John Smith: The Lost Colony

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.

When the name John Smith is mentioned, people of all ages are familiar with it and could tell a lot about him. Why is this? How is it that a man who lived over 400 years ago still so popular today, more specifically to our children? The answer to that question is because John Smith can be viewed as one of America’s earliest heroes. His leadership was vital to the survival of the Jamestown colony. Most people are familiar with his famous quote, “he that will not work shall not eat.” He carried all the qualities of an influential leader, and even had a mystical legend with Pocahontas, in which no one truly knows what happened. His leadership characteristics and qualities possessed hard work, grit, and determination. He was an individualist that had an “American” dream. However, during his time, the colonists did not look at it as an “American” dream. Without him and his leadership, America may not be what it is today.

In 1587 a group of men, women, and children led by Sir John White set sail for America and landed on a North Carolina island called Roanoke (Shirley

Has America always been true to its ideals of freedom reigning throughout its people and diverse culture? Throughout history the relationship as well as interactions between Native Americans and eager-faced settlers have been at the least discriminatory. "America the land of the free, home of the brave," this iconic line has seemed to be America's anthem time and time again. Throughout the periods and trials involving Native Americans and other settlers, this theme has seemed contrary in the Indians eyes.

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

Smith was badly burned in 1606 from a gunpowder explosion and forced to return back to England. In 1614 he returned with an expedition to map the New England coastline. He would never return to Virginia again after this. He would from then on only promote colonizing the New England area. His efforts to promote colonizing were blocked by weather, pirates and lack of funding. He then resorted to writing about colonization. In his writing he elaborated about how wonderful it was in the new world. He would say that the fish practically jump into your boat when you go fishing and things such as that. He made the new world seem better than it really was so people would want to travel here and settle in it. His plan worked because year after year more and more people flocked to the New England hoping to colonize and not have to worry about running out

The Roanoke was an important part in Virginia history, it was the first attempt for a permanent English settlement in the new world. It was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 1585 and he brought 100 colonists with him to Virginia and left them behind. Walter also had brought his daughter which soon gave birth to the first English child born in America. Her name was Virginia Dare. He had to go back to England because he had to fight in the Spanish war. He sent a fleet of ships in between the 3 years he was fighting but they did not make it to the settlement, instead they landed on a different island and the captain of the ship refused to go any farther than that island. When Raleigh returned 3 years later the only clues that him and the colonists that came with him found were the words CROA and CROATON carved into 2 trees. Before Raliegh had left them 3 years earlier he told them if there was was any trouble then to carve a cross in a tree. They searched all the trees around but did not find any crosses carved. But recently they have done a tree test on the wood that the word CROATON was carved into and they figured out that when he was gone there was extreme drought conditions that were going on while Raleigh was gone. Nobody really knows what happened to the settlement but there has been very educated guesses from historians. One guess came from a historian studying this subject ”That the croaton indian tribe 50 miles away might have something to do with it.” But the

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.

On July 22, 1587, long before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, 117 hopeful colonists from England landed ashore onto a tiny island along the coast of what is today North Carolina. The group unpacked and founded a settlement, Roanoke Island. Then they vanished without a trace.

It was the age of discovery that first provoked intrigue and curiosity of new lands, particularly the Americas, and how the Europeans could expand to fit their society within the borders of this unknown and unexplored land. By the 1580s, more had been learned about the Americas, but any colonization until this point had not even been attempted. And so it was the English, under Queen Elizabeth I's rule, that were issued to establish a colony along the east coast of North America. However, when this great accomplishment was finally made in 1587, it was not long founded until its ultimate fate ended in the disappearance of the colony three years later, instantly creating one of the greatest

After leaving for three years, the governor of Roanoke Island, John White, returned to find the settlement abandon. The only remaining clue was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a fence post and the letters “CRO” etched into a nearby tree. Several diverse theories have been suggested to explain the disappearance of the 120 missing colonist, ranging from disease to natural disaster.

John Smith was an English explorer and a soldier who has remained in the books of history for his role in the establishment of a British colony in America. He reigned Virginia British colony which was based at Jamestown for one year between late 1608 and late 1609. During his reign, he used his experience as a soldier and an explorer to lead exploration of major rivers around the colony. Smith was first involved in plans to establish a British colony in North America in 1606 for personal gains with a London company which had been granted a charter by the King of England. Towards the end of

One of the writers who wrote about the hardships they had experienced was John Smith. Captain John Smith was a soldier and the governor of Jamestown. In Smith’s writings, he speaks mostly about the colonization coming to the new land. He and his men believed they were going to build a successful colony. But due to disease, famine, and the occasional attacks from the neighboring Powhatan Indians, and

Johnson describes colonization like a business virtue filled with political mindsets and the investments needed in making a working colony; on the other hand, Zinn tells the life of a settler, and the significant gaps in the government colonies had to face. Jonson starts off by telling the history of slavery and the first discoveries of the new world. After explaining the history of slave trade and its roots in Portuguese he says, “By the time exploration and colonization spread from the island across the Atlantic, the slave-system was already in place.” (Johnson, 5). He talks heavily about the political conflicts and why particular settlement survived and why others didn’t. In Johnson’s excerpt, he tells the story of Roanoke and says “Secondly,

John Smith was selected because he was a Colonizer, soldier and an author as he wrote his first book in English in the New World called “A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia since the First Planting of that Colony (1608)”. While he was only in America for two years, Smith was in charge of the survival of England's first English colony in the New World. He is best known for being in