MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

In the exhibition Pocahontas and the Little Carpenter, in London (1988), a small sculpture of a boy on a children's stool stood besides Pocahontas (a piece which later became La Malinche). The Two Johns refers to John Smith and John Rolfe, both Englishmen, key characters in the story of the Cherokee legend Pocahontas. The first John had been captured by Indians and was saved by Pocahontas. She was then herself captured by the English, converted to Christianity, and ended up getting married to a tobacco planter, John Rolfe.