Fantasy or Fact? The True History of The Most Famous Indigenous American Women

Written by WIN staff, Lauren

Stereotyped, romanticized, and falsified-these are the stories we’ve been taught about Pocahontas and Sacagawea, the most famous of Indigenous American women. However, it’s important to separate fact from fiction and remember that these women faced racism, sexism, and were not treated as equals or heroes in any way by the colonizers they interacted with and were forced to marry.

Pocahontas

Let’s begin with Matoaka (nicknamed Pocahontas!). Born around 1595, she was the daughter of Wahunsenaca (Powhatan), Chief of the Powhatan nation, which at the time consisted of 30 Algonquian communities.

She is most famous for helping the Jamestown colonists when they settled in 1607, including Captain John Smith. As relationships between the two settlements became strained, Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough, kidnapped John Smith and Pocahontas allegedly stepped in to save his life, stopping his skull from being crushed by stones. For a short while, she helped facilitate the relationship between the Powhatan nation and Jamestown.  

In 1610 she married Kocoum (thought to be a Patawomeck man) and moved from the Chesapeake Bay Region of Virginia north to Potomac, Maryland (roughly 4 hours away in today’s travel time). 

As the colonists struggled, relations once again became strained and in 1613 Captain Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas. He tried to barter her release for that of prisoners and food from Powhatan. The Chief only partially agreed, and Pocahontas was (forcibly) relocated from Jamestown, where she was being imprisoned, to the Henrico settlement (roughly an hour away, again, by today’s estimates). 

While there, she met John Rolfe (a tobacco farmer) and they were married (supposedly, in the name of peace between the two peoples). She also converted (again, probably forcibly) to Christianity.

In 1616 she went with John Rolfe to England, as proof of a “Christianized savage,” dying there, only a year later, at the age of 22, and was buried in Gravesend, England. 

Sacagawea

Born close to 1788 (again, the records aren’t what they are now), Sacagawea was a member of the Shoshone nation.  She was kidnapped at the age of 12 by the Hidatsa people and was sold to a French-Canadian Trader Toussaint Charbonneau who was living with the Hidatsa. He married her (forcibly, probably, as she was SOLD to him). 

Her husband was hired by the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) that went from Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. She had just had a child with Charbonneau, and brought the baby on their travels.  

Sacagawea did help guide the expedition in many ways: she was an interpreter, and her familiarity with the landscape and natural food sources proved useful. 

However,  she received nothing for her efforts.  Her husband, Charbonneau, on the other hand, received 320 acres and $500. She also left her child with Clark in St. Louis, so he could oversee the child’s education.  

She died shortly after the expedition, in 1812. However, some Indigenous oral histories say she returned to Shoshone lands and died in 1884. 

No one can really know what happened to these women, as history is simply an amalgamation of very biased personal accounts pulled together to create a big picture. However, we do know that these Indigenous American women suffered sexism, were most likely married against their will, and died very young. They lived difficult lives, and were used by men for personal and political gain. This is not to say these women didn’t do incredible things or weren’t extraordinary change makers, but to serve as a reminder not to romanticize the lives and stories of both historical and present-day Indigenous American women.