09/20/2006

By SONJA BARISIC  / Associated Press

The famous story of Pocahontas saving Capt. John Smith didn't make the cut in a new movie about the founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement.

The film, "1607: A Nation Takes Root," will debut at the state-run Jamestown Settlement museum in conjunction with new galleries opening Oct. 16. The 23-minute docudrama provides an overview of the first two decades of the colony and the English, Indian and African cultures that converged there.

Smith is shown being captured by Indians and taken to Powhatan, who ruled over a chiefdom that had about 15,000 people. But no mention is made of the chief's daughter, Pocahontas, throwing her body over Smith's to save his life as Powhatan was about to club him to death.

"The Pocahontas-rescuing-John Smith story is certainly the most dramatic and well-known of the early incidents in Virginia history, but frankly people have questioned whether it happened at all," senior curator Thomas Davidson said after a screening Wednesday for reporters.

If it did, it's not as significant as other events portrayed in the film, which had to be kept short enough in order to be shown to visitors every 30 minutes, Davidson said.

"We have to keep in mind that at this point Pocahontas is a girl of some 10-12 years old," Davidson said. "She certainly wasn't a decision-maker in Powhatan society."

Pocahontas does appear in the movie later, marrying tobacco planter John Rolfe in 1614 — an important event that initiated a period of peace between the Indians and the colonists. She also is depicted traveling as a peace emissary to England, where she later died.

The rescue story is mentioned in a display about Pocahontas in the new galleries, Davidson noted.

Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, an anthropologist and director of the American Indian Resource Center at the College of William and Mary, said she wondered whether the film could have mentioned that there are various versions of the story.

"The leaving out of the Pocahontas-saving-Smith story is a conscious choice related more to contemporary notions of politics than anything else," Moretti-Langholtz, who had not seen the film, said in a phone interview. "We can't prove it and we can't disprove it. Most people who come (to the museum) will be puzzled by the fact that that's not in there."

Davidson said it would have taken up a lot of the film's running time to discuss whether the event happened.

Some scholars question the story's veracity because Smith didn't mention it in his writings until much later. G. Anne Richardson, chief of the Rappahannock tribe, said she agrees with the interpretation that it did happen but that what Smith thought was going to be his execution actually was a ceremony adopting him into the tribe.

"Smith is given a new name and land. That would indicate to me, as a tribal person, that he had been adopted," Richardson said by phone. She declined to comment on the movie because she had not seen it.

The movie was produced by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the state agency that runs the museum.

The Virginia Council on Indians and Virginia tribal leaders reviewed the draft script and helped with casting. A group of historians and educators also reviewed an early version of the film, and a rough cut was shown to visitors and staff in the spring for feedback.

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On the Net:

Jamestown Settlement: http://www.historyisfun.org