Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women as Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols

The first Europeans to arrive in North Americas various regions relied on Native women to help them navigate unfamiliar customs and places. This study of three well-known and legendary female cultural intermediaries Malinche Pocahontas and Sacagawea examines their initial contact with Euro-Americans their negotiation of multinational frontiers and their symbolic representation over time. Well before their first contact with Europeans or Anglo-Americans the three womens societies of originthe Aztecs of Central Mexico (Malinche) the Powhatans of the mid-Atlantic coast (Pocahontas) and the Shoshones of the northern Rocky Mountains (Sacagawea)were already dealing with complex ethnic tensions and social change. Using wit and diplomacy learned in their Native cultures and often assigned to women all three individuals hoped to benefit their own communities by engaging with the new arrivals. But as historian Rebecca Kay Jager points out Europeans and white Americans misunderstood female expertise in diplomacy and interpreted indigenous womens cooperation as proof of their attraction to Euro-American men and culture. This confusion has created a historical misrepresentation of Malinche Pocahontas and Sacagawea as gracious Indian princesses giving far too little credit to their skills as intermediaries. Examining their initial contact with Europeans and their work on multinational frontiers Jager removes these three famous icons from the realm of mythology and cultural fantasy and situates each womans behavior in her own cultural context. Drawing on history anthropology ethnohistory and oral tradition Jager demonstrates their shrewd use of diplomacy and fulfillment of social roles and responsibilities in pursuit of their communities future advantage. Jager then goes on to delineate the symbolic roles that Malinche Pocahontas and Sacagawea came to play in national creation stories. Mexico and the United States have molded their legends to justify European colonization and condemn it to explain Indian defeat and celebrate indigenous prehistory. After hundreds of years Malinche Pocahontas and Sacagawea are still relevant. They are the symbolic mothers of the Americas but more than that they fulfilled crucial roles in times of pivotal and enduring historical change. Understanding their stories brings us closer to understanding our own histories.