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Stafford history goes Hollywood
"The New World" not historically accurate, but realistically portrays Stafford County's Patawomeck tribe in story of Pocahontas
Date published: 12/24/2005
By MICHAEL ZITZ Patawomeck Indian chief Robert Two Eagles Green says "The New World" story of Pocahontas, which opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles today, uses some artistic license. For example, the movie has Pocahontas being traded to the English for a copper kettle by the Patawomecks of Stafford County--a detail that's highly doubtful, but makes for smoother storytelling. The film stars Colin Ferrell as Capt. John Smith and Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas. Christopher Plummer and Christian Bale also have major roles in the artsy, 21/2-hour New Line Cinema film that features breathtaking panoramic views and little dialogue. It was filmed near Williamsburg. Green, who was an adviser to the filmmakers and has a non-speaking role, says that although some historians believe the insulting copper kettle story, it's probably not the way things happened. Much of what is widely believed about Pocahontas is derived from Smith's own dubious and self-glorifying 1624 "Generall Historie of Virginia." Green said diaries written by Smith made no mention of a rescue by Pocahontas. Green and some historians suspect Smith may have concocted, or greatly exaggerated, the story of Pocahontas' "rescuing" him to make himself a celebrity in England. The 58-year-old Green, a Clearview Heights resident and White Oak native, said Smith may have known about a common Patawomeck ceremony and inserted himself into it in a fictional account. "It could have been an adoption ceremony in which you're 'saved from death' and adopted into the tribe--and [director] Terrence Malick kind of plays on that a little bit in the movie," Green said. Historians say Smith had a big ego and was such a difficult personality that adversaries had jailed him by the time the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery reached Virginia's shores. "He was in chains when the ship landed, and arrested again at Jamestown," Green said, for insubordination. "He stayed in trouble the whole time he was here." Six years after Jamestown was founded in 1607, Pocahontas was about 16 or 17 years old. At that time, she visited the Patawomeck tribe on Marlborough Point in Stafford at the mouth of Potomac Creek.
Date published: 12/24/2005
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