The Pocahontas Archive

The Role of Pocahontas during the Debate over Early Nineteenth-Century Indian Removal Policies

[1] Pocahontas is a central figure in the national American story representing both the birth of our nation and that of the first official colony, Jamestown. Remarkably, the historical record does not contain a single word of her own. Consequently, her actions and motives are left to be told by whoever desires to construct them. Authors of her story, from the first accounts in 1608 to the present, feel a certain license to write it however they please; consequently, they have provoked centuries of debate about why parts of the tale differ from or contradict other stories. Many of those debates have involved politics and public policy. The nineteenth-century removal of Indians from the Southeast United States to the American West provides a crucial example of such a debate. It illustrates how both sides incorporated the story of Pocahontas in their battle to gain public support for or against removal.

[2] During political changes of great importance to the future of the country, cohorts of one side or another of an issue have retold Pocahontas's story in order to sway public opinion. In the early nineteenth-century, the population of the United States grew beyond its borders. Southeastern America housed the "Five Civilized Tribes" -- Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Euro-Americans began to encroach upon Native American land, an encroachment eventually leading to the Indian Removal Act (1830). This political policy forcibly to remove these tribes from the Southeast required support. The national story of Pocahontas was utilized as a tool to gain support for Indian Removal in the 1820's and 1830's under President Andrew Jackson, but opponents of the policy also told her story to critique the public policy, finding this use of an Indian to justify the displacement of Indians ironic and using her character as a form of political satire to object to Indian removal. While the ultimate decision to move Indians further west of the Mississippi prevailed, "the most familiar Indian woman in American history" (Gallagher) was employed as a weapon in the public relations battle to gain support or to show opposition to this particular course of action that would affect America's future.

[3] White tenure east of the Mississippi River was limited by Indian occupancy of land in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi (approximately 25 million acres) by 1830. The so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" numbered approximately 60,000 (Young 31). Because Pocahontas was a national hero and an American Indian, her well known and available story was readily manipulated in addresses, paintings, plays, and novels to convince or deter the general public and politicians that Indian Removal was crucial to furthering the United States as well as beneficial for the Native American Tribes. Support was needed for Indian Removal because of the ironic, but prevailing, argument that the land white Americans desired was not properly exploited or "improved" by Native Americans: in brief, the contention that the land should be properly cultivated by "a member of white, Christian Society" (Tilton 119). The Five Civilized Tribes, however, practiced many Anglo-American ways of life, making that argument illogical. For example, southeastern tribes, for generations prior to 1830, had practiced fencing plantations (a form of eminent domain), imitated Anglo-American agricultural methods, accepted Christianity, become literate, and cultivated land for market (Young 32). The popular rationalization that Native Americans were not "properly" using the land was a weak argument to support Indian Removal policy.

[4] Multiple approaches to the story of Pocahontas story were appropriated to advance the goal of removing Indians west of the Mississippi River. Her baptism became a key argument. Some argued that her baptism signified a shift of her loyalty from her native nation to the settlers and thus she thereby gave them the title over the land. Another argument resulting from her baptism was her representation of a model Indian who accepted Christian morals, values, and way of life. Native Americans who did not live up to this model were therefore considered unworthy to live on the land, a view supported by the 19th-century doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which contended that expansion was the foreordained destiny of the nation, a God-given right of the United States to expand to the West. Others argued that her simple kindness and acceptance of settlers was an act of transferring rights to the land from Indians to the Europeans. While there is no actual evidence that Pocahontas had the control or influence to make such decisions, there is no evidence that she did not. It is the liberty of whoever is commissioning her story to create a preference. Some prominent people who took that liberty (whether for or against Indian Removal) include: Thomas Lorraine McKenney, William Wirt, George Washington Custis, Seba Smith, and John Gadsby Chapman.

Thomas Loraine McKenney

[5] A prominent political figure organizing American Indian Policy in the early nineteenth century was Thomas Lorraine McKenney. In 1829, the Cherokee nation sent a delegation to speak with President Jackson (who had actually taken into some consideration the question of whether Indian tribes were sovereign nations) about the concern of encroaching Georgians on their ancestral lands. Secretary of War John Eaton, however, informed the delegation that the federal government would not assist the Cherokee Nation. Jackson's apathetic position on the Cherokee's issue created opposition from Northern humanitarians. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (headquartered in Boston with a large Presbyterian and Congregational membership) aided the Cherokees by founding Indian schools to educate members of the Five Civilized Tribes. The American Board became a loud advocate for Indians to stay on their lands and not be molested by oncoming settlers. Concerned about the effect of such a dominant voice against Indian Removal, in 1829 Jackson organized a rival "humanity, justice, and Christian concern for the Indian" government group, the Indian Board of Emigration, Preservation, and Improvement of Aborigines of America, with McKenney as instigator (Prucha 636). Before that, McKenney's résumé included heading the Office of Indian Affairs with the War Department since 1824, and from 1816-1822, the direction of government operations in trading factories under the title of Superintendent of Indian Trade, where he used this office to focus on Indian Affairs.

[6] McKenney, genuinely concerned with Indian rights and interests, was optimistic about government actions to prepare Indians to enter white society. However unlikely the Indian interest in assimilating into Anglo-American culture, as a Christian man who supported missionary work among Indians he believed that it was in the tribe's best interest to integrate. This idea took a sharp turn in 1827, however, during his frontier tour, where he observed the large decline in Indian population and became convinced that the cause was their assimilation into white culture. McKenney thereupon resolved that the continued existence of Indians depended upon their separation from whites (Prucha 637).

[7] Removal of Indians instead of illegalizing invasion by whites on ancestral land was McKenney's response to the issue. He would have to find support for the proposal from the American Board. On August 5th, 1829, in an effort to gain support for his cause, McKenney gave a public speech to members of the Indian Board. In his address, he describes the Europeans' first contact with Indians in the North and South. (Copies of the address as well as the meeting's proceedings were given to President Jackson.) McKenney characterized the prominent Indians Samoset and Massasoit, from the northern Plymouth colony, and Pocahontas, from the southern Jamestown colony, to explain why the United States has authority over the land. Using both northern and southern colonies could attract larger support for his cause. He goes as far as to invent an imagined dialogue between the Indians and settlers. While referring to Pocahontas, he speculates:

"And what," we might fancy Pocahontas to say, "would have been the fate of Captain Smith, the leader of those who came across the deep water to the land of Powhatan, my father, had not a gush of pity forced itself on my heart, and impelled me to throw myself between that leader of your fathers, and the club that was uplifted to dash out his brains? And what the fate of those who attended him?" "And where," we may fancy them both [Massasoit and Pocahontas] asking, "would now be their descendants, who are as numerous as the leaves of our forest, fill our valleys, and sail upon our rivers, and hunt in our mountains?" (230)

Remember, history attributes no words of Pocahontas to her own story. Accordingly, McKenney safely adds, "we might fancy Pocahontas to say," so as not to falsely generate fact. He describes Pocahontas, Samoset, and Massasoit as "generous savages who gave us this country," explaining that the country became an asylum for the Pilgrim Fathers who came over time to possess the land, presumably because the Indians gave it to them (231). Again, Pocahontas's "voice" is given authority over Indian presence. It may be assumed that because she is a renowned national hero, in order to gain support from his audience it is easier to give her authoritative responsibility to surrender the American South, even if that authority was not accepted by Indian nations involved in the Removal, He follows these statements by proposing that it is the obligation of American institutions to secure Native American liberty ("or the maintenance of their own peace and security") because of the "fair inheritance" from the original proprietors. McKenney purposely puts Pocahontas on a pedestal because of her assumed acceptance of Anglo culture and her supposed retreat from her own. Just as McKenney imagines Pocahontas's motivations, we might imagine that he chose her as a model representative of Indians because he could presume that every American held her in high regard. If Pocahontas had actually presented the nation to the Europeans, it is understandable for McKenney to think that the people of the United States should accept her gesture as an offering and conclude that she agreed with the Christian American position on proper "improvement" of the land. In his address, he eventually describes a land where the Indian is broken from savage ways and imitates all that he sees of Euro-American culture, a happy development resulting in a Utopia where whites and Indians can peacefully live together.

[8] Although McKenney's Indian Board ultimately fell apart because it lacked the funds to sustain the debate, Jackson responded that he was pleased with the Board's principles of humanity and justice towards the Indians. In reality, the policy needed to pass at a quicker pace than McKenney had set. Jackson had promised while running for election that an answer to the "Indian problem" would be conceived soon. Jackson stated, however, that "I beg leave to assure you, that nothing of a compulsory course, to effect the removal of this unfortunate race of people, has ever been thought of by this President, although it has been so asserted" (Prucha 647). Although McKenney was fired from his position, the momentum to pass Indian Removal as an Act was gained. In May 1830, the Indian Removal Act passed -- accomplishing the Board's original purpose. Accomplishing the Removal while putting to use the Board's principles, however, would not occur. Opposition to Indian Removal still existed.

William Wirt

[9] William Wirt was active in the prevention of American Indian Removal. He was born in 1772 in Maryland. While he was still young, he attended school in Georgetown (now the District of Columbia) and later at a classical school in Maryland, where he became proficient in the classics and mathematics, writing poetry and prose as often as he could. In 1790, he began studying law, and, in 1792, he was admitted to the bar (J.F.B. 67). Like McKenney, he had a successful career in politics, including the representation of the Cherokee Nation against the state of Georgia in the 1831 Supreme Court Case.

[10] Gold was discovered in Georgia during the early nineteenth century, and the Cherokee Nation was situated in the same area where gold had been found. President Andrew Jackson had promised in his campaign for president to force the Cherokee nation to surrender its land to the United States. Gold was not the original reason for the promise; however, it helped push his promise forward. Those supporting Jackson shared a common argument: that Indians were not civilized and therefore did not have the right to possess the land (especially land containing gold). The Cherokees, who had created their own government and constitution, lived in houses, went to schools, practiced Anglo-American agricultural techniques, and published their own newspapers, contested the accusation of being uncivilized and the onset of settlers on their land. Nonetheless, white settlers illegally trespassed onto Cherokee land to mine for gold. The Cherokees decided to use the United States court system to take legal action. William Wirt was chosen to represent the Cherokee people (Abrams 110). He used the massive arsenal of evidence, analysis, and logic he had gained throughout his career to argue against the execution of legislative acts by Georgia. Wirt was very popular for his consistently accurate use of knowledge about law. He was also very outspoken about the unpopular ideas of equality and integration of Indians into American society. He made this point apparent in his novel, Letters of the British Spy.

[11] Letters of the British Spy was first published in 1803 but was followed with numerous new versions reflecting current opinions in the United States status on various issues. Wirt wrote from the standpoint of a spectator (in this case, a British Spy) making social commentary on the present day United States. In the novel, he laments the forethought of the Founding Fathers of America because of the departure from the original spirit that the United States displayed at the time of his writing (Robert 117). He refers to Pocahontas (or Pocahuntas) in regard to the treatment of the Indians by federal policy in the early nineteenth century, honoring her and her people's culture. When speaking of the arrival of the British to America, for instance, he imagines that the Indians were likely amazed and concerned upon seeing the British ships, dress, animals, language, and artillery (162). Wirt is hardly surprised at Indian hostility towards the countrymen of the United States who seem to have forgotten that the land first belonged to the Indians but had been taken away by force. From Wirt's perspective in the early nineteenth century, the proposal of Indian Removal would continue that act of robbery. His position contradicts McKenney's argument that the British "fairly inherited" the land. He sardonically comments on the Virginian idea that Indians cannot be susceptible, as though it were a disease, to civilization, "or, in other words, that they obstinately refuse to adopt the manners of the white men" (164). In fact, he observes, the Indians lived in comfort and joy until the settlers came and tore away their liberties and freedoms. He then links that history to Pocahontas's heroic role in the founding of the country, observing:

I wonder that the Virginians, fond as they are of anniversaries, have instituted no festival or order in honour of her memory. For my own part, I have little doubt, from the histories which we have of the first attempts at colonizing their country that Pocahuntas deserves to be considered as the patron deity of the enterprise. (168)

The reader is subsequently reminded that the settlers were near the verge of complete ruin, but because of the patronage of Pocahontas they survived. For Wirt, removing Indians from their lands is an act of injustice and no way to show thanks for their aiding original settlers in their survival in the new land. In relation to Indians and white men living together as equals, he references Pocahontas's marriage to John Rolfe.

[12] The controversy surrounding the romance between John Rolfe and Pocahontas involves the inter-racial marriage of an Englishman and an Indian. The Removal Act argued that Indians simply could not live among the white-Americans because they were too different and were uncivilized. Wirt theorizes that Pocahontas anticipated the probable suppression of her nation. The marriage, he hypothesizes, was an effort to abolish the distinction between Indians and white men and to lessen the foreseeable destiny of her people (169). By doing so, she might help break the barriers by combining interests and uniting the two under one nation. While Wirt obviously exercises his artistic liberty here, his speculation is not improbable, given her status within the Powhatan nation. Wirt wrote his homage to Pocahontas in Letters of the British Spy while the U.S. government was debating its official courses of action involving American Indians. Wirt, who would later be the Attorney General, freely expressed his opinion of the injustices and inhumanities projected by the government. He evaluated, using historical allusions, the state of the eloquence, education, and religion of the Old Dominion (nickname for Virginia) and concluded, sternly, that it was in dire need of improvement (Robert 117)

George Washington Parke Custis

[13] George Washington Parke Custis did not move in the same political circles as did McKenney or Wirt. He was an antebellum dramatist who included his personal views on issues of the time in every one of orations and plays. Custis, the step-grandson and adopted heir of the United States' first President, George Washington, was devoted to the legacy of his step-grandfather's views and was known for his outbursts and sudden changes in his stance on issues. Before he became an avid Jacksonian, he was a Federalist. Subsequently, he joined the Whig Party after being a Jacksonian (Abrams 109). Responding to the political climate about Indian Removal, Custis developed his own version of the national story of Pocahontas with a play entitled Pocahontas, or The Settlers of Virginia.

[14] Pocahontas, or The Settlers of Virginia debuted January 16th, 1830, and was immediately successful. Custis carefully reconstructed the national myth so that it reflected the events and issues transpiring in his own time. As a dramatist possessing creative liberty with the Pocahontas story, Custis created his own jumbled and wayward history of events and characters involved in the story. For example, he believed that the rescue of John Smith would fit this drama better outside of its historical chronology, so he rearranged it to occur as the climax in the last scene (Nelligan 312). The historical events are moved around to the extent that John Smith and John Rolfe are in Jamestown at the same time. An absurd twist supplies another example of Custis's use of artistic liberty: he makes the major theme of Pocahontas's conversion occur prior to Smith's or Rolfe's arrival in Virginia. Christianity, of course, was unknown in Virginia before the English came (Abrams 112). For Custis, Pocahontas is no longer the forest nymph and romancing siren, as she was popularly understood before the 1830's; now she is preeminently the Christianized Lady Rebecca. Rolfe's task to convert Pocahontas to Christianity is conveniently eliminated, allowing them quickly to form a friendly relationship. Her "wantonness" is excused because of her dignity, charm, and non-sensual relationship with Rolfe. By painting her in this light, Custis does not risk offending those important Virginians who proudly claim to be ancestors of Pocahontas. The biracial marriage of Rolfe and Pocahontas is excluded from the play. Instead, Custis invents a different biracial marriage involving minor characters (Tilton 74). The taboo of a biracial relationship between Rolfe and Pocahontas is further dampened because of Pocahontas's willing conversion to Christianity and all-around acquisition of European characteristics. While Custis portrays her conversion in an impossible way, his audience (mainly Virginians) was likely to relate more to her character and praise her for leaving her pagan culture.

[15] The character of John Smith in Pocahontas, or the Settlers of Virginia is an idealized representation of Andrew Jackson. As explained earlier, Jackson had long questioned whether Indians were independent nations, but ultimately he chose to govern them. Custis's Smith/Jackson is reluctant to defeat the "savages" because of his sympathy for their irreversible plight (Abrams 110). Ultimately, Smith and Jackson would both become active in the Indian demise. Custis repeatedly insinuates that the downfall of Native American nations will result from their self-imposed refusal to depart from their administrative and cultural sovereignty.

[16] Custis's Pocahontas, or the Settlers of Virginia obviously lends support for the Indian Removal Act. It gained so much popularity that it renewed regional patriotism backing the Jacksonian plan. In the hands of Custis, Pocahontas becomes a native Joan of Arc, sacrificing herself to insure the future success of a Protestant America. On the other hand, Powhatan is made into a defeated "noble savage" -- yet an honorable hero, mirroring the concept of the "vanishing Indian." Powhatan did not assimilate as did his daughter, Pocahontas. Consequently, he [Powhatan] is held responsible for his own plight. Racial extinction, regrettably or not, of the Indian would enable an advancement of Anglo-American civilization (Abrams 113), and the final lines of the play, delivered by an exhaustive and defeated Powhatan, foreshadow this development:

And may the fruits of this union virtue and honour be a long line of descendants, inheriting those principles, gifted with rare talents, and the most exalted patriotism. Now it only remains for us to say, that looking thro' a long vista of futurity, to the time when these wild regions shall become the ancient and honour'd part of a great and glorious American Empire, may we hope that when the tales of early are told from the nursery, the library, or the stage, that kindly will be received the national story of Pocahontas, or the Settlement of Virginia.

This speech becomes Powhatan's submission to the dominant Anglo-American culture and government. The Indians are left to surrender and accept defeat. Audience members, who claim to be descendants of Pocahontas, are then designated as proud members of the new "American Empire." Because of their lineage and evident presence in America, they need not see the Indian Removal Act as a means to exterminate Indians from America. Instead, Indian Removal was dismissed as simply a temporary action; the future empire would include the Indians (Tilton 73). This construction, of course, dulls the actual severity the policy had on Indian culture by creating less concern on the part of those uninvolved. As a proud Virginian, Custis successfully retold the Pocahontas story as a national story to please Virginia's assertion as the birthplace of the nation. While McKenney argued that the land was a gift, Custis, like Wirt, acknowledges that the land was taken. Custis, however, argues that the land was taken for justifiable purposes. As an avid Jacksonian holding the belief that it was inevitable for Native American land to eventually be settled by Europeans, Custis effectively reinforces the idea that Natives were only being stubborn about moving West.

Seba Smith

[17] Seba Smith, born in Maine in 1792, was an American writer and humorist. His family later moved to Massachusetts when he was only five years old. Through his mother's style of rearing him (her lineage consisted of some of the earliest pioneers), Smith grew up experiencing a rugged pioneer lifestyle, but he also knew a gentleman's lifestyle because of the property bequeathed the family by his father's ancestry. (This combination left him very well rounded and opinionated; he eventually used his writing to promote his ideas.) Eventually, Smith would attend Bowdoin College in New England (Wyman 1-4). Later, he became best known and gained his greatest fame for his fictional "Jack Downing" columns, which ridiculed Jacksonian politics.

[18] Smith believed that Indian Removal was unwarranted. In the 1840's, he wrote satirical works responding to the irony of contemporary Indian policies (Abrams 131). Two works exemplifying his views are John Smith's Letters with Picters' to Match and Powhatan: a Metrical Romance.

[19] Since the founding of Jamestown and the creation of the Pocahontas national story, the descendants of John Smith and Pocahontas had held a high position in society. It is comparable to the same sense of self-proclaimed royalty when one holds some lineage to a King or Queen -- no matter how distant. John Smith's Letters with Picter's to Match (1839) comments on the hysterical ancestor veneration the people of Virginia practiced in social and political life. Custis and McKenney were careful not to insult any descendants in Virginia who, Smith thought, were laughable at best. Seba Smith, a Yankee, ironically shares the same last name as the "co-founder" of our nation but takes a jab at John Smith with a humorous, fictitious tone. The entire story takes place in the town of "Smithville" where nearly every citizen descends in a crooked line from the sixteenth-century captain who settled "old Virginny." Seba goes as far as to create a horrendous claim of owning John Smith's original coat of arms. In fact, it hangs in his living room (Abrams 131). Although not surprising, this work of Seba Smith did not get the recognition or review it may have deserved. Pocahontas is not mentioned in John Smith's Letters with Picter's to Match even though her presence was vital to the success of Jamestown. By omitting her from the story, Smith acknowledges America's hopeful conquest over the Indians. In 1841, Seba Smith continued his evaluation of current Indian issues with Powhatan: a Metrical Romance.

[20] Smith's works are filled with his own opinions on American politics. The plight of the Indian had swiftly shifted further West because of the Removal. Smith therefore creates his own satirical twist on the myth of Pocahontas. Powhatan recognizes the United States' efforts to make Indians vanish and is a response against the enacted policies. While Seba Smith always created humorous works, commentators about this work have overlooked his cynical overtones and have treated it as a serious work (Abrams 131). Smith intended to comment on the ironic transformation, by those who manipulated the myth, of Pocahontas as a hero awarding loyalty to the European settlers (who condemned her savage ways) and ostensibly giving Anglo-Americans superiority. The main character in Powhatan, as the title attests, is Powhatan. By focusing on the father of Pocahontas, Smith creates a new Indian hero and dismisses the heroine status of Pocahontas. Powhatan is represented as a beaten chief who refuses to bow to the English. He is disappointed in Pocahontas's naivety (she is referred to as Metoka). As the daughter of the chief, she should be loyal to the tribal way of life. Instead, she falls mindlessly in love with John Smith and forgets her duties. At the close of Powhatan: A Metrical Romance, Smith gives his own commentary on the romance between John Smith and Pocahontas. He states:

Indeed there is ground for apprehension that posterity, in reading this part of American history, will be inclined to consider the story of Pocahontas as an interesting romance; perhaps recalling the palpable fictions of early travelers and navigators, they may suppose that in those times a portion of fiction was deemed essential to the embellishment of history. It is not even improbable, that considering every thing relating to Captain Smith and Pocahontas as a mere fiction, they may vent their spleen against the historian for impairing the interest of his plot by marrying the princess of Powhatan to a Mr. Rolf, of whom nothing had previously been said, in defiance of all the expectations raised by the foregoing parts of the fable. (190)

The inclusion of the love story in Powhatan is clearly intended to mock the popularity of the romance and popular indifference to historical fact. Also interesting is the speculation that the John Smith character is a stand-in for Andrew Jackson, just as Custis had done in Pocahontas, or the Settlers of Virginia (amongst other predecessors). Seba Smith's John Smith seizes every opportunity to promote himself (Abrams 132), a reputation Jackson also gained because of some his quick, lofty, and sometimes hypocritical decisions. While the relationship between Pocahontas and Smith grows stronger, Powhatan's power weakens as he attempts to keep peace between his nation and the settlers while also trying to please his daughter. Eventually, he succumbs to his people's fate. Powhatan's humiliating submission to the English is revealed at the end of the last canto in Powhatan. Smith writes:

And casting one long, painful look
On his lost land and home,
Ere through the western wilds afar
A pilgrim he should roam,
He took his war-club for a staff,
And his footsteps westward turn'd,
And sought for rest in the far-off land,
Where the ruddy sunset burn'd. (155)

These lines radiate with the idea of the "vanishing Indian," directly in relation to the Indian removal policies at the time Seba Smith was writing. Powhatan: A Metrical Romance is Smith's response against removal of the Indians. Powhatan's final actions in the narrative foreshadow the present plight of the Indians. Smith retold the national story of Pocahontas to include the downfall of a majestic, brave chief and his people.

John Gadsby Chapman

[21] John Gatsby Chapman, also a Virginian, painted "The Baptism of Pocahontas," a narrative painting hanging in honor in the rotunda of the United States Capitol. Chapman was one of four artists commissioned to create a mural for the rotunda. The paintings were supposed to represent either "the discovery of America, the settlement of the United States, the history of the Revolution, or the adoption of the Constitution" (Abrams 37). Before finally choosing her baptism as the subject of his painting, Chapman considered a number of ideas that he might display at the Capitol. His decision to use the baptism reflects the idea of the "vanishing Indian" and ultimately becomes a dismissal of the plight upon Indians (that had just been magnified by the Indian Removal Act) because of its focus on her acceptance of Euro-American ideals.

[22] Chapman was born August 11, 1808. At the age of nineteen, he moved to Winchester, Virginia, hoping to become a serious artist. While living there, he made acquaintances with many important American artists, friendships eventually leading to his studies in Europe. When he returned, he had a special interest in traveling to Virginia to paint all that he had seen. Chapman had hoped to create a "national picture," and, in 1832, he began to contact influential politicians to campaign for a chance to paint a mural for the Capitol rotunda. In 1834, a resolution passed which stated that four artists were to be chosen to paint four murals for the rotunda. In March 1837, Chapman was chosen as one of the artists. He then had to select a proper subject to hang in the rotunda. The United States of America was still a very new country, so this painting would be a significant tool reflecting the history of the origins of America for future citizens. The choice to use Pocahontas would forever cast her as an American heroine. Chapman claimed that the baptism, although not a well documented part of Pocahontas's life, was crucial to the course of human events. He also stated:

She stands foremost in the train of those wandering children of the forest who have at different times- few, indeed, and far between- been snatched from the fangs of a barbarous idolatry, to become lambs in the fold of the Divine Shepherd. She therefore appeals to our religious as well as our patriotic sympathies, and is equally associated with the rise and progress of the Christian church, as with the political destinies of the United States. (Tilton 119)

[23] The painting was completed after the Indian Removal Act had been ratified, but the level of importance it received portrays the way the American Indian would be understood in the future. The policy of Indian Removal had obvious reverberations upon the history of America, and it can be perceived in the painting's subject, portrayal, and location. Her baptism was of interest at that time because of the dominant Christian culture but also because there was an "Indian problem." In this painting, Pocahontas becomes a model Indian entitled a place among in the "course of human events." The painting depicts her as whiter in appearance than are the other Indians; she is also dressed in European style. Her back is turned away from the traditional- looking Indians, signifying her retreat from or rejection of their culture. Because her baptism was preferred above the other events of Pocahontas's life, it suggests that it is her most important feat -- to become one of "us," a member of white, Christian Society (Tilton 119). While this painting was produced shortly after the Indian Removal Act was passed, it symbolizes the majority acceptance of such a policy and soothes the consequences.

[24] The early nineteenth century proved a controversial era for Indian policy. The American Indian Removal Act displaced thousands of Indians from their ancestral homes in order to expand the United States borders. Support for the removal was aided by the appropriation of the national myth of Pocahontas by politicians, such as McKenney, playwrights, such as Custis, and artists, such as Chapman. Each argued, in his unique way, that Pocahontas accepted the Euro-American way of life and that the plight of the Indians was no one's fault but their own. However, there were also those who opposed the removal, such as Seba Smith and William Wirt. Wirt, like McKenney, was politically active during the decision-making processes for Indian Removal. Smith followed, writing a response in opposition to the policies already enacted. In the hand of proponents and opponents alike, Pocahontas became a key character in the American origin story. Because there is no self-attributed word to her story, the authors of her story often claim the artistic freedom to bend it however they choose. During any time of controversy, it is simple to understand why such a meaningful character in America's history might be used to achieve support for one side of a debate. While the Indian Removal Act eventually came to pass, the ironies and contradictions of the distorted history of Pocahontas unmistakably became an instrument in the attempt to push or halt the policy into becoming an official course of action. Pocahontas, once kidnapped by Captain Argall, remains always available for capture again whenever she seems useful.

Works Cited

Abrams, Ann Uhry. The Pilgrims and Pocahontas: Rival Myths of American Origin. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.

Gallagher, Edward J. Lehigh University. The Pocahontas Archive. 2008. April 2009 <http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/pocahontas/>.

J.F.B. "William Wirt." The American Law Register (1852-1891) 16 (1867): 65-74.

McKenney, Thomas Lorraine. Memoirs, Official and Personal; with Sketches of Travels Among the Northern and Southern Indians; Embracing a War Excursion, and Descriptions of Scenes Along the Western Borders. New York: Paine and Burgess, 1846.

Nelligan, Murray H. "American Nationalism on the Stage: The Plays of George Washington Custis (1781-1857)." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 58 (1950): 299-324.

Prucha, Francis Paul. "Thomas L. McKenney and the New York Indian Board." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48 (1962): 635-55.

Robert, Joseph C. "Review: [Untitled]." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 79 (1971): 117-18.

Smith, Seba. Powhatan; A Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1841.

Tilton, Robert S. Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative. New York: Cambridge UP, 1994.

Wyman, Mary Alice. Two American Pioneers: Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Kessinger Publishing, 2006.

Young, Mary E. "Indian Removal and Land Allotment: The Civilized Tribes and Jacksonian Justice." American Historical Review 64 (1958): 31-45.