Trans-Atlantic Connections

I suspected it wouldn’t be long until I blogged about commuting. Thankfully, my commute is more often a source of amusement than it is of frustration (there’s a German word I would love to use here: Ärger). Today I noticed for the first time, after walking the same route almost every day for almost 9 months, that I walk past Captain John Smith. Yes that Captain John Smith: the one Disney turned into Pocahontas’ lover. The statue states that Captain John Smith was one of the pioneers in the proliferation of the English speaking peoples. I’m sure that was not all he proliferated.


Coincidentally, Pocahontas herself died in a town at the end of my train line aptly named Gravesend. Apparently tuberculosis was a common demise for the native Americans. But she didn’t do too badly out of her twenty-one years, marrying two men (not at the same time - and one of them actually called Kocoum, like in the Disney film), saving Captain John Smith and having the dubious honour of being remembered by him quite inconsistently. My memory had told me she died of syphilis, which would have been much more titillating, but wikipedia informs me otherwise.