Editing John Smith (explorer) (section)

==Jamestown==
[[File:CaptJohnSmith.jpg|thumb|Statue of Smith in [[Historic Jamestown]]]]
In 1606, Smith became involved with the [[Virginia Company of London]]'s plan to [[Virginia Colony|colonize Virginia]] for profit, and [[James I of England|King James]] had already granted a charter. The expedition set sail on ''[[Discovery (1602 ship)|Discovery]]'', ''[[Susan Constant]]'', and ''[[Godspeed (ship)|Godspeed]]'' on 20 December 1606. His page was a 12-year-old boy named [[Samuel Collier]], or "Dutch Samuel".<ref name=SnellCh4/>

During the voyage, Smith was charged with mutiny, and Captain [[Christopher Newport]], who was in charge of the three ships, planned to execute him when the expedition stopped in the [[Canary Islands]]<ref>{{cite book|title=John Smith: English Explorer and Colonist |last1=Mello |first1=Tara Baukus |last2=Schlesinger |first2=Arthur Meier |author2-link=Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. |publisher=Chelsea House Publishing |location=Philadelphia |year=2000 |isbn=978-0791053454 |page=27 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hLfS4ZdARVAC&q=%22canary+islands%22}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=John Smith: A Foothold in the New World |last1=Benge |first1=Janet |last2=Benge |first2=Geoff |publisher=Emerald Books |location=Lynnwood, WA |year=2006 |isbn=978-1932096361 |page=93 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Y01E3YdzxQC&q=%22Canary+Islands%22}}</ref> for resupply of water and provisions. Smith was under arrest for most of the trip. However, they landed at [[Cape Henry]] on 26 April 1607 and unsealed orders from the Virginia Company designating Smith as one of the leaders of the new colony, which spared him from the gallows.<ref name=SnellCh4/><ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/J1007.html ''A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Happened in Virginia''] (1608), EText, University of Virginia</ref>

By the summer of 1607, the colonists were still living in temporary housing. The search for a suitable site ended on 14 May 1607 when Captain [[Edward Maria Wingfield]], president of the council, chose the [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]] site as the location for the colony. After the four month ocean trip, their food stores were sufficient only for each to have a cup or two of grain-meal per day, and someone died almost every day due to swampy conditions and widespread disease. By September, more than 60 had died of the 104 who left England.<ref name=snch4p84>{{harvnb|Snell|1974|loc=Ch. 4|p=84}}</ref>

In early January 1608, nearly 100 new settlers arrived with Captain Newport on the [[Jamestown supply missions|First Supply]], but the village was set on fire through carelessness. That winter, the [[James River]] froze over, and the settlers were forced to live in the burned ruins. During this time, they wasted much of the three months that Newport and his crew were in port loading their ships with [[Pyrite|iron pyrite]] (fool's gold). Food supplies ran low, although the Native Americans brought some food, and Smith wrote that "more than half of us died".<ref name=snch4p83>{{harvnb|Snell|1974|loc=Ch. 4|p=83}}</ref> Smith spent the following summer exploring Chesapeake Bay waterways and producing a map that was of great value to Virginia explorers for more than a century.<ref name=snch4p83/>

In October 1608, Newport brought a second shipment of supplies along with 70 new settlers, including the first women. Some German, Polish, and Slovak craftsmen also arrived,<ref name="CR-1956">{{cite web |author=Congressional Record |title=Congressional Record – 1956 |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sk.talk.slovak-world/eTO3U4F_Hms |pages=11905–11906 |date=5 July 1956 |work=Congressional Record |access-date=1 October 2014 |author-link=Congressional Record }}</ref><ref name="CR-JanBogdan-1975">{{cite web |author=Congressional Record |title=Congressional Record 1975 |url=http://www.mocavo.com/Congressional-Record-September-18-October-19-1975-Volume-121/916273/1650 |volume=121 |date=1975 |work=[[Congressional Record]] |access-date=1 October 2014 |author-link=Congressional Record }}</ref><ref name="CR-JanBogdan-1976">{{cite web |author=Congressional Record |title=Congressional Record 1976 |url=http://www.mocavo.com/Congressional-Record-April-9-May-5-1976-Volume-122/441037/1269 |volume=122 |date=1976 |work=[[Congressional Record]] |access-date=1 October 2014 |author-link=Congressional Record }}</ref><ref name="Jamestown Pioneers">{{cite web |last=Eisenhower |first=Dwight D. |author-link=Dwight D. Eisenhower |title=Jamestown Pioneers From Poland |url=https://archive.org/stream/jamestownpioneer00poli/jamestownpioneer00poli_djvu.txt |date=28 September 1958 |work=[[White House]] |access-date=1 October 2014 }}</ref> but they brought no food supplies. Newport brought a list of counterfeit Virginia Company orders which angered Smith greatly. One of the orders was to crown Indian leader [[Powhatan (Native American leader)|Powhatan]] emperor and give him a fancy bedstead. The Company wanted Smith to pay for Newport's voyage with pitch, tar, sawed boards, soap ashes, and glass.<ref name=snch4p84/>

After that, Smith tried to obtain food from the local Natives, but it required threats of military force for them to comply.<ref name=snch4p84/> Smith discovered that there were those among both the settlers and the Natives who were planning to take his life, and he was warned about the plan by [[Pocahontas]]. He called a meeting and threatened those who were not working "that he that will not work shall not eat." After that, the situation improved and the settlers worked with more industry.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vBD2wNk5z6AC&q=bartholomew+gosnold+matthew+scrivener&pg=PA143|title=To Conquer is to Live|access-date=20 September 2015|isbn=978-0761318200|last1=Doherty|first1=Kieran|year=2001|publisher=Twenty-First Century Books }}</ref><ref name=snch4p85>{{harvnb|Snell|1974|loc=Ch. 4|p=85}}</ref>

===Encounter with Powhatan tribe===
[[File:Powhatan_john_smith_map.jpg|thumb|Smith's 1612 map detailing the inside of a longhouse with Chief [[Powhatan (Native American leader)|Powhatan]]]]
In December 1607, Native Americans led by [[Opchanacanough|Opechancanough]] captured Smith while he was seeking food along the [[Chickahominy River]], and he was taken to meet [[Powhatan (Native American leader)|Chief Powhatan]], Opechancanough's older brother, at [[Werowocomoco]], the main village of the [[Powhatan Confederacy]]. The village was on the north shore of the [[York River (Virginia)|York River]] about {{convert|15|mile|km}} north of Jamestown and {{convert|25|mile|km}} downstream from where the river forms from the [[Pamunkey River]] and the [[Mattaponi River]] at [[West Point, Virginia]]. 

Smith was removed to the hunters' camp, where Opechancanough and his men feasted him and otherwise treated him like an honoured guest. Protocol demanded that Opechancanough inform Chief Powhatan of Smith's capture, but the paramount chief also was on a hunt and therefore unreachable. Absent interpreters or any other means of effectively interviewing the Englishman, Opechancanough summoned his seven highest-ranking kwiocosuk, or shamans, and convened an elaborate, three-day divining ritual to determine whether Smith's intentions were friendly. Finding it a good time to leave camp, Opechancanough took Smith and went in search of his brother, at one point visiting the [[Rappahannock people|Rappahannock]] [[tribe (Native American)|tribe]] who had been attacked by a European ship captain a few years earlier.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/opechancanough-d-1646/ |title=Opechancanough (d. 1646) |last=Rountree |first=Helen C. |website=[[Virginia Foundation for the Humanities#Encyclopedia Virginia|Encyclopedia Virginia]] |access-date=2020-08-26}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/cajo/learn/historyculture/powhatan.htm |title=Powhatan |website=[[National Park Service]] |date=2016-01-08 |access-date=2020-08-26}}</ref>

In 1860, [[Boston]] businessman and historian Charles Deane was the first scholar to question specific details of Smith's writings. Smith's version of events is the only source and skepticism has increasingly been expressed about its veracity. One reason for such doubt is that, despite having published two earlier books about Virginia, Smith's earliest surviving account of his rescue by Pocahontas dates from 1616, nearly 10 years later, in a letter entreating [[Anne of Denmark|Queen Anne]] to treat Pocahontas with dignity.<ref name="Letter to Queen Anne">{{cite web|last1=Johnson|first1=Caleb|title=John Smith's Letter to Queen Anne regarding Pocahontas|url=http://members.aol.com/mayflo1620/pocahontas.html|website=Mayflower Web Pages|access-date=13 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060616092056/http://members.aol.com/mayflo1620/pocahontas.html|archive-date=16 June 2006}}</ref> The time gap in publishing his story raises the possibility that Smith may have exaggerated or invented the event to enhance Pocahontas' image. However, professor Leo Lemay of the [[University of Delaware]] points out that Smith's earlier writing was primarily geographical and ethnographic in nature and did not dwell on his personal experiences; hence, there was no reason for him to write down the story until this point.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lemay |first=J. A. Leo |author-link=Leo Lemay |title=Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith? |date=2010 |orig-date=1992 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, Georgia |isbn=978-0820336282 |page=31 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o_NCZiICtygC&q=%22their+geographical%22}} Lemay's other arguments in favour of Smith are summarized in: {{cite web|title=Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith? |author=Birchfield, S. |url=http://vision.stanford.edu/~birch/pocahontas.html |date=1998-03-03 |website=vision.stanford.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120626175132/http://vision.stanford.edu/~birch/pocahontas.html |archive-date=2012-06-26 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Henry Brooks Adams]] attempted to debunk Smith's claims of heroism. He said that Smith's recounting of the story of Pocahontas had been progressively embellished, made up of "falsehoods of an effrontery seldom equaled in modern times". There is consensus among historians that Smith tended to exaggerate, but his account is consistent with the basic facts of his life.<ref>{{cite web|last=Lepore |first=Jill |author-link=Jill Lepore |title=Our Town |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/02/our-town |date=2007-03-26 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]], American Chronicles}}<!--(April 2, 2007 issue. pp. 40–45)--></ref> Some have suggested that Smith believed that he had been rescued, when he had in fact been involved in a ritual intended to symbolize his death and rebirth as a member of the tribe.<ref>Gleach, ''Powhatan's World'', pp. 118–121; Kupperman, ''Indians and English'', pp. 114, 174.</ref><ref>{{Cite book | author=Horwitz, Tony | title=A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World | publisher=Henry Holt and Co. | isbn=978-0805076035 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/voyagelongstrang00horw/page/336 336] | url=https://archive.org/details/voyagelongstrang00horw/page/336 | date=29 April 2008 }}</ref> David A. Price notes in ''Love and Hate in Jamestown'' that this is purely speculation, since little is known of Powhatan rituals and there is no evidence for any similar rituals among other Native American tribes.{{sfn|Price|2003|pp=243–244}} Smith told a similar story in ''True Travels'' (1630) of having been rescued by the intervention of a young girl after being captured in 1602 by [[Ottoman Empire|Turks]] in Hungary. [[Karen Kupperman]] suggests that he "presented those remembered events from decades earlier" when telling the story of Pocahontas.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Jamestown Project |last=Kupperman |first=Karen Ordahl |author-link=Karen Ordahl Kupperman |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0674024748 |pages=51–60, 125–126 |url=https://archive.org/details/jamestownproject00kupp}}</ref> Whatever really happened, the encounter initiated a friendly relationship between the Native Americans and colonists near [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]]. As the colonists expanded farther, some of the tribes felt that their lands were threatened, and conflicts arose again.

In 1608, Pocahontas saved Smith a second time. Chief Powhatan invited Smith and some other colonists to Werowocomoco on friendly terms, but Pocahontas came to the hut where they were staying and warned them that Powhatan was planning to kill them. They stayed on their guard and the attack never came.<ref>Symonds, ''Proceedings'', pp. 251–252; Smith, ''Generall Historie'', pp. 198–199, 259.</ref> Also in 1608, [[Jamestown Polish craftsmen|Polish craftsmen]] were brought to the colony to help it develop. Smith wrote that two Poles rescued him when he was attacked by an Algonquian tribesman.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://historycooperative.org/journal/jamestowns-400th-anniversary/ |title=Jamestown's 400th Anniversary |last=Pula |first=James S. |date=2007 |work=[[History Cooperative]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215130907/https://historycooperative.org/journal/jamestowns-400th-anniversary/ |archive-date=2018-12-15 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Chesapeake Bay explorations===
In the summer of 1608, Smith left Jamestown to explore the [[Chesapeake Bay]] region and search for badly needed food, covering an estimated {{convert|3000|mile|km}}. These explorations are commemorated in the [[Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail]], established in 2006. In his absence, Smith left his friend [[Matthew Scrivener]] as governor in his place, a young gentleman adventurer from Sibton [[Suffolk]] who was related by marriage to the Wingfield family, but he was not capable of leading the people.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} Smith was elected president of the local council in September 1608.<ref name="books.google.com"/>

===Influx of settlers===
Some of the settlers eventually wanted Smith to abandon Jamestown, but he refused. Some deserted to the Indian villages, but Powhatan's people also followed Smith's law of "he who works not, eats not". This lasted "till they were near starved indeed", in Smith's words, and they returned home.<ref name=SnellCh4 />

In the spring of 1609, Jamestown was beginning to prosper, with many dwellings built, acres of land cleared, and much other work done. Then in April, they experienced an infestation of rats, along with dampness which destroyed all their stored corn. They needed food badly and Smith sent a large group of settlers to fish and others to gather shellfish downriver. They came back without food and were willing enough to take the meager rations offered them. This angered Smith and he ordered them to trade their guns and tools for fruit from the Indians and ordered everyone to work or be banished from the fort.<ref name=snch4p85 />

The weeks-long emergency was relieved by the arrival of an unexpected ship captained by [[Samuel Argall]]. He had items of food and wine which Smith bought on credit. Argall also brought news that the Virginia Company of London was being reorganized and was [[Jamestown supply missions|sending more supplies and settlers]] to Jamestown, along with [[Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr|Lord De la Warr]] to become the new governor.<ref name=snch4p85 />
[[File:John Smith taking the King of Pamavnkee prisoner - etching.jpg|thumb|right|John Smith taking the King of Pamunkey prisoner (1624 history)]]

In a May 1609 voyage to Virginia, Virginia Company treasurer [[Thomas Smythe|Sir Thomas Smith]] arranged for about 500 colonists to come along, including women and children. A fleet of nine ships set sail. One sank in a storm soon after leaving the harbour, and the ''[[Sea Venture]]'' wrecked on the Bermuda Islands with flotilla admiral Sir [[George Somers]] aboard. They finally made their way to Jamestown in May 1610 after building the ''Deliverance'' and ''Patience'' to take most of the passengers and crew of the ''Sea Venture'' off Bermuda, with the new governor [[Thomas Gates (governor)|Thomas Gates]] on board.<ref>{{harvnb|Snell|1974|loc=Ch. 4|p=91}}</ref>

In August 1609, Smith was quite surprised to see more than 300 new settlers arrive, which did not go well for him. London was sending new settlers with no real planning or logistical support.<ref name=SnellCh4 /> Then in May 1610, Somers and Gates finally arrived with 150 people from the ''Sea Venture''. Gates soon found that there was not enough food to support all in the colony and decided to abandon Jamestown. As their boats were leaving the Jamestown area, they met a ship carrying the new governor Lord De la Warr, who ordered them back to Jamestown.<ref name="SnellCh4" /> Somers returned to Bermuda with the ''Patience'' to gather more food for Jamestown but died there. The ''Patience'' then sailed for England instead of Virginia, captained by his nephew.

Smith was severely injured by a gunpowder explosion in his canoe, and he sailed to England for treatment in mid-October 1609. He never returned to Virginia.<ref name=SnellCh4 /> Colonists continued to die from various illnesses and disease, with an estimated 150 surviving that winter out of 500 residents. The Virginia Company, however, continued to finance and transport settlers to sustain Jamestown. For the next five years, Governors Gates and Sir [[Thomas Dale]] continued to keep strict discipline, with Sir Thomas Smith in London attempting to find skilled craftsmen and other settlers to send.<ref>{{harvnb|Snell|1974|loc=Ch. 4|pp=93–94}}</ref>