Matoaka

**Matoaka** (c.1596-1617) also known as **Amonute** and **Pocahontas**, later forced into the slave-name of **Rebecca Rolfe** is a historic-figure.

## History

### Real-world history

Matoaka (born Amonute) was the daughter of the chieftain Powhatan in the Tesenamacommacah region of modern-day Virginia. She often went by the nickname of, "Pocahontas" meaning, "Trouble-maker" which she inherited from her mother.

When she was 11 or 12 years old, her tribe was going to execute a nearly 30-year-old British colonist named John Smith who had stolen land from their people. According to folk-legend, Matoaka flung herself in-front of Smith's body to prevent his execution which her father then honoured. Regardless, following this the girl was kidnapped by the British as a hostage to force Powhatan into submission.

Following British negotiations with Powhatan, Matoaka was enslaved by the British and sent to England where she spent the near remainder of her adolescence as an abused worker in a cigar-factory. Eventually she was purchased by a highly cruel and wealthy zealot named John Rolfe who forced her to change her name to Rebecca Rolfe and become his wife. In addition to forcing her into this marriage and into having his children, Rolfe abused Matoaka and turned her into a sideshow attraction where he referred to her as, "The Noble Savage" as a means of perpetuating racist colonial propaganda.

Ultimately, Matoaka died around the age of 21 from an unspecified illness, sometimes believed to have been of the respiratory nature. The story of, "Pocahontas" being a, "Noble Savage" who saved John Smith was also appropriated by colonists as a form of colonial propaganda made to place blame of hostilities in colonialism on both sides while characterizing the Indigenous as antagonistic. In-turn this lead to many settlers fetishizing Matoaka's story and turning it into a romance where she fell in-love with her abusers and kidnappers; Disney made a film based on this myth in 1995 which was subject to many protests and public outcries during its production and later release.

### Disney film

In this film, "Pocahontas" was a native, "Princess" who fell in-love with colonist John Smith and negotiated peace between the Powhatans and English so that they could both settle the land. She later went on a diplomatic mission to England where she fell in-love with aristocrat John Rolfe who made her into a British lady before marrying her.

## Appearances and allusions

### It's a Small World

The Disney depiction of Pocahontas appears with the raccoon Meeko in the North America segment of Hong Kong's It's a Small World.

### Pocahontas Indian Village

Pocahontas is the namesake for this stereotyped and inappropriately named area of Disneyland Paris' Frontierland. In it, she helps the wizard Merlin and his apprentices stop Governor Ratcliffe from stealing a shard from the Crystal of the Magic Kingdom after being broken out of prison by the god Hades.

### Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom

The Disney depiction of Matoaka appears in this attraction where she is present in the sections dedicated to Frontierland and Liberty Square.

### Live-appearances

The fictionalized, aged-up, fetishized, Disney depiction of Pocahontas is a commonly found character for meet 'n' greets in the Disney Parks. She is most predominately found in Frontierland, and Disney's Animal Kingdom.

* **Fantasmic!**: Pocahontas appears in the, "Savages" musical-sequence of Walt Disney World's Fantasmic! in Disney's Hollywood Studios.

## Connections

### Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

The Pocahontas Village area of Disneyland Paris is seemingly allocated in the mining-town of Thunder Mesa, a colony in the Big Thunder Mountain region of Arizona.

#### Liberty Belle Riverboat

Matoaka's Powhatan tribe appears in this attraction set in the 19th century. River-boatsman Samuel Langhorne Clemens comments on them being located far farther west than the land they are indigenous to and that they likely migrated due to the scarceness of food in their homeland.

### Rafiki's Planet Watch

Matoaka's consul, "Grandmother Willow" from the film is depicted in a mural within this Lion King themed conservation area connected to the African city of Harambe, the setting of Kilimanjaro Safaris.