October 1, 2004
Famous in American legend as the Indian woman who saved and then married Captain John Smith of Jamestown, Pocahontas has often been a symbol of the capitulation of Native America to British colonialism. Historian Townsend, working from a very fragmentary record, gives Pocahontas a fiercely independent life, within her own nation and outside it. In this often pedantic and speculative biography, Townsend traces Pocahontas's life from her childhood and youth (when her strength and athletic ability rivaled the best of either sex) to her eventual marriage to John Rolfe and her move to England. Townsend presents her as shrewd in working for her people's best interests, and self-assured and confident of her abilities to construct her own identity in a world dominated by powerful and imperialistic others. Unfortunately, a paucity of information results in too many conditional statements ("we can never really know," etc.); many readers will prefer genuine gaps.