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Biography - Pocahontas: Her True Story [VHS]

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The A&E Biography "Pocahontas: Her True Story" attempts to clear up the debate on who this woman was and what she actually did. Unfortunately, there are some unforgivable inaccuracies in this documentary; the most blatant is when narrator Monte Markham, in describing the time period of the 17th Century Jamestown colony, mistakenly says '1508' instead of '1608'. This should have been caught in pre-video release and fixed. The video also sensationalizes the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas (something Disney did as well), and implies the desire for an intimate relationship that is not backed up by any real evidence. The video constantly emphasizes the diplomatic skills of Pocahontas to the point that it seems she was, at 13-15, in charge of all negotiations between her people and the English colonists. I find this farfetched; even though women held a high place in certain areas of Native American life, I don't think a young woman would have been charged with such a weighty burden. On the 'good' side, it is interesting to see all the artistic depictions of Pocahontas through the ages(who looks incredibly light-skinned while her father Powhatan is much darker), and to know what became of her son by husband John Rolfe. Since the video was done in 1995, I think that A&E was cashing in on the Disney film (also inaccurate), and didn't want to de-romanticize a woman who was incredibly important to our early history. It's a shame, because the story is interesting enough without the embellishment.