Pocahontas and Her World; A Chronicle of America's First Settlement in Which Is Related the Story of the Indians and the Englishmen, Particularly capt

From Preface: "In an article published not so long since, Philip Young, 'the Hemingway man,' opened a study of Pocahontas with these lines from Hemingway: Were there two sides to Pocahontas? Did she have a fourth dimension? The question is virtually the raison-d'etre of this book, although I chanced across Dr. Young's article months after I had started to work. Wretchedly little is known, historically, about the Indian princess of legend. Yet she has cast a glow across the yellowing pages of manuscripts and books of three and a half centuries ago that seems to answer Hemingway. Her personality was her fourth dimension, as it is with all mankind. This study is an attempt to present the Pocahontas of history, robbed of many a tawdry poetical embellishment, but framed in what must have been her surroundings, and given life -- I hope -- by judicious reconstruction and surmise. It is an essay at history, not a capitulation to fantasy. In the eyes of contemporary Englishmen, Pocahontas was not beautiful of face. What her fellow Indians thought, we do not know. But she was her father's 'darling,' and John Smith's 'Non-pareil.' The words bespeak character, not erotic beauty. Her eyes surely shone with the deep warmth of compassion and gaiety, and her erect figure must have stood out in the company of the ladies of King James's court. But if she had presence and self-assurance, she lacked the 'savoir-faire' of civilized Europe. Hers was certainly the sincerer mold, yet we are only able to see things through her eyes as 'through a glass, darkly.' In an effort to come face to face with Pocahontas, the emphasis in this book has been placed on the Indian side of the inevitable conflict which arose when unwanted whitemen first began to settle along the broad, sluggish waters of the James River in Virginia. Nothing has been falsified; nothing has been toned down. But the obvious, though not recorded, reactions of the Indians have been emphasized, perhaps to the disadvantage of the Englishmen. Most of this task had to be accomplished by surmise, 'informed guessing.' Yet it is my hope that something at least akin to the real woman, Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, has emerged."