John Smith Biography

The life of John Smith is one of great importance to that of the development of the colonial settlements that later became the United States. He played such an important role to this cause, that some could say he was the pioneer in informing the English people back in the motherland what the regions surrounding Jamestown were like. When anyone talk about John Smith, you instantly think about how he was the first governmental figure within Jamestown. One also realizes that he came up with the first in depth map of the areas around Virginia that were so vital to the sustainment of the Jamestown settlement. But Smith did much more than that. His interactions with the indigenous populations of the area went toward helping colonists survive the

rough years in Jamestown. Looking back, John Smith was a crucial player in how Jamestown would survive and end up thriving in the Chesapeake Bay area.
His childhood was one of a boy dreaming of the great beyond, he was a son to George Smith and Alice Rickard which were both prominent figures in England and had noble bloodline as stated by John Smith himself in Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings “his father anciently descended from the ancient Smiths of Crudley in Lancashire; his mother from the Rickards at great Heck in York-shire” (Kupperman 35).

Unfortunately, his parents died when he was thirteen and he was left with a sizable inheritance “which hee not being capable to manage, little regarded; his minde being even then set upon brave adventures.” (Kupperman 33). With John Smith writing this himself, it gives us an insight about his personality and how even at that young age he was little concerned with monetary values with the purpose of exploration. Throughout his childhood education seemed to play a big role in who he became as an intellectual and cartographer. Per the Oxford Dictionary of Nation Biography, he was thought to have been tutored at a young age by Thomas Marbury. Then young Smith attended King Edward VI Grammar School at Louth (oxforddnb.com). After his initial schooling, he apprenticed Thomas Sendall but a year later John parted ways with him based on “because hee would not presently send him to Sea” (Kupperman 35). After his adventures with Sendall he again apprenticed to France. Then travelled to Scotland then to the Mediterranean. Then striving to military service, he joined the

English fight along with the Dutch. But not wanting to fight the same religious people he agreed with Smith joined the war effort with the Austrians in the war of 1593-1606. In that war, he was injured fighting and taken prisoner by the Turkish forces and sold into slavery. After escaping and returning to England around 1605, he gets invested with the English proprietors in the Virginia Company and head to the new world. Many people, such as Karan Ordahl Kupperman, agree that John Smith is a person that may have lived more than three centuries ago, but is one that is a personable figure and people can relate to him and strive to be like. She shows that John Smith was a self-made character, he strove to be successful despite his numerous failures (Kupperman 1). The end of his life was one of a successful writer. After his explorations in the Americas, Smith retired back to England and continued writing about topics he had explored or discussed. His life will change how we view him and why it’s important to talk about him.
When the colonists set out to the new world and landing in Virginia around the Chesapeake Bay area, John Smith was one of the first to be named governor and first to interact with the indigenous people.

When they landed in what would become Jamestown, John Smith was not immediately named president over Jamestown. It is only after he returns from his second voyage scouting the surrounding areas that Smith is elected unanimously the president of the settlement. Smith, upon his return, sees the corrupt nature of the preceding government and in between his first and second voyage instills an interim leader until he can return for the elections. Like many others, the reflection of Karan Kupperman comes into play. She argues that Smith was the only figure in the early American settlement period that held office for what he knew and his experiences, and not for who he was (Kupperman 4). Per second hand accounts by Karan Kupperman, with the settlement being unprepared and having a lack of supplies to sustain themselves, John Smith ventured out to seek help and to make relations to the neighboring native American tribes (Kupperman 81). In his voyages, he gets very acquainted with the natives and in Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings we get a description of the Natives through his eyes “some being very great as the Sasquesahanocks; others very little, as the Wighcocomocoes: but generally blacke, but few have any beards. The men weare halfe their heads shaven, the

other halfe long” (Kupperman 140). This gives us a great insight to how he viewed the natives. In this source the author states “Captain Smith never forgot his primary purpose in describing Indian culture: to aid the English in settling among the Indians and in defending themselves” (Kupperman 157). Showing us that in these adventures his primary goal was the wellbeing and development of the colony. Most his visits with the natives went smoothly and ended positively, but one such encounter did not. One specific encounter with the local tribes he was taken prisoner and brought to the chief of the tribes. After stalling to try to not be killed the chief and Smith eventually exchange information to promote good relations with one another. These acts of good intentions for the promotion of colonization only scratch the surface of what Smith did in the cause of English expansion.
When looking at expansion and what drives exploration, trade, one needs maps to navigate new terrain. John Smith has been known as the one that mapped the area around the Chesapeake. But he also had an alternative goal from the Virginia Company and from England to open trade with the east. Wanting to find a middle passage that went through the continent to reach the eastern part of the world while sailing westward as all western explorers aimed for. Such was the importance of the discovery of a passage east from the west, this was the sole reason Christopher Columbus had sailed the ocean in 1492, discovering the Americas. With these ventures, he also started to map the area around Jamestown. Over the span of a couple years and the direction of the Virginia company, John Smith commanded two major expeditions. His first in 1608 that first started from Jamestown to Cape Charles then sailed to the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay following it up until turning into the Patapsco River. After that river Smith travels down the west coast of the bay reaching the Potomac river, explores that and then returns on the west coast of the bay to Jamestown (Roundtree, Clark, Mountford 78-106). Later that same year in 1608, Smith underwent a second expedition that ventured through the middle of the Chesapeake Bay to the northern most rivers and explored them further. After finding nothing and turning back down the west coast of the bay again and further exploring the Patuxent and Rappahannock rivers he returned to the colony at Jamestown. With these two expeditions, Smith gained a plethora of knowledge and information that would lead to his publication of the first map of the Chesapeake Bay area. And, would lead to the best article of propaganda for the English crown to use for the promotion of immigration to the colonies.
John Smith’s descriptions about the landscape in the Americas were at the forefront of the English’s drive to promote immigration to the Colony. Later author Karen Kupperman states in her introduction of her book on page three “In order to encourage colonization and exploration, several men had written compilations such as letters, diaries, and books about his voyages” (Kupperman 3). But with the arrival of these maps back to England put a tough dilemma in front of the country. The problem for England was getting more people, especially women, to accept the call and board a ship for the Jamestown settlement. At the same time maps were also seen to be national secrets as Stacey Dugan Montebello states in her article Maps as Propaganda in the Age of Exploration “These true maps and their accompanying information were guarded so heavily by the Crown that even the explorers who created them were not allowed to keep copies, or even to see them in reference after they’d turn them over to the Crown” (Montebello). John Smith was no exception. His maps and writings were handed out together to show what life was like across the ocean. The age of exploration brought the necessity to be the first one to colonize to the forefront of the minds of the ruling. Even though they kept these real legitimate maps closely guarded, they often mass printed illegitimate and wrong maps to distribute to the public to promote the overseas colony. As Mrs. Montebello says “they were far less concerned with accurately representing geographical formations than the manuscript maps, it was instead important that the images be aesthetically pleasing and pretentiously complete” (Montebello). Knowing this we can assume that the crown while guarding their secrets of the true maps and locations of the colonies, they wanted to show the people of England that immigration to the new world was a good thing. They wanted, and needed, people to populate their overseas colony. Last and most important Montebello goes into describing how John Smith on his maps goes as far as to show how the colonizers and the natives had an upstanding relationship and mutually benefitted from one another (Montebello). Yet again giving the population wrong information based on needing them to believe the new world was a friendly and non-hostile place. Which from historical records we know was anything but the truth.
From his maps, his writings, his ability to lead Jamestown as soon as they landed, there is no doubt that John Smith played an important role in the creation and successful development of the first successful colony in the new world. From being a mischievous adolescent that just wanted to be free from the normal bonds of life to sail the high seas. To at the age of twenty joining the Virginia Company to set a marker for the expansion of England into the Americas. Then voyaging into the unknown scouting and keeping track of what he saw and who he encountered, eventually making those sights into maps and writings about the area. Then being elected by the people to be the first governing body of the newly found colony. Then those same maps and descriptions of the natives being shipped back to England to be mass produced, with wrong information, for the populace to promote the very thing he did, to adventure to a new land. Even one of these things would be a cause for celebration of his life, but the fact he did these things and more, is spectacular. John Smith is among the individuals that shaped the way the territories at that time turned into colonies.