John Smith Assumes Jamestown Council Presidency
John Smith was a prominent figure in the early history of the Jamestown settlement, having been born in England in 1580 and becoming a military adventurer before participating in the establishment of the first permanent English colony in America in 1607. Initially a council member for Jamestown, Smith faced challenges including imprisonment during the voyage to America, which temporarily prevented him from serving in leadership. Despite these setbacks, he played a crucial role in the colony's survival by engaging in foraging expeditions and trading with indigenous tribes for food. His contributions were recognized when he was elected president of the Jamestown Council in September 1608. However, his presidency was short-lived, as a reorganization in 1609 excluded him from leadership.
After leaving Jamestown, Smith focused on exploration and writing, producing significant works that documented his experiences and promoted interest in the New World. His accounts included colorful narratives and maps that contributed to the understanding of the American coast and its native inhabitants. Smith is also linked to the well-known story of Pocahontas, although historical accuracy regarding this narrative remains debated. He continued to write until his death in 1631, leaving a legacy that reflects both the challenges and triumphs of early colonization efforts in America.
John Smith Assumes Jamestown Council Presidency
John Smith Assumes Jamestown Council Presidency
John Smith, one of the first English colonists in America, was born in Willoughby in Lincolnshire, England, in 1580. He left England around 1596 and became a military adventurer abroad, fighting in wars against the Turks, probably until 1604. Upon his return to England he developed an interest in the London Company (sometimes called the Virginia Company) and became a member of the Company-financed expedition that in 1607 established the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia.
Smith, whom historians have alternately criticized for boastfulness and exaggeration and praised for bravery and resourcefulness, had his ups and downs with the other settlers. When they set sail for Virginia in 1606, he was named in the secret sailing orders as a member of the council for the new community. During the voyage, however, he was charged with sedition and imprisoned. When the ship landed and the secret instructions containing his name were opened, it was decided that he had forfeited his right to sit on the council.
During the colony's bleak first year, the settlers were underfed and wracked by disease. Their leaders, unprepared for frontier hardships, were also unaccustomed to the rigors of pioneer life. Smith went out on various foraging expeditions, explored, and mapped the countryside surrounding Jamestown, and warded off starvation by trading goods with the native tribes for food.
Smith also found the time to write a personal narrative in 1608, A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate As Hath Hapned in Virginia since the First Planting of that Collony. It was the first book ever published about America and is the most respected of his writings. So successful were Smith's undertakings that he was permitted to take his seat in the council in 1607 and was elected its president in July 1608. A friend, Scrivener, acted in Smith's place until his return from an exploratory trip on September 7, 1608. Smith assumed his presidential duties three days later, on September 10, 1608.
Although he has been described as “in all but name” the leader of the settlement, his council presidency was short-lived. A new charter was granted for the Jamestown colony in 1609, and Smith was left out in the reorganization of the government. He returned to England the same year and henceforth devoted himself to exploration and to writing reminiscences, which encouraged interest in the New World and grew more colorful as the years went by. His Map of Virginia, containing a remarkable map and a vivid account of the new land and its native inhabitants, appeared in 1612.
Two years later Smith led an expedition that explored and mapped the American coast from the Penobscot River to Cape Cod. He was responsible for the name New England, bestowed on that region at his request by the Prince of Wales. It is said that such works as his Description of New England (1616) proved useful to the Pilgrims on their historic Mayflower voyage. Smith also wrote New Englands Trials, a tract on fisheries, in 1620. In 1622 he added a report on the colony at Plymouth to it.
The legend that in 1608 during his stay at Jamestown, Pocahontas (daughter of the native chieftain Powhatan) prevailed upon her father to spare Smith's life is not included in the personal narrative Smith that wrote at the time. That story, which appeared in Smith's much later work Generall Historie of Virginia, New -England, and the Summer Isles in 1624, curiously parallels his accounts of generous women who saved him from earlier, similar disasters in other lands. It is often considered as perhaps, though not necessarily, an exaggeration of what really happened.
Also fanciful in its own way was the name Pocahontas, given to the young Matoaka by her tribe who believed that knowledge of her real name would enable the English settlers to cast evil magic on her. Unfortunately for her, she was taken prisoner by the English in 1612. After her conversion to Christianity her name was changed again, this time to Rebecca. A further change of name took place in April 1614, when she married the colonist John Rolfe, a union that brought peace between the natives and the English in Virginia for several years. Two years after their marriage, Pocahontas went with Rolfe to England. A letter attributed to John Smith and dated 1616 called the sterling qualities of Pocahontas (including the disputed story) to the attention of Anne-consort of England's King James I—who received Pocahontas with royal honors.
Pocahontas became ill and died as she was preparing to return to America in 1617. If she was born in 1595, as historians hesitantly surmise, she was about 22 years of age at the time. Her husband, John Rolfe (whose discovery of a method for curing tobacco laid the foundation for Virginia's later prosperity) died in Virginia in 1622. Smith, who remained in England, survived both John Rolfe and Pocahontas. His literary output included one work against which serious charges of fabrication have been leveled, though not proven: The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith (1630). He died in 1631, the year of publication of his last tract, Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New-England.