The Story of Pocahontas: More Than Just a Disney Movie

When someone says the name Pocahontas, most of us would think of the classic Walt Disney movie. While watching this movie as a child, I only thought of it as a story just like in other movies, but there’s more to it than just the entertainment that Disney shows.

Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the chief of the Algonquian Indians in Virginia. In 1607, she encountered the Englishmen who had landed at Jamestown. John Smith was one of those Englishmen that were taken captive by the Indians, and he was ordered to be executed by the chief. Before he was executed, Pocahontas ran in to place her own head over his to save him from being killed. She was well known for trying to promote peace between the Indians and the colonists. She was later taken captive when the relations between the Indians and colonists worsened, but that was when she met her future husband. Pocahontas converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe, which was the first recorded interracial marriage in American history.

Now let’s skip ahead about 350 years to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. The dynamite that was set off underneath the steps of the church killed four African American children. Four innocent children who were there to worship and learn about God were killed because of the color of their skin.

So what do these two have to do with each other? Well, there was an issue of race in both situations. Pocahontas went against her father to do what was right and save a man from being killed. She eventually married a man of another race, and tried to promote peace between the races. Yet, hundreds of years later this is still an issue. The people responsible for the bombing of that church and many others who have issues with people of another race consider themselves “Christians.” No one knows for sure what Christ’s race was, and no one can say exactly what he looked like for sure. So why are people judging others by the color of their skin when they don’t even know the color of the skin of the man they worship? Christianity does not teach people to condemn others because of race, but it teaches the opposite which is to “love thy neighbor.” After so many years, race has continued to be an issue, but how long will it take before these “Christians” actually follow the Word of the Lord?