Pocahontas: Europeanized for Her Own Good?

While looking through paintings and portraits of Pocahontas today in class, I tried to put myself in her position.  Why, I don't know.  I can't say most teenage boys would try and put themselves in the situation of a teenage Native American princess, but then again I'm not most teenage boys.  Anyways, what I discovered after doing was that, well, it sucked.

Can you imagine being taken from everything and everyone you know and being forced to marry some old, bearded man and then go to his country where a culture and language so different than your own dominates?  It would be frightening and difficult.  I cannot imagine doing it all.

The different ways she was portrayed speaks volumes about how people used her image to get across their own views of her.  In her portrait, her only portrait, the common idea of her as a young, beautiful princess is completely trashed.  She looks almost scary in her classic English garb, and definitely a bit older than a teenager.  That English air certainly wasn't doing her any favors.