The General History of

Virginia (1607-1614)

LITT102
Literatures of the World

Mark A. Ignacio
Languages and
Literature Department
 ( January 1580 – June 21, 1631)
Admiral of New England was an
English soldier, explorer, and author.
He is remembered for his role in
establishing the first permanent
English settlement in North America
at Jamestown, Virginia, and his brief
association with the Virginia Indian
girl Pocahontas during an altercation
with the Powhatan Confederacy and
her father, Chief Powhatan. He was a
leader of the Virginia Colony (based
at Jamestown) between September
This portrait of Captain John Smith
1608 and August 1609, and led an
appeared on a 1616 map of New England.
exploration along the rivers of
The image was colorized by Jamestown
Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay.
Rediscovery senior staff archaeologist Jamie
May from an original engraving by Simon
de Passe.
 John Smith was baptized on 6 January 1580 at Willoughby
near Alford, Lincolnshire, where his parents rented a farm
from Lord Willoughby. He claimed descendancy from the
ancient Smith family of Cuerdley Lancashire and was
educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth, from
1592–1595. After his father died, Smith left home at age 16
and set off to sea. He served as a mercenary in the army of
King Henry IV of France against the Spaniards, fought for
Dutch independence from the Spanish King Phillip II, then
set off for the Mediterranean Sea. There he engaged in both
trade and piracy, and later fought against the
Ottoman Turks in the Long War. Smith was promoted to
captain while fighting for the Austrian Habsburgs in
Hungary, in the campaign of Michael the Brave in 1600-
1601.
 He is reputed to have defeated, killed and beheaded Turkish
commanders in three duels, for which he was knighted by the
Transylvanian Prince Sigismund Báthory and given a horse and
coat of Arms showing three Turks' heads. However, in 1602 he
was wounded in a skirmish with the Tatars, captured and sold as
a slave. As Smith describes it: "we all sold for slaves, like beasts in
a market-place." Smith claimed his master, a Turkish nobleman,
(presumably hoping Smith would be a tutor in the short term, and
a payer of a ransom in the long term) sent him as a gift to his
Greek mistress in Constantinople, who fell in love with Smith. He
then was taken to Crimea, from where he escaped from the
Ottoman lands into Muscovy then on to the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Smith then traveled through
Europe and Northern Africa, returning to England during 1604.
 In 1606 Smith became involved with plans to colonize
Virginia for profit by the Virginia Company of London,
which had been granted a charter from King
James I of England. The expedition set sail in three small
ships, the Discovery, the Susan Constant and the Godspeed, on
December 20, 1606. His page was a 12-year-old boy named
Samuel Collier.
 John Smith was apparently a troublemaker on the voyage,
and Cap. Christopher Newport (in charge of the three ships)
had planned to execute him upon arrival in Virginia.
However, upon first landing at what is now Cape Henry on
April 26, 1607, sealed orders from the Virginia Company
were opened. They designated Smith to be one of the
leaders of the new colony, forcing Newport to spare him.
 The search for a suitable site
ended on May 14, 1607,
when
Cap. Edward Maria Wingfiel
d
, president of the council,
chose the Jamestown site as
the location for the colony.
 Harsh weather, lack of water
and attacks from
Algonquian-speaking tribes
almost destroyed the colony.
 Later, Smith left Jamestown to explore the
Chesapeake Bay region and search for badly-needed
food, covering an estimated 3,000 miles.In his absence,
Smith left his friend Matthew Scrivener, a young
gentleman adventurer from Sibton, Suffolk, who was
related by marriage to the Wingfield family, as governor
in his place. When he returned Smith discovered that
Scrivener was not cut out to be a leader of the people;
Smith was eventually elected president of the local
council in September 1608 and instituted a policy of
discipline, encouraged farming with a famous
admonition taken from the New Testament (II
Thessalonians 3:10): "He who does not work, will not
eat."
 In December 1607, while seeking food along the
Chickahominy River, Smith was captured and taken to meet the
chief of the Powhatans at Werowocomoco, the main village of the
Powhatan Confederacy. The village was on the north shore of the
York River about 15 miles due north of Jamestown and 25 miles
downstream from where the river forms from the Pamunkey River
and the Mattaponi River at West Point, Virginia. Although he
feared for his life, Smith was eventually released without harm
and later attributed this in part to the chief's daughter, Pocahontas,
who according to Smith, threw herself across his body: "at the
minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own
brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her
father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown".