An English soldier and the daughter of an Algonquin chief share a romance when English colonists invade seventeenth-century Virginia.

Pocahontas: [as she throws herself over John Smith, who is about to be executed] No!
[silence]
Pocahontas: If you kill him, you'll have to kill me, too.
Powhatan: Daughter, stand back.
Pocahontas: I won't! I love him, Father.
[silence]
Pocahontas: Look around you. This is where the path of hatred has brought us.
[brief silence]
Pocahontas: This is the path I choose, Father. What will yours be?
Pocahontas: [singing] You can own the earth and still / All you'll own is earth until you can paint with all the colours of the wind.
John Smith: Pocahontas.
Pocahontas: [hugs him] I'm so sorry.
John Smith: For what? This? I've gotten out of worse scrapes than this. Can't think of anything right now, but.
Pocahontas: [tearfully] It would've been better if we never met. None of this would've happened.
John Smith: Pocahontas, look at me. I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you.
Nakoma: Pocahontas?
Pocahontas: I can't leave you.
John Smith: You never will. No matter what happens to me, I'll always be with you, forever.
Pocahontas: [sadly leaves]
John Smith: We've improved the lives of savages all over the world.
Pocahontas: Savages?
John Smith: Uh, not that you're a savage.
Pocahontas: Just my people!
John Smith: No. Listen. That's not what I meant. Let me explain.
Pocahontas: Let go!
John Smith: No, I'm not letting you leave.
Pocahontas: [jumps out of her canoe and climbs up into a tree]
John Smith: Look, don't do this. Savage is just a word, uh, you know. A term for people who are uncivilized.
Pocahontas: Like me.
John Smith: Well, when I say uncivilized, what I mean is, is.
[he grabs a branch, but the branch is not strong enough to hold his weight, and John falls back to the ground. Pocahontas jumps down after him]
Pocahontas: What you mean is, not like you.
Powhatan: My daughter speaks with the wisdom beyond her years. We've all come here with anger in our hearts, but she comes with courage and understanding. From this day forward, if there is to be more killing, it will not start with me.
John Smith: Pocahontas, that tree is talking to me.
Pocahontas: Then you should talk back.
Grandmother Willow: Don't be frightened, young man. My bark is worse than my bite.
Pocahontas: Say something.
John Smith: What do you say to a tree?
Pocahontas: Anything you want.
[singing]
Powhatan: This is what we feared. The paleface is a demon / The only thing they feel at all is greed.
Kekata: Beneath that milky hide, there's emptiness inside.
Warriors: I wonder if they even bleed.
Warriors: [all] They're savages, savages, barely even human. Savages, savages
Powhatan: Killers at the core.
Kekata: They're different from us, which means they can't be trusted.
Powhatan: We must sound the drums of war!
Pocahontas: Lately, I've been having this dream and I think it's.
Grandmother Willow: Oh, a dream! Let's hear all about it!
[animals begin to chatter excitedly]
Grandmother Willow: Quiet!
[a squirrel crawls over her face, which she blows away; the animals continue to chatter]
Grandmother Willow: Quiet!
[all falls silent; a frog croaks, Grandmother Willow glares at it, making it gulp and hide under its lily pad]
Wiggins: Do you think we'll meet some savages?
Governor Ratcliffe: If we do, we shall be sure to give them a proper English greeting.
Wiggins: [holds up baskets of wine and cheese] Ooh, gift baskets!
Governor Ratcliffe: [groans] And he came so highly recommended.
Governor Ratcliffe: [taken away in chains, muffled] How dare you! Untie me at once! I'll have your heads for this!
Wiggins: [tearfully] And he came so highly recommended.
[sighs sadly]
Grandmother Willow: Come closer, John Smith.
[she inspects him]
Grandmother Willow: He has a good soul. And he's handsome, too.
John Smith: Oh, I like her.
Pocahontas: I knew you would.
John Smith: [about Meeko eating his hardtacks] Is this bottomless pit a friend of yours?
Pocahontas: [singing] You think I'm an ignorant savage and you've been so many places/I guess it must be so, but still I cannot see if the savage one is me/ How can there be so much that you don't know?/You don't know.
Wiggins: [has what looks like an arrow through his head] I-I.
[takes off arrow]
Wiggins: I made it myself.
Governor Ratcliffe: Wiggins, why do you think those insolent heathens attacked us?
Wiggins: Because we invaded their land and cut down their trees and dug up their earth?
Governor Ratcliffe: It's the gold! They have it and they don't want us to take it from them. Well, I'll just have to take it by force then, won't I?
Governor Ratcliffe: [after Powhatan has released John Smith] Now's our chance! Fire!
Thomas: No!
Governor Ratcliffe: What?
Thomas: They let him go!
Ben: They don't want to fight!
Governor Ratcliffe: It's a trick, don't you see? Fire!
[no-one moves. Ratcliff grabs someone's gun]
Governor Ratcliffe: Fine! I'll settle this myself!
[he aims at Powhatan]
John Smith: [seeing Ratcliff] No!
[he pushes Powhatan away and is shot in the stomach]
Thomas: John!
[John falls. Thomas turns on Ratcliffe]
Thomas: You shot him!
Governor Ratcliffe: He-he stepped right into it! It was his own fault!
Grandmother Willow: Now then, there's something I want to show you. Look.
[dips her vine in the water in which glowing ripples begin to form]
Pocahontas: The ripples.
John Smith: What about them?
Grandmother Willow: So small at first, then look how they grow. But someone has to start them.
John Smith: They're not gonna listen to us.
Grandmother Willow: Young man, sometimes the right path is not the easiest one. Don't you see? Only when the fighting stops, can you be together.
[Pocahontas smiles]
John Smith: Alright, let's go talk to your father.
[Pocahontas and John hug each other]
Governor Ratcliffe: You there, where's Captain Smith?
Lon: Well, he's gone.
Ben: [knowingly] Aye, your singing must've scared him off!
Governor Ratcliffe: Well, then go get him, for heaven's sake!
Lon: What if we run into the Indians?
Governor Ratcliffe: That's what guns are for. Now arm yourselves and get moving!
Thomas: [looking at Kocoum's body after shooting him] Is he?
Pocahontas: You killed him.
Thomas: I thought that.
Pocahontas: [Angrily rushes at Thomas] Get away from him!
John Smith: [holds her back] Pocahontas, it wont help! He was only.
Pocahontas: [shouts] He killed him!
John Smith: [they hear other Indians approaching] Thomas! Get out of here!
[Thomas hesitates]
John Smith: [yells] Get out of here!
Ben: [Captain John Smith has just jumped off the ship during a storm to save Thomas] Smith! Are you crazy?
Kocoum: Nakoma, where is Pocahontas?
Nakoma: I-I haven't seen her.
Kocoum: Pocahontas can't keep running off. It's dangerous out there. Tell her that. She listens to you.
Nakoma: [sarcastically to herself] Huh. Sure she does.
Lon: This place gives me the creeps. Savages could be hiding anywhere.
Ben: Aye, well if you spot one, don't ask questions, just shoot.
Lon, Ben: [they pass Grandmother Willow who trips them with her root] Whoa!
Ben: Watch your feet, you big oaf!
Lon: It wasn't me, it was the tree.
Ben: [sarcastically] Oh, of course, the tree just felt like lifting its roots. And.
[Ben and Lon see that Grandmother Willow moved her roots down]
Ben: [afraid] Let's get out of here.
Lon, Ben: [Grandmother Willow whips them both with her vines] Ow!
Ben: Run!
[they rush away]
Lon: But what about Smith?
Ben: He's a big lad. He can take care of himself.
John Smith: Look, we don't have to fight them.
Thomas: John, what's gotten into you?
John Smith: I met one of them.
Ben: You what?
Thomas: A savage!
John Smith: They're not savages, they can help us. They know the land, they know how to navigate the rivers.
[Meeko pulls out an ear of corn and gives it to John]
John Smith: And look, it's food.
Lon: What is it?
John Smith: It's better than hardtack and gruel, that's for sure.
Wiggins: I like gruel.
Governor Ratcliffe: [takes the corn and throws it on the ground] They don't want to feed us, you ninnies! They want to kill us! All of us! They've got our gold, and they'll do anything to keep it!
John Smith: But there is no gold!
Ben: No gold?
Governor Ratcliffe: [sarcastically] And I suppose your little Indian friend told you this.
John Smith: Yes.
Governor Ratcliffe: Lies! Lies, all of it! Murderous thieves. There's not room for their kind of civilized society!
John Smith: But this is their land!
Governor Ratcliffe: This is my land! I make the laws here! And I say anyone who so much as look at an Indian without killing him on sight, will be tried for treason and hanged!
John Smith: [about Percy and Meeko] You see what I mean? Once two sides wanna fight, nothing can stop them.
Pocahontas: [Percy and Meeko circling around her] C-Come here, both of you!
John Smith: It's all right! He's only a friend! Bad! Bad dog! Sit!
[Flit laughs, then Meeko snatches him and straightens his beak to be sharp like a sword. He begins to fence off Percy]
Pocahontas: What are you doing? Meeko!
John Smith: Percy, get back here! What are you doing? Stop that!
Grandmother Willow: All right! That's enough!
[Percy stiffens up and faints into the river. Grandmother Willow lifts him back to the stump with one of her branches]
Grandmother Willow: It's enough to make your sap boil.
Grandmother Willow: That's the strangest creature I've ever seen.
[on Percy, who is running around with his head stuck in a tree trunk]
John Smith: Come with me?
Powhatan: You must choose your own path.
Pocahontas: [pause] I'm needed here.
John Smith: You have the most unusual names here. Chechomony, Kuyukanhoic, Pocahontas.
Pocahontas: You have a most unusual name too. John Smith.
Governor Ratcliffe: [singing] The gold of Cortez, the jewels of Pizarro / Will seem like mere trinkets by this time tomorrow. / The gold we find here will dwarf them by far. / Oh, with all you got in you, boys / Dig up Virginia, boys.
Nakoma: Pocahontas!
Pocahontas: Nakoma!
Nakoma: Don't go out there. I lied for you once. Don't ask me to do it again.
Pocahontas: I have to do this.
Nakoma: He's one of them!
Pocahontas: You don't know him.
Nakoma: If you go out there, you'll be turning your back on your own people.
Pocahontas: I'm trying to help my people.
Nakoma: Pocahontas, please. You're my best friend. I don't want you to get hurt.
Pocahontas: I won't. I know what I'm doing.
Nakoma: Pocahontas, no!
[Pocahontas runs off]
Lon: [singing] We shot ourselves an injun, or maybe two or three.
Ben: [kicks him] Alright, you howling nutter! Get to work!
Lon: Come on, Ben, it's just a little fun.
Ben: [sarcastically] Oh, sure, we're having loads of fun. Right, look at us. No gold, no food, while Ratcliffe sits up in his tent all day happy as a clam.
Governor Ratcliffe: [in his tent] I'm doomed! I should be wallowing in riches right now, and I haven't found as much as a speck!
Pocahontas: We don't have to fight them! There must be a better way.
Powhatan: Sometimes our paths are chosen for us.
Pocahontas: But maybe we should try talking to them.
Powhatan: They do not want to talk.
Pocahontas: But if one of them did want to talk, you would listen to him, wouldn't you?
Powhatan: Pocahontas.
Pocahontas: Wouldn't you?
Powhatan: Of course I would. But it is not that simple. Nothing is simple anymore.
Governor Ratcliffe: I've never been a popular man.
Wiggins: I like you.
Governor Ratcliffe: And don't think I don't know what those back stabbers at court say about me.
Wiggins: Oh, yes, all that talk about being a pathetic social climber who's failed at everything he's tried.
Governor Ratcliffe: I'm very well aware that this is my last chance for glory. But mark my words, Wiggins. When King James sees the gold these peasants unearth, success will be mine at last.
John Smith: It's just a handshake. Here let me show you.
John Smith: [holds out hand]
Pocahontas: Nothing's happening.
John Smith: Uh, no, no. I need your hand first.
[they shake hands]
John Smith: It's how we say "hello".
Grandmother Willow: What do you see?
Pocahontas: Clouds. Strange clouds.
Lon: [Lon and Thomas are gazing at the new world for the first time] It's incredible!
Thomas: And it's all ours. I've never seen anything like it!
Ben: [approaching] It could look like Ratcliffe's knickers for all I care, so long as we get off the stinking boat!
Governor Ratcliffe: [singing] This will be the day
[spoken]
Governor Ratcliffe: Let's go, men!
Powhatan: [singing] This will be the morning
[spoken]
Powhatan: Bring out the prisoner!
Warriors: [singing] We will see them dying in the dust
Pocahontas: [singing] I don't know what I can do/Still I know I've got to try
Warriors: [singing] Now we make them pay
Pocahontas: [singing] Eagle, help my feet to fly
Warriors: [singing] Now, without a warning
Pocahontas: [singing] Mountain, help my heart be great
Warriors: [singing] Now we leave them blood and bone and rust
Pocahontas: [singing] Spirits of the Earth and sky
Warriors: [singing] It's them or us
Pocahontas: [singing] Please don't let it be too late
Warriors: [singing] They're just a bunch of filthy, stinking savages
[spoken]
Warriors: Savages! Demons! Devils!
Governor Ratcliffe: [spoken] Kill them!
Warriors: [singing] Savages, savages
Governor Ratcliffe: [singing] What are we waiting for? Destroy their evil race/Until there's not a trace left
Warriors: [singing] We will sound the drums of war
Pocahontas: [singing] How loud are the drums of war?
Warriors: [singing] Now we see what comes of trying to be chums
Pocahontas: [singing] Is the death of all I love carried in the drumming of
Warriors: [singing] War?
Pocahontas: [spoken] No!
Thomas: [as a bugle is being played] John, you better get down here! The governor's coming ashore!
John Smith: [blows an attacking Flit away from his face] All right, all right! I'm leaving.
Thomas: What do you suppose the New World will look like?
John Smith: Like all the others, I suppose. I've seen hundreds of new worlds, Thomas. What could possibly be different about this one?
Thomas: [to Pocahontas, about John after being wounded] Going back is his only chance. He'll die if he stays here.
Pocahontas: [singing Colors of the Wind] You think I'm an ignorant savage/And you've been so many places/I guess it must be so/ But still I cannot see/If the savage one is me/How can there be so much that you don't know?/You don't know/You think you own whatever land you land on/The earth is just a dead thing you can claim/But I know every rock and tree and creature/Has a life, has a spirit, has a name/You think the only people who are people/Are the people who look and think like you/But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger/You'll learn things you never knew you never knew/Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon or asked the grinning bobcat why he grins?/Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?/Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?/Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?/Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest/Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth/Come roll in all the riches all around you/And for once never wonder what they're worth/The rainstorm and the river are my brothers/The heron and the otter are my friends/And we are all connected to each other/In a circle, in a hoop that never ends/How high will the sycamore grow?/If you cut it down, the you'll never know/And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon/For whether we are white or copper skinned/We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains/We need to paint with all the colors of the wind/You can own the Earth and still/All you own is Earth until/You can paint with all the colors of the wind
Governor Ratcliffe: Don't lose your heart, men. It won't be long before we reach the New World. And remember what awaits us there. Freedom. Prosperity. The adventure of our lives. You're the finest crew England has to offer and nothing, not wind nor a thousand bloody savages shall stand in our way. Carry on, men!
Wiggins: A stirring oration, sir. I'm sure the men were most exhilarated.
Governor Ratcliffe: Let's hope so.
[quietly to Percy]
Governor Ratcliffe: I'll need those witless peasants to dig up my gold, won't I?
Percy: [growls in agreement]
Governor Ratcliffe: [Thomas is staring after John Smith, who has just snuck off to see Pocahontas. Ratcliff appears behind him and pushes him out the fort] Follow him.
Thomas: [standing to attention] Yes, governor.
Governor Ratcliffe: I want to know where he's sneaking off to.
Thomas: Yes, sir.
Governor Ratcliffe: And if you see any Indians
[tossing Thomas a rifle]
Governor Ratcliffe: shoot them.
[Thomas looks at the rifle uncertainly]
Governor Ratcliffe: Oh, and Thomas you've been a slipshod sailor and a poor excuse for a soldier. Don't disappoint me again.
Thomas: [walks off, looking hurt]
Wiggins: [to Percy, waving a chicken leg] Who's a good doggy, hmm? Who's a good doggy?
[Percy rolls his eyes]
Wiggins: [throwing the chicken leg away] Fetch, boy!
Wiggins: [gives Percy a bath] Hurry now, Percy. We must be all squeaky clean for the New World.
Thomas: [Thomas aims at Kocoum and closes one eye] Both eyes open.
[he opens both eyes, fires and hits Kocoum in the chest]
John Smith: [to Thomas] Keep both eyes open when you shoot. You see twice as well.
Governor Ratcliffe: Gentlemen, to work! You men, get the ship unloaded. You men, build the fort. The rest of you, break up the shovels. It's time to start digging.
Ben, Lon: [both] Digging?
Governor Ratcliffe: Why, of course. Let's not forget what the Spanish found when they came to the New World. Gold! Mountains of it. Why, for years they've been ravaging the New World of its most precious resources. But now it's our turn.
Pocahontas: [singing Just Around the Riverbend] What I love most about rivers is/You can't step in the same river twice/The water's always changing, always flowing/But people, I guess, can't live like that/We all must pay a price/To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing/What's around the riverbend/Waiting just around the riverbend/I look once more/Just around the riverbend/Beyond the shore/Where the gulls fly free/Don't know what for/What I dream the day might send/Just around the riverbend/For me/Coming for me/I feel it there beyond those trees or right behind those watefalls/Can I ignore that sound of distant drumming for a handsome sturdy husband who builds handsome sturdy walls and never dreams that something might be coming?/Just around the riverbend/Just around the riverbend/I look once more/Just around the riverbend/Beyond the shore/Somewhere past the sea/Don't know what for/Why do all my dreams extend just around the riverbend?/Just around the riverbend/Should I choose the smoothest course steady as the beating drum?/Should I marry Kocoum?/Is all my dreaming at an end?/Or do you still wait for me, Dream Giver, Just around the riverbend?
John Smith: [singing] If I never knew you/If I never felt this love/I would have no inking of/How precious life can be/And if I never held you/I would never have a clue/How at last I'd find in you/The missing part of me/In this world so full of fear/Full of rage and lies/I can see the truth so clear/In your eyes/So dry your eyes/And I'm so grateful to you/I'd have lived my whole life through/Lost forever/If I never knew you
Pocahontas: [singing] I thought our love would be so beautiful/Somehow we'd make the whole world bright/I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong/All they'd leave us were these whispers in the night/But still my heart is saying we were right/For if I never knew you
John Smith: [singing] There's no moment I regret
Pocahontas: [singing] If I never knew this love
John Smith: [singing] Since the moment that we met
Pocahontas: [singing] I would have no inking of
John Smith: [singing] If our time has gone too fast
Pocahontas: [singing] How precious life can be
John Smith: [singing] I've lived at last
Nakoma: Pocahontas.
Pocahontas: [spoken] I can't leave you.
John Smith: [spoken] You never will. No matter what happens to me, I'll always be with you. Forever.
[singing]
John Smith: And I'm so grateful to you/I'd have lived my whole life through/Empty as the sky/
Pocahontas: [singing] Never knowing why/
John Smith: [singing] Lost forever/If I never knew you
Pocahontas: [singing] Lost forever/If I never knew you
Governor Ratcliffe: [after witnessing Thomas' lack of proficiency in using a rifle] Learn to use that thing properly. A man's not a man unless he knows how to shoot.
Pocahontas: [singing] And I'm so grateful to you
John Smith: [singing] I'd have lived my whole life through
Nakoma: Pocahontas, are you crazy? What were you doing?
Kocoum: Finally. There you are.
Pocahontas: Kocoum.
Kocoum: [to Pocahontas and Nakoma] Look at them. Now we have enough warriors to destroy those white demons.
Nakoma: Kocoum.
Kocoum: What is it?
Nakoma: It's Pocahontas.
Kocoum: What's wrong? Is she all right?
Nakoma: I think she's in trouble.
Powhatan: [sees Kocoum's body] Who did this?
Warriors: [with John Smith] Pocahontas was out in the woods. Kocoum went to find her and this white man attacked them.
Powhatan: [angry] Your weapons are strong but now are anger is stronger. At sunrise he will be the first to die.
Pocahontas: But father.
Powhatan: [angry] I told you to stay in the village. You disobeyed me. You have shamed us all!
Pocahontas: I was only trying to help.
Powhatan: [angry] Because of your foolishness, Kocoum is dead! Take him away!
Pocahontas: [when Nakoma comes out of the crowd and approaches her to confess to sending Kocoum after her] Kocoum was just coming to protect me.
Nakoma: Pocahontas, I sent Kocoum after you. I was worried about you. I was just trying to do the right thing.
Pocahontas: All of this happened because of me and now I'll never see John Smith again.
Nakoma: Come with me.
[to the guards]
Nakoma: Pocahontas wants to look into the eyes of the man who killed Kocoum.
Warriors: Be quick.
Pocahontas: [When Kocoum jumps out and attacks John] Kocoum, no! Kocoum! Leave him alone!
[tries to pull him off of John but Kocoum pushes her away]
Pocahontas: Kocoum, stop!
[pulls him off of John]
Powhatan: Pocahontas, you and Nakoma should be inside the village.
Pocahontas: oh, don't worry about us, Father. We'll be all right.
Nakoma: Yes! We're gathering food for when the warriors arrive.
Powhatan: Don't go far. Now is not the time to be running off.
Pocahontas: Yes, Father!
Powhatan: When I see you wear that necklace, you look just like your mother.
Pocahontas: I miss her.
Powhatan: But she is still with us. Whenever the wind moves through the trees, I feel her presence. Our people looked to her for wisdom and strength. Someday, they will look to you as well.
Pocahontas: I would be honored by that.
Powhatan: You shouldn't be out here alone. I'll send for Kocoum.
Nakoma: All right. What is it?
Pocahontas: What?
Nakoma: You're hiding something.
Pocahontas: I'm not hiding anything.
Nakoma: Pocahontas, you can tell me. I promise I won't tell anyone.
[sees John Smith coming]
Nakoma: Pocahontas look! It's one of them! I'm going to get...
Pocahontas: [thrusts her hand over Nakoma's mouth] What are you doing here?
John Smith: I had to see you again.
Kocoum: Pocahontas. Pocahontas?
Pocahontas: [to Nakoma] Please, don't say anything.
[to John Smith]
Pocahontas: Quick, this way!
Nakoma: But...