“The story of Pocahontas as written by her husband John Rolfe was taken whole-cloth from a book by Richard Hakluyt, published in London in 1603. Hakluyt’s book, however, told the story with a heroic crusader captain and a beautiful Arab princess as the two characters. Hakluyt himself moved to Virginia later on, and Rolfe may have known him there. The story in both books is about an English captain whose life is saved by the princess, but in Rolfe’s version the captain was John Smith. The myth of Pocahontas and John Smith became an important operant in the construction of America, and had its counterparts all over the hemisphere. In Brazil the story is told about a woman named Iracema; in Mexico, Malinche.”

Read Durham’s full text in the exhibition folder bellow.