Pocahontas And The Powhatan Dilemma Sparknotes

Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma written by Camilla Townsend is a biographical novel written to provide a more in depth view of the feelings of both the natives and the Old World English. The novel is set in late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century and follows the narrative of Pocahontas’s life while including the thoughts and actions of her relative native people in addition to the thoughts of the Englishmen of Jamestown. Townsend’s novel uses primary and secondary sources to personalize and summarizes the story of Pocahontas in a new story-like way that makes her life relatable to readers.

Townsend took a traditional approach to the organization of the novel, being that it is arranged chronologically, but with only 9 chapters,

each chapter was a major event of Pocahontas’s life. Most of the chapters are preceded by a quote from a primary source from the time of the events occurring in said chapter. Primary source quotes from the time period are also scattered throughout the novel, adding a sense of relevancy to Townsend’s secondary source novel. Townsend also adds information from other secondary sources that have come before her novel. This shows that Townsend has done a tremendous amount of research to write this biographical native. The index itself is seven pages long, showing the amount of sources used in the novel. The sources derive from a range of materials including the Bible and accounts that the English kept during their time in Jamestown.
However, some of the excerpts that were written to represent what the Native Americans discussed with the Englishmen were taken from the records of Englishmen: like John Smith who kept a record of his time in Jamestown.

For example, Townsend writes, “Let this therefore assure you of our loves and everie yeare our friendly trade shall furnish you with corne, and now also if you would come in friendly manner to see us, and not thus with your gunnes and swords, as [if] to invade your foes,”24 (p. 79). This is meant to represent Powhatan’s agreement to make an unequal trade with the Englishmen in agreement of peace. However, in the notes of the novel Townsend annotates that, “These words all come to us through Smith, of course, and they may not represent what Powhatan actually said,” (p. 192). Although this may have not been Powhatan’s direct quote exactly, it is what he went on to do, so this fact defends Townsend’s choice of using an indirect quote in the particular situation. In the novel, Townsend also adds that Smith began embellishing his story of his time in Jamestown, after Pocahontas’s death, in 1624 (p. 80). This takes away some of the credibility of Smith’s recorded

story.
Townsend’s novel is interesting because it does not simply tell the story of just one side of the New World exploration or the Native American’s struggles, rather their stories are told simultaneously in a way that intertwines and humanizes the historical figures experiences.

Other novels might simply tell the story of Pocahontas, using accounts that were left by Pocahontas and may not give enough information into the intentions of the Englishmen, instead Townsend includes and rationalizes both sides of “dilemma” that surrounded Pocahontas’s short life. This is achieved in Townsend’s novel through her use of third person narrative while incorporating what the person might have been thinking or what their intentions might have

been.
Another way that Townsend adds historical references in the novel is through the use of illustrations of time-period paintings throughout the entirety of the novel: scattered among the narrative. The use of historical pictures is not overdone or done in a meaningless manner. The best demonstration of where an illustration added an additional glimpse as to what the encounter may have actually looked like is the illustration of Pocahontas’s abduction on the top of page 102. The original painting was created in 1634, “in London a number of years after the fact, when the story became well known in the metropolis,” (p. 102) the caption states. The illustration adds to the story of Pocahontas’s abduction by showing Yapassus and his wife persuading Pocahontas to board the English ships in the background, only for her to be kidnapped and used as a pawn to force Powhatan to give in to the Englishmen’s demands. Seeing this encounter, in what it may have looked like helps readers to understand more in depth the situation that is being discussed, moreover this is not a new technique and it has been used for a multitude of years in textbooks and other literary works.
The most challenging obstacle Townsend had to overcome to produce this work was the fact that any diaries or writings from the time period that Pocahontas was alive would today be extremely old: if they even ever existed. Most of the records that were taken by the Englishmen in Jamestown were written down years later into print: making their creditability somewhat questionable. Also the fact that most of the records of the Native American’s actions were eventually written and recorded by Englishmen, not Native Americans, is also troubling. This fact alone was a major problem to the creditability to the narrative that Townsend placed together of the Native Americans in her novel, even though there was a significant use of other secondary sources. Overall, Townsend did a great job placing together the evidence that was available to her from the time period in examination.
In conclusion, Townsend uses an interesting blend of primary and secondary sources, in different forms, to personalize and summarize the story of Pocahontas in a new story-like way that makes her life relatable to readers in the biographical novel, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. As it has been noted, Townsend, executed the novel excellently even with the limited amount records kept during of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.