Is John Smith's Bias During The Trial Of Pocahontas

This book begins by describing all of the many different events that are occurring around the world during the year 1606, such as the opening of the play Macbeth and Galileo Galilei publishing a book of the observations of supernova in the sky. During the same year, in late December, three small ships were anchored in London’s River Thames waiting to depart to a new settlement. The three ships were the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. The Virginia Company of London organized and financed the voyage to begin the new settlement of Jamestown. The crew is very excited to search for gold, silver, and other riches that have supposedly been found in North America. Their previous knowledge of the Spanish enrichment of gold and silver created a group dominated by money hungry, wealthy gentlemen. Aboard the ships were a great deal of gentlemen, but unfortunately lacked in soldiers and working men. The majority of the men were not accustomed to any type of hard labor, and this caused many problems because the conditions the crew were in clearly called for difficult laborious work. One of the few commoners on board was John Smith, a former soldier who proved to be a key leader to the survival of the colony. Although he was looked down upon by the upper class, he was a hard worker, and also very intelligent and a jack of all trades.

Over time, as historians commonly referred to the Natives as “hunters,” it eventually imbedded in many of the colonists minds, the Indigenous people were aggressive in nature, ultimately calling them “savages” and the like feeding a hatred that would eventually lead to war

In John Smith’s writings in From the General History of Virginia, one can make the interesting observation that Smith constantly refers to himself as “he” instead of “I”. He directly shows the reader his personal sense of pride and self confidence in himself. An example of this from the text would be when he said, “But seeing by trade and courtesy there was nothing to be had, he made bold to try such conclusions as necessity enforced; though contrary to his commission, he let fly his muskets, ran his boat on shore, whereat they all fled into the woods. (61)”

One of the things Pocahontas is most known for saving John Smith’s life. It all started when one day, the Pamunkey tribe caught a white man. The man was to be presented to Pocahontas’ father, Chief Powhatan, that night. The village prepared large feasts, and Pocahontas was thrilled to finally get the chance to see one of the mysterious outsiders who had come to their homeland. When the man was finally brought out, many villagers screamed in horror when he glanced at them, although Pocahontas didn’t understand why everyone was afraid of this man to be called “John Smith”. Pocahontas’ father declared that the handsome man with the blue eyes was to be killed! The toughest warrior poised his arms above his head with a club in hand and… Pocahontas

David A. Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf)

Additionally, he adds that their land is bountiful alluding his readers that it's vital for them take over their land because they will have greater use for it. He goes on to say, 'Six or seven hundred have been the most that have been seen together when they gathered themselves to have surprised Captain Smyth at Pamaunke, having but 15 to withstand the worst of their fury.' By mentioning this, Smith is assuring his readers that they are much stronger than the Native Americans, as it only took 15 settlers to fight off the upward hundreds of them. He tries to make it clear that these people are inferior as well as incapable of the same standards of civilization as white men. Smith adds more to his claim when describes them as, 'inconstant in everything, but what fear constraints them to keep. Crafty, timorous, quick of apprehension and very ingenious. Some are of disposition fearful, some bold, most cautious, all savage.' He goes on to talk, in great depth, about their apparel and how the 'better sort' cover themselves in animal skin, while the rest of the majority cover themselves with grass and leaves. Most of them would additionally adorn themselves with other things, such as beads, copper, feathers, rat tails, snakes, paintings, etc. To the Indians, these were among things that they coveted. But to Smith, he just saw them as trash. Used to the way the colonists dressed, Smith thought the Indians looked barbaric in comparison.

We all tend to have a certain way of doing things that when it comes to everyone else, we start to believe it’s a divergent way of doing things. In other words it’s an act of ethnocentrism. A perfect and extreme example of ethnocentrism would be Hitler and the Nazis against the Jews. Hitler believed that the Jews were subordinate to his ethnicity and his believes so they didn’t deserve to live. This connects with Bradford and Smith’s in the way of first impression. They both saw the native americans in an unfriendly way and very different from them due to their choice of style and that’s exactly where ethnocentrism plays a role. Bradford and Smith had their own opinions on the native americans once they touched land and saw them.

With this policy, the survival rate grew to nearly ninety percent that year. He organized successful trading with the Native American Powhattan. Smith was however captured by him and only spared when Powhattan’s daughter Pocahontas pleaded for his life. This is where the story of Pocahontas comes from. Smith wrote a letter about this encounter to Queen Anne when he heard of her coming to England years later. He wanted to ensure that she would not be treated as someone that could not be trusted. He wanted to show her loyalty to him and to England.

While many cannot picture Smith in any context other than with Pocahontas, he had a very active life before he even met her. As stated by Woolf, prior to even meeting Pocahontas Smith had been “in an army fighting the Ottoman Turks in central Europe, during which he went through several escapes, was seriously wounded, taken into slavery, after which he murdered his slave-master and escaped, along with being shipwrecked twice.”1 All of these exploits happened before Smith ended up in Virginia at the Jamestown colony, and met Pocahontas, the narrative of which most Americans are intimately familiar with or so they think.

Native Americans were somehow powerful and had everything that English colonists wanted. They were seeking wealth and they had the answers in Jamestown. When tobacco start growing, the English colony became powerful and expanded their colony over Jamestown peninsula. Powhatan Indians were disappointed when English did not maintain a trading way with them. In 1622 Native Americans took a step forward by attacking the colony. They killed 347 colonists. As it is stated on the second chapter of the book, The American Yawp, “The colonist retaliated and revisited the massacres upon Indian settlements many times over. The Massacre freed the colonist to drive the Indians off their land.” Once the English colony gained power, they forgot about the people who kept them alive, they forgot about Native Americans. English colonists were so ungrateful and blind because they had one goal in mind, and that was to be wealthy. They didn't care how they would gain wealth. The only thing that mattered to them was gaining

The colonists couldn’t get all the necessities for life, so they had to ask their only neighbors for help, the natives. Francis West and his men sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to trade corn with the natives. In the novel “The Virginia Adventure,” Ivor Noel Hume wrote about how the colonists received the grain in exchange for corn. He writes, “Though West was able to load his (small ship) with grain, the success involved ‘some harshe and Crewell dealinge by cutting off towe (two) of the Salvages heads and other extremetyes.” In order to get food, they cut off two natives heads. This sparked anger in the natives and it caused a dispute between the colonists and natives. The natives were angry with the colonists for killing their men, so they started to kill the colonists in return. Another reason the natives played a role in the death rate of the colonists was because the colonists planted themselves right in the middle of all the Powhatan tribes. The Jamestown settlement was surrounded by Powhatan settlements, meaning that Jamestown would be surrounded and have nowhere to go during native attacks. The last reason the natives contributed to the decline of the colonists was because the natives started to threaten the colonists. The natives said that anyone who left the settlement would be killed on sight. The evidence on the topic of the native’s relationship helps explain

Although the author of John Smith’s testimony is unknown, it seems that the author is possibly a government official who is trying to figure out what happened for the

Apparently, Smith's ego prevents his General History from being a reliable source. This leads historians to question whether his captivity occurred at all. His egocentricity may be seen in the following passage from his General History:

Abusive. Slave owner. Boastful. All traits that the infamous John Smith possessed. In 1624, John Smith wrote an autobiography about his encounters with the native Indians in North America, under the name General History. Previously, Bartolomé De Las Casas wrote an autobiography about his adventures in 1515 called Relation that discusses the mistreatment of the native Indians that he observed in the Americas, specifically Hispaniola. John Smith’s autobiography exhibits unacceptable traits such as degrading Indians, boasting about himself and lusting for fame which makes De Las Casas, the previous explorer of the Americas, a better role model who exhibited benevolent characteristics.

Abusing. Slave owner. Boastful. All traits that the infamous John Smith possessed that degraded him as a great adventurer. In 1624, John Smith wrote an autobiography about his encounters with the native indians in the new world (The Americas) under the name General History. Meanwhile, Bartolome de las Casas wrote an autobiography about his adventures in 1515 called Relations that talks about the mistreatment of the native indians that he observed in the new world. WIth these two writings there is proof that John Smith exhibits poor traits throughout his writings such as degrading Indians, boasting about himself and lusting for fame establishing that he is a worse person compared to de las Casas, the previous explorer of the Americas.