Smith, John

Smith, John (1580–1631),English explorer and adventurer, left home at the age of about 16 to begin life as a soldier of fortune, in the Low Countries and elsewhere on the Continent. In 1602 he served with the Austrian forces against the Turks, on the Hungarian and Transylvanian border. The only sources of information for his life during these years are Smith's The True Travels and a lost Italian source mentioned by Purchas, so that his veracity has frequently been questioned. He claims to have distinguished himself in battles, and to have been granted a coat of arms (which has been authenticated), to have been enslaved and taken to Constantinople, and to have been presented as a gift to Tragabigzanda, the Turkish pasha's wife, who, falling in love with him, won him safety by sending him to her brother, the ruler of a country vaguely east of the Black Sea. Enslaved there, he escaped and passed through many exciting adventures before returning to England (c.1604).

Although only 26 when the Virginia Company received its patent, he energetically participated in the promotion and organization of the enter‐prise, and set sail with the early colonists, who disembarked at Jamestown (1607). Sealed orders, opened upon arrival in Virginia, gave him a post in the council, although he was not at first allowed to serve because of charges of mutiny on the voyage. He was active in exploration and in procuring food from the hostile Indians for the famished colony. On one of his expeditions, he was supposedly captured and condemned to death by the chief Powhatan, and dramatically rescued by the intercession of Pocahontas. This story, which Smith told in varying versions in different books, has sometimes been considered apocryphal. He returned to the colony (Jan. 1608) to find himself again faced with death,this time at the hands of his rivals on the council, who condemned him for having lost two of his men. He was rescued again, in dramatic fashion, when Christopher Newport arrived from England with supplies and settlers, on the eve of his execution. Restored to his place on the council, he continued his explorations, this time to Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers.

Despite continued friction among the councilors he was selected president because of his resourcefulness, bravery, and ability to deal with the Indians. During the winter of 1608–9, the colony again being faced by starvation, Smith divided it into three parts to search for food. During the summer, more colonists came, and with them letters from England criticizing his administration and treatment of the Indians, occasioning a demand by his enemies that he give up his office. In the midst of wrangling about authority, he was dangerously burned by a gunpowder explosion, and forced to leave for England (Oct. 1609), where the charges were dropped, though he was refused further employment by the Virginia Company.

Still interested in exploration, he was next employed by some London merchants to explore the region that he named New England, and to find gold mines and kill whales for them. Because he brought back fish and furs instead of fulfilling their fantastic desires, for which he showed contempt, he received only the empty title of Admiral of New England, and had to seek elsewhere for support of his plans for exploration and colonization. Under the patronage of Gorges, he made two unsuccessful attempts to reach New England, once being captured by pirates. He next tried to interest the Puritans in his guiding them to New England, but they loftily replied that, though his books and maps were valuable to them, he himself was not a desirable person.

He then settled in London to continue his writings on his own life and in furtherance of colonization in the New World. His books are A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony (1608), a pamphlet giving the earliest firsthand account of the settlement, but not mentioning his rescue by Pocahontas; A Map of Virginia with a Description of the Country (1612), continuing the account of his governorship; A Description of New England: or the Observations and Discoveries of Captain John Smith … (1616), a narrative of his later ventures in New England and unsuccessful voyages while in the employ of Gorges; New Englands Trials (1620), a pamphlet that has been called “essentially a plea for employment,” and which was enlarged (1622) to give an account of the successes of the Pilgrims; The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624), a lengthy and more magniloquent reworking of his earlier writings, containing an extended account of the Pocahontas story; An Accidence, or The Pathway to Experience Necessary for all Young Seamen (1626), a pamphlet that was recast, probably by another hand, as A Sea Grammar (1627) and The Seaman's Grammar (1692); The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from …1593 to 1629 … (1630), the autobiography that furnishes information about his early life; and Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Anywhere; or, The Pathway to Erect a Plantation (1631), which, in the manner of a wise scholar counseling a young pupil, addresses advice to Winthrop and his Massachusetts settlers, and contains Smith's pathetic autobiographical poem The Sea‐Mark.

He often figures in historical fiction, including works by John Davis and John Esten Cooke, and as part of the romance and myth about Pocahontas. In The Sot‐Weed Factor John Barth concocts a bawdy secret journal ostensibly kept by John Smith. Among Smith's biographers is William Gilmore Simms.