Captain John Smith Biography 1579 or 1580 -- 1631

The first man to promote the permanent settlement of America, and the first to attempt it successfully, was the English soldier and adventurer Captain John Smith. Before he was twenty-five years old he had battled in the Netherlands and Hangary, fought at sea off the African coast, and been captured and taken as a slave to Constantinople.

At the age of 26 Smith sailed for America. Had he known the trouble that was awaiting him, he may never had gone. Starving, illness, poor planning and management, and disease was just the beginning. Captured by Indians in Virginia, he was brought to their leader, Powhatan, and threatened to death. Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, won his release, and he was made Powhatan's son. Badly burned in an explosion in 1609, he went back to England, only to to return to America five years later in 1614. This time he explored New England off the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts.

Smith contributed more to the settlement of America than colorful adventures in his books. he founded Jamestown, Virginia, the first English colony; he gave New England its name; he made excellent maps that continued to be used over two hundred years after he drew them. Like many others, he also wrote about his experiences in the New World. His first book on America, A True Relation of Virginia was the first written in English in 1608. Another book, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624) is the one where he tells about his meeting with Pocahontas. While describing the founding of Jamestown, he also encouraged readers to cross the Atlantic and settle here. He appealed to their sense of personal and national glory and to their hope of economic advancement. He described his relationships with the Native Americans as like a "cat and mouse", so that "we sometimes had peace and war twice in a day."

Smith's other intentions to writing about his experiences was to dispel the myths about the New World. Gold did not exist here as he didn't see any and he found no quick route to the South Seas. He did find a great continent that could hold all the dreams a person could imagine.

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