Colonial America, 1607-1783

John Smith, 1580-1631 "...in Virginia, a plaine Souldier that can use a Pick-axe and spade, is better than five knights..." The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by Mark Canada, professor, University of North Carolina at Pembroke John Smith, an English soldier and explorer, is famous for his role in the founding and settling of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. Along with 100 or so other men hired by the Virginia Company, a corporation of English investors who hoped to profit from industries set up in America, John Smith arrived at the mouth of the James River in 1607. When food shortages, heat, poor leadership, and inadequate preparation threatened to destroy the settlement, Smith came to the rescue by delegating responsibility and motivating his fellow settlers to work. His relationship with Pocahontas, the adolescent daughter of the Native American chief Powhatan, has been celebrated in his own work, later books and plays, and the recent Disney movie Pocahontas. Pocahontas married John Rolfe, however, not Smith, and Smith's accounts leave no reason to think that their relationship was romantic. After being injured in an explosion, Smith left Jamestown in 1609, but later explored New England, whose name he coined. Smith wrote many accounts of his experience in Virginia and New England, including The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. In these works, especially in his account of fighting off 200 Native Americans while using one as a shield, Smith provided early examples of the tall tale. Furthermore, his discussions of leadership and survival in the Virginia wilderness make him one of the first American writers to explore the themes of self-creation, practicality, industry, self-reliance, and cultural contact. In many ways, he is a precursor to Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain. Bibliography Billings, Warren B. Jamestown and the Founding of the Nation. Gettysburg, Penn.: Thomas Publications. Cabell, James Branch. Let Me Lie. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947. Smith, John. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Ed. Karen Ordahl Kupperman. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Major Works A Description of New England The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles Careers soldier sailor explorer settler writer Homes England Jamestown, Virginia Chronology 1580: born in Lincolnshire, England 1595: apprenticed to a merchant c.1596: fights for Dutch against Spain c. 1599-1606: captured while fighting for Austrian army against Turks; escapes and travels through Russia, Europe, and northern Africa. 1607: helps to settle Jamestown 1608: A True Relation of Such Occurences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Hapned in Virginia 1609: returns to England 1610-1620: explores New England 1612: A Map of Virginia 1612: The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia since Their First Beginning from England in the Yeare of Our Lord 1606 1616: A Description of New England 1620: New Englands Trials 1624: The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles 1626: An Accidence or the Path-way to Experience 1627: A Sea Grammar... 1630: The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Affrica, and America, from Anno Domini 1593. to 1629 1631: Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Any Where. Or, the Path-way to Experience to Erect a Plantation

 

A Description of New England

Notes

• Publication: 1616
• Genre: nonfiction narrative

Study Questions

• What does Smith say about work? Why is this theme especially relevant to the early English settlers of America?
• What seems to be Smith's purpose in writing? How does he seek to achieve his objective? Would you accept his invitation? Why or why not?

The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles

Notes

• Publication: 1624
• Genre: nonfiction narrative

Study Questions

• Other Jamestown settlers, including Edward Wingfield, wrote accounts of their experience in Virginia. Why do you suppose Smith's narratives have become the most famous and are the only ones still widely read as "literature"?
• Characterize Smith's style of narration. Would you call him objective, subjective, passionate, deadpan, ironic, humorous, serious? Cite examples to support your assessment.
• A popular form of narrative in 19th-century America was the "tall tale," an action-packed story set in the wild and filled with exaggeration, humor, and the boasts of a colorful protagonist. In what ways does Smith's account resemble a tall tale?
• At least one literary scholar has pointed out that self-creation is a common theme in American literature. Indeed, the individual's ability to mold his or her self fascinated Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and many other American writers. In what ways is Captain John Smith a self-creator?
• Practicality and labor have been important parts of the American ethos from the settlement of Jamestown to the modern day. Does Smith's narrative celebrate these principles? Defend your answer.
• One of the most famous stories in American history is that of Pocahontas's rescue of Smith. As Smith tells it, several of his Indian captors "layd hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beate out his brains, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death...". Some later readers have questioned the truthfulness of this account, however. It has been noted, for example, that Smith did not even mention the incident in his first narrative, and the writer James Branch Cabell has suggested that Smith borrowed the story from a book the English writer Richard Hakluyt published in 1609 or from any one of many similar stories that are found around the world (52). Citing details from Smith's writing or his life, argue that the story is totally true, partially true, or totally false.

© Mark Canada, 1999

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