Captain John Smith: American Hero

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Let's return to Juliana Rogers. We've gone into the biggest longhouse and it's estimated to be about the size of half a football field. And as they walk in, as John's eyes adjust to the darkness, he realizes it's filled with all of the leaders from all the different tribes he had just visited on his journey to Wero-Wokomoko. And all of the leaders are painted red from the shoulders up. And when he enters, they all give a loud whoop. And the very first question Chief Powhatan asks is, why are you here and when are you leaving?

Meaning Jamestown. And John immediately lies because he knows his fate is in this man's hands. And if he says, I went from a country called England and we're going to build a colony here and spread across the land, you know, Chief Powhatan is going to have him killed. So he lies and says, a Spanish ship chased us here.

We are here until Captain Newport comes back and then he will take us back to England. So Chief Powhatan seems satisfied with that answer. And John thinks it's going pretty well when suddenly Chief Powhatan gives an order. Two of his men take John. They force him to kneel down and lay his head across a huge boulder in the center of the room. And they raise their clubs about to lower them and smash his head. There's nothing John can do.

Again, certain death. So he closes his eyes and prepares for the strike. And that's when he hears a small voice speaking quickly in Algonquin and he realizes it's the Chief's daughter, Pocahontas. And she's asking her father to spare John Smith's life. And Chief Powhatan says no, but she keeps talking quickly. And she's afraid she's not going to convince him by the time he gives the order to have John killed.

So she rushes over and lays her head on top of his, knowing full well that they will not hurt her. Now Disney has transformed this into a romance, but we know that that was not true. Pocahontas was probably 10 or 11 years old. More than likely, they were similar. They were both brave and bold and strong and stood up for what they believed in. There probably was a mutual respect as the time went on, but at this time it was unlikely. So as he arrived back at Jamestown, there were a few men that were not happy to see him.

Wingfield being one of them. Wingfield and some of his friends were tired of being at Jamestown. They wanted to go home. They were tired of these brutal conditions, but they knew John would never let them abandon Jamestown. So they decided they needed to get rid of John. So they said, the men that were with you on the expedition were your responsibility, and they were killed.

So that's on you. You need to be punished, and the punishment is death. So the very next morning, they walked John up to be hanged at the gallows. As they're about to put the noose around his neck, someone yells, ship on the horizon, and it's Captain Newport.

He had returned again and saved John Smith's life yet again. So during the summer of 1608, John led an expedition of the Chesapeake Bay. So he's exploring its tributaries. He's looking for that northwest passage, going up every tributary, hoping it will go through. Along the way, he made a map, a map so detailed of the Chesapeake Bay that it was used for over 300 years. John was a very skilled map maker.

In fact, he might have been known throughout history for his maps, had he not done all of these other things. One thing that I never understood is they never seem to have fishing gear with them. So as they're exploring up these tributaries, they are hungry and tired, and they notice there's a school of fish below them, and they don't have any fishing gear with them. But John takes his sword and stabs it down into the water, and as he lifts his sword, there's a fish. So they all take their swords and start stabbing the water when John feels a sharp pain in his arm, and he realizes that one of the fish he had caught on his sword is a stingray, and it just lashed its tail out and stung him on the arm. And his arm is now red and swollen, and the poison is traveling up his arm toward his shoulder, becoming more red and swollen, and he realizes it's eventually going to travel all the way to his heart and kill him. So still in charge, he orders the men to dig his grave.

And as they're digging his grave, the doctor on board puts some medicine on his arm, and it heals it. So John survived and ate the stingray for dinner. So he gets back to Jamestown, and it's a little bit different this time because the men that were with him on this journey had grown to trust him so much that he, John Smith, was now voted president of Jamestown. So during this time, it kind of looked like a campground up until this point, and John wanted it to look more like a settlement. So all of those gentlemen in Jamestown didn't do any hard labor. So at this point, there were about 30 men who were commoners, and they worked to support and feed over 200 men at Jamestown. So John made a rule that said, he who will not work shall not eat. And as you can imagine, the gentlemen were furious.

They never had to do hard physical labor. But John worked right alongside them and said, hey, we all need to pitch in if this is going to work. So it's really taking shape under John's leadership. So in September 1609, a spark from a Flitmot gun fell onto his gunpowder pouch and exploded. And he was in so much pain.

He was in bad shape. There was actually a ship leaving within a day or two, and so he asked the captain if he could go on board. And so just a few days later, on October 4, 1609, John Smith left Virginia. He would spend the rest of his life dreaming of this place, writing about this place, and trying to get back. So John returned to England, and it took him a few months, but he got better. He spent the next several years writing books about Virginia, about his experience.

He was quite obsessed with it, and he really wanted to return. But in 1614, he was hired to go on a fishing expedition off the coast of Massachusetts and Maine. And he made a detailed map of the area, and he referred to the area as New England, which we still refer to it as New England today.

Well, John decided he didn't need the Virginia Company. He would arrange his own trip, and he would go to New England and establish a settlement there. So he worked hard to organize it. He raised the funds. He got supporters and crew and colonists and money.

He had everything he needed. And they finally set sail in 1615. But it wasn't long before four French pirate ships chased them. They tried to outrun them.

It doesn't work. So Captain Smith goes on board their ship. He's going to talk his way out of this situation yet again. His crew, they're done with this, so they take off without him, and they leave him on the pirate ship. So he's on that pirate ship for several weeks. And during that time, what does he do? He writes a book.

He writes a book about New England. And he escapes during a storm. He gets on a small boat, and the pirate ship actually sinks, but he escapes by quickly bailing the water out of this small boat. He finds a small bit of land.

Some hunters find him, and they bring him to safety. And he published that book. It was called A Description of New England. It's actually the book that the pilgrims used to go to Plymouth. He left Virginia in 1609, and he spent the next 22 years trying to get back and also writing about it, promoting it to others, encouraging them to go.

Shortly after that, he died in 1631 at the age of 51. John Smith wrote a book called The Description of New England, and in it he wrote and argued and believed that English Americans had a unique opportunity to create their own destiny, unlike the workers in England who were bound by the rigid class system. Here's what John wrote. Here, every man may be master and owner of his own labor and land. If he have nothing but his hands, he may set up this trade by industry quickly grow rich. If he have but the taste of virtue and ambition, what to such a mind can be more pleasant than planting and building a foundation for his prosperity by God's blessing and his own industry without prejudice to any?

And that's just what America became, a place where every person determines his or her own future, where their American dream is a reality. And a terrific job on the production, the editing, and the storytelling by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Juliana Rogers. She's the author of Captain John Smith, American Hero, and you can get the book at Amazon.com. And my goodness, the number of times this man escapes certain death. Early in his life, sold as a slave, almost dies in battle, almost dies jousting, almost dies, well, almost dies at the hand of his fellow sailors, and in the end, almost dies at the hands of Indians, and of course, that stingray, too, and in the end dies, well, the way the rest of us do, in the end, of natural causes. But John Smith's life, well, it started the American life in many ways. By the way, if you ever get a chance, go to Jamestown and visit it, and start there, and then head west, and from there, go to Williamsburg, and visit William and Mary, and the colonial Williamsburg. From there, go to Charlottesville, and visit Monticello, then to Madison, and Montpelier, and then straight up an hour and a half north to Washington's home in Mount Vernon, very close to Washington, D.C. There's something special about the state of Virginia in American history.

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