for Charandry

John Smith

Be sure to read the introductions to each assigned author in the book.

John Smith wrote the first book in English in the New World. He established the first

permanent English Settlement (Jamestown in 1607, named for King James I), but it was not the

first permanent European settlement. St. Augustine, settled by the Spanish, was the first

permanent European settlement. The English had a settlement at Roanoke, which is called the

Lost Colony because the men abandoned it in the late 1580s.

Smith and his companions (all men with no families) endured harsh conditions. Many of

them listed their occupations as "gentlemen.” In just a few months, their number diminished

from 100 to 38.

They were able to survive partly because of the help they received from the Native

Americans. Powhatan, the Chief, provided assistance. His daughter Pocahontas is associated

with John Smith mostly through the story he wrote describing her saving his life. This story is

considered to be a myth by most historians. There may have been a ceremony where she

symbolically kept him from having his brains bashed out, but the actual fact of his being in

danger is doubted.

If you know John Smith/Pocahontas from the Disney movie, you do not have a clear

picture of the two. He was a man in his late twenties when she was a child of twelve or so.

Check the syllabus—John Smith wrote to Queen Anne, wife of James I, when

Pocahontas visited England. He describes the "incident" in this letter. Smith gives some

biographical information about her, including her marriage to tobacco farmer John Rolfe. She

and Rolfe had a son, Thomas. Pocahontas became ill during the trip to London and died there at

the young age of twenty-two. John Rolfe returned to Virginia. Their son Thomas later returned to

Virginia as well.

The colony at Jamestown was founded for materialistic reasons. The colonists were

trying to make their fortune. Smith wrote about Virginia in glowing terms because he was trying

to find financial backers to continue the settlement effort. He was burned in a fire and returned to

English not long after arriving, never coming back to Virginia.

Eventually Powhatan and the other Native Americans realized that more ships were

going to continue to arrive with these Europeans who would want more and more land. There

was frequent fighting. Pocahontas was captured and kept for several years by the colonists.

Ultimately, there were too many colonists and too few Native Americans.

Because of the climate, tobacco became a major crop. Tobacco needed field hands to

harvest the crop. The first "slaves" to come to the New World were indentured servants from

Africa. They would work for a period of years, often for seven years, after which they would be

free. Some were poor whites who saw an opportunity. However, it did not take long for the

European colonists to realize it was more "economical" to import human beings from Africa to

be enslaved for life. The slave trade was established early in the European settlement of the New

World with Jamestown bringing in the first ship of Africans in 1619, one year before the

Mayflower landed in New England.