I’m not sure where to put this. While there’s surely a factual answer to the question, I’m not sure anybody living can provide it; and I’m as interested in people’s impressions of the matter as I am in the historical facts. Having flipped a coin, I’m putting it in IMHO.
And now some background. The wallpaper on my computer changes with every reboot. This afternoon the painting of Pocahontas’ baptism–authored by, I think, Chapman–came up. Seeing it, I remembered my initial reaction, which was two-fold. What a beautiful work of art was my first thought; What utter bullshit was my second. She was, after all, kidnapped by the English in the first place. Here’s a few words from the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Even when I was a Christian, I was dubious of spiritual metamorphoses immediately preceded by felonies; and as an atheist, I think the idea is bullshit. But then I thought about it. Who knows what was in her head when all this happened? She was kidnapped, true, but her father’s deciding he’d rather keep stolen tools and weapons than secure her release must have stung; that’s the sort of thing that might cause someone to question everything about a previous world-view. Of course, that’s assuming she was even emotionally close to her father, a fact not yet in evidence. And, of course, the tale of Christ does have some emotional resonance that often cause people to experience major psychological changes.
So what say you, Dopers? Was Pocahontas’s conversion voluntary?
Well, I don’t think they forced her to convert. It’s possible that she converted for reasons other than thinking that Christianity was true. She was surrounded by Christians, and may have wanted to fit in. Also, the English were more technologically advanced than the Indians, so she may have felt their god was more powerful.
Ultimately, she’s the only one who knows, and I don’t think she ever made public her reasons.
A large number of Native Americans embraced the white man’s religion early on without being coerced. Books such as “Mayflower” talk about this at some length.
Lots of people convert without a fuss. She may have been not very spiritual in the first place.
Just like other cultures, the Indians are perceived through their rituals, which visitors always write about, but those who ignore rituals are not equally included in the travelogue accounts.
I have no reason to question her profession of faith. Her baptismal font is in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia – the same church where Patrick Henry made his famous speech. I don’t know where she was baptized.
If seemed to adjust to British society quite well. She was introduced to King James and the Queen. She would have met Shakespeare, but he died a few weeks before she arrived. She did meet with Ben Johnson. And I read that John Smith visited her in England.
It’s not as if she couldn’t seek asylum from fundamentalist Christians or something.
I don’t know about her case. But, in what sense is a voluntary conversion more “genuine”? For most of the history of Christianity, involuntary conversions were typical enough. Charlemagne, for example, was said to have converted 850 people to Christianity in one day (though the conversions were brief). That long ago, what was written of her conversion may describe a more genuine (in the sense of typical) conversion than the more recent phenomenon of evangelicalism would have been then.