--- title: Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren and the Real Pocahontas description: President Trump's referring to Senator Warren as "Pocahontas" is part of a long history of using the real girl as a stand-in for her people. canonical: https://time.com/5039077/pocahontas-history/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-28T21:47:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:55.310Z article:section: History og:title: 'It's Sad That Her Name Has Become a Joke' og:description: What to know about the real Pocahontas og:url: https://time.com/5039077/pocahontas-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f6dad55f37e966a/6988e70fe76ad23e12630116/pocahontas-real-history.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: pocahontas-real-history og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'It's Sad That Her Name Has Become a Joke' twitter:description: What to know about the real Pocahontas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f6dad55f37e966a/6988e70fe76ad23e12630116/pocahontas-real-history.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'It's Sad That Her Name Has Become a Joke.' 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: President Trump Calls Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas' at Event Honoring Native American Veterans [Watch (HLS stream): President Trump Calls Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas' at Event Honoring Native American Veterans](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0GKfozOg.m3u8) (0:36)  _Published 2017-11-27. President Donald Trump referred to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” during a White House event Monday honoring Native American code talkers who served in World War II._  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Nov 28, 2017 9:47 PM UTC  The only surviving record of Pocahontas sitting for a portrait in England in the early 1600s is an engraving by Simon van de Passe, which is part of The National Portrait Gallery's collection. The only surviving record of Pocahontas sitting for a portrait in England in the early 1600s is an engraving by Simon van de Passe, which is part of The National Portrait Gallery's collection. Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG—Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Nov 28, 2017 9:47 PM UTC President Donald Trump sparked controversy on Monday when, at an event meant to honor Native American veterans of World War II, he [referred to](http://time.com/5038410/donald-trump-elizabeth-warren-pocahontas-2/) Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.” “This afternoon, in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was supposed to be honoring Navajo code talkers — American heroes who helped save the world from fascism and hate during World War II,” Warren said in reaction, in an [email](http://time.com/5038848/donald-trump-elizabeth-warren-response-pocahontas/) to her supporters. “Instead, Trump stood right next to those Native American war heroes and came after me with another racist slur.” Pocahontas has been used before by [Trump](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/whats-behind-trumps-pocahontas-attack-warren) as a shorthand to attack Warren, whose Native American heritage he and [others](https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/06/27/scott-brown-says-warren-should-take-dna-test/9awYU9VYkg7sGlvLg5JDLI/story.html) have questioned in the past. While the President’s statements on Monday caused a new round of controversy, his statement is also part of a four-century-long history of using “Pocahontas” as a stand-in for a wide range of Native American experiences. “She’s probably the only Native American woman whose name we all know; they’ve been so wiped out of history,” says historian Camilla Townsend, author of [_Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma._](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809077388/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fsp%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=smithsonianco-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0809077388&linkId=f29b9f41d6fa15a1db51bec885eb3ebf) “It’s sad that her name has become a joke that Trump and others use because her real life was so difficult and frightening and she had to make decisions so much rougher than any of us had to face.” Below is a brief look at what historians know about what her life was really like. ### **Her name wasn’t even Pocahontas** Born in the 1590s and raised a member of the Pamunkey tribe in Virginia, she actually went by “Amonute” or “Matoaka,” and Pocahontas was a nickname thought to mean “playful one.” She was the daughter of the chief of the tribe, Powhatan, and grew up in the tribe’s capital Werowocomoco, located along the Pamunkey (now York) River. ### **She and John Smith probably weren’t lovers** It’s probably true that Pocahontas and John Smith, a leader in the colony of [Jamestown](http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20070507,00.html) established in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London, worked closely together and served as liaisons to each other’s communities. But — though the Disney version of _Pocahontas_ may have convinced many people otherwise — their relationship was probably not romantic. After all, Pocahontas is now thought to have been about [10 or 12 years old](http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/12/nyregion/coming-to-classrooms-the-real-pocahontas-story.html) when she met the English colonists. They probably served as each other’s translators and teachers, giving each other informal language lessons, as some of Smith’s writing shows them repeating the same sentences in Algonquian and English, Townsend tells TIME. In some respects, her role shows how some Native American women in this period had more authority than English colonial women. “Would the English ever have taken a 10-year-old girl and turned her into a translator? No,” says Townsend. And her role was an important one, as she would have facilitated important trade relationships. ### **She probably didn’t rescue John Smith from kidnappers** In one of Smith’s accounts, he talks about being [captured](http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/colonial/indians/captured.html) by Native Americans a few months after arriving and says Pocahontas saves him from being killed by her father. But “that’s classic John Smith,” says Townsend. “He always says half-naked girls rescued him, that it happened in Africa and Asia.” Plus, more recent research into tribal rituals [suggests](https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/adlit08.ush.begin.pocamyth/the-myth-of-pocahontas/#.Wh3A4Y5w1kV) that the episode Smith described may have been a ceremony in which Pocahontas acted a prepared part. It’s also possible that the experience was meant to send a particular message to Smith and the other settlers by reminding them of Powhatan’s authority — a message that may not have gotten across due to cultural prejudices. “\[Smith’s\] presumption,” says Peter Mancall, an expert on the history of Native Americans at the University of Southern California, “is that that doesn’t make any sense because the English are superior.” ### **In fact, it was the English who kidnapped** **_her_** During a period of simmering fighting between the settlers and Powhatan’s people, Pocahontas was held prisoner for a year. “The way to get out was to marry the enemy and convert to Christianity,” explains Townsend. “We don’t know if it was her father’s idea but he was consulted through messengers, and it was his decision to go forward with it.” Around 1614, she was baptized “Rebecca,” converted to Protestantism and married John Rolfe, who is best known for bringing a profitable form of tobacco farming to Virginia. She and her husband were then brought back to England by the Virginia Company to prove to investors that immigration and investment were safe ventures, and that the Native Americans in Virginia were at peace with the settlers. The company needed to be able to point to her as a “good Christian” with a son. Her marriage also appeared to be more strategic than romantic. “Rolfe, at one point, in one of the odder ways of describing a romantic relationship, refers to his marriage to Pocahontas, as ‘holy work,’ meaning he’s going to help spread the English Christian message through this marriage,” says Mancall. She died in England around 1617. “The only written descriptions we have of her there are of her being quite miserable,” Townsend says, “and then she gets sick and dies.” ### **There’s only one portrait of her — but it tells a big story** The only surviving record of Pocahontas sitting for a portrait in England in the early 1600s was for an engraving by Simon van de Passe that is now in the [National Portrait Gallery’s collection](http://npg.si.edu/blog/collection-pocahontas). “Dressed like an English woman, and having taken the name Rebecca, \[Pocahontas in\] this picture tells the English that their idea that they can convert native people will work, and Pocahontas is living proof of that,” says Mancall. As he points out, the English colonies were in trouble at the time, so the Virginia Company needed someone like Pocahontas to help turn things around. “That engraving is really important because she becomes an object lesson to the English about the deeper truth and meaning of their colonial project,” he says. The lesson, he says, came from the transformation of a Native American girl into an English woman — and, largely after she died, into a symbol of her entire people. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5039077/pocahontas-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5039077/pocahontas-history/"},"headline":"'It's Sad That Her Name Has Become a Joke.' 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