John Smith was an English adventurer and explorer. He was the author of the famous works "The Generall Historie" and "A True Relation of Virginia" and others.
Background
He was born probably in 1579 in Willoughby, Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom. He was baptized there January 9, 1579, he was the son of George Smith, a member of the Smith family of Crudley, Lancashire, and his wife Alice. John's father died in 1596 and left him a modest property.
Education
He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth from 1592 to 1595. After a grammar-school education he was apprenticed to a prominent merchant, Thomas Sendall of Lynn, whom he soon left to seek adventure.
Career
Four years of soldiering on the Continent followed after his apprenticeship. Then after a brief visit to Scotland, he went to the Continent again to engage in the war against the Turks. After various unverifiable adventures he succeeded in joining the military forces on the Hungarian and Transylvanian frontier.
He fought three single combats with leading Turkish warriors and that his military exploits so impressed Prince Sigismund Bathori that that leader granted him a coat of arms and a pension of three thousand ducats annually. In the subsequent fighting in Transylvania, he was taken prisoner and was sent to Constantinople as a present for the Turkish Pasha's wife, Tragabigzanda; she fell in love with him and, in order to protect him, sent him to her brother who ruled over a somewhat vaguely defined country between the Caspian and Black seas. There, however, he was made a slave. He killed his master, Timor, and escaped, finding his way back to Transylvania and to Bathori, who gave him a safe-conduct.
He returned to England, probably in 1604. In 1606 the Virginia Company of London received its patent and Smith claims to have taken an active part in the promotion and organization of the enterprise. In December of that year three ships set sail for Virginia with 144 colonists, among them Smith. Only 105 disembarked at Jamestown, May 24. When the instructions from England were opened it was found that the government for the first year was to consist of a council of seven, including Smith. Owing to charges of mutiny on the voyage, he was not permitted to serve on the council until June 20, but from the first he engaged in exploration. Wingfield was chosen as president.
Trouble began soon after the ships sailed back for England, leaving the colonists. There was great sickness and within the first seven months nearly two-thirds of the settlers died. Feeling ran high against the local government for various reasons. The leaders fell out among themselves, and Smith was never good at acting in concert with others. He showed at his best in the expeditions he made among the Indians to procure corn and other food for the half-famished colony. On one of these he and his companions were taken prisoner by some of the savages and, according to his story in the Generall Historie (1624), he was condemned to death. It was on this occasion that he is supposed to have been saved by the intercession of Pocahontas, the young daughter of the chief Powhatan. Around this incident, as around most of the more spectacular adventures of Smith, controversy has long raged.
In any case, Smith returned to Jamestown in January 1608 to find his enemies, John Ratcliffe and Gabriel Archer, in command of the turbulent settlement; he was promptly arrested, tried for the loss of two of his men, and condemned to be hanged. Fortunately for him, Captain Christopher Newport, with supplies and new settlers from England, arrived that evening. Smith was released and restored to his place in the council.
He spent much time in exploring the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers and Chesapeake Bay. Newport sailed back to England after three months. In June, on the Phoenix, Smith sent to England the account published that year as A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Hapned in Virginia since the First Planting of That Collony.
Elected president by the council, he settled down to governing the colony. The winter, 1608-09, starvation faced the settlers and Smith saved them by getting corn from the Indians. In 1609, following the granting of a new charter, some supplies and new colonists, with whom came Ratcliffe and Archer, reached Virginia. After much wrangling about authority, Smith, who had been wounded by an explosion, sailed for England in October 1609. George Percy succeeded him.
In 1612 he published A Map of Virginia, With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion. In comparison with Smith's brief, spectacular career in Virginia, the substantial contributions that he made in his later years to the founding of New England have not been sufficiently stressed. In March 1614 he was sent to the region by London merchants and, though he failed to take whales or discover gold, he brought back a valuable cargo of fish and furs. More valuable still was his map, which was printed in A Description of New England (1616) and several of his later works and served to establish the name of the region. He emphasized the importance of fishing and continued to the end of his life to proclaim the favorable prospects of New England for permanent settlement.
Sent by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others of the "west country, " as well as the London merchants, he started on another voyage, but was captured by pirates and then by the French, and spent months at sea until landed at La Rochelle in November 1615.
He managed to get back to Plymouth. In 1620 he published New Englands Trials (republished later, with additional matter on the Pilgrims), and in 1624 The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, in which much of his early writing and narratives by others were incorporated. On seamanship and his own adventures he published An Accidence or the Path-way to Experience (1626).
John Smith died on 21 June 1631 in London.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Randel, William wrote about Smith and his relationship with the Powhatan Native Americans: "He was friendly toward them, but never let them forget the might of English weapons… Realizing that the very existence of the colony depended on peace, he never thought of trying to exterminate the natives. Only after his departure were there bitter wars and massacres, the natural results of a more hostile policy. In his writings, Smith reveals the attitudes behind his actions. "
Professor Leo Lemay contests Smith's depiction of the relations between colonists and Native Americans: "(He) was not only fair, he was surprisingly kind and humanitarian. He treated the native Americans as he treated whites…tortured (none), executed none, and saved native Americans when others wanted to slay them. "