith was, in fact, one of the English colonists who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, soon after its founding in 1607. Pocahontas’ father Wahunsonacock – whom colonists and Disney called Powhatan – was the paramount chief of the Powhatans, who lived in communities along the edges of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

Only one portrait of Pocahontas from her lifetime exists – a sharp contrast with the Disney-drawn image most Americans know. And it speaks volumes about how the English saw colonization.

As I describe in my 2026 book, “Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000 to 1680,” Wahunsonacock was the most consequential political figure in early Virginia, the land Powhatans knew as Tsenacommacah. Through personal alliances and shrewd stratagems, he controlled perhaps 30 communities along the shores of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

Pocahontas, also known as Matoaka and Amonute, was probably about 10 or 11 years old when she encountered Smith in late 1607. At that moment he was a captive of her father, who, Smith later wrote, was about to have him killed. Though scholars believe Wahunsonacock was likely putting Smith through a ritual adoption, the colonist claimed Pocahontas........

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