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On June 21, 1631, John Smith, English explorer and leader of the Virginia Colony at Jamestown, died at the age of 51. From the article:
"Colonizer and publicist. During his two years in America, Smith was principally responsible for the survival of England’s first permanent colony in the New World. His bold leadership, military experience, and determination brought a measure of discipline to the dissolute colonists; his negotiations with the Indians prevented starvation; and his dispersal of the colony from unhealthy Jamestown lowered mortality. After his return to England, his promotional writings contributed significantly to English efforts for an American empire.
Smith’s early career had prepared him for Virginia’s challenges. As a teenager he fought in the Low Countries (“that university of warre”) and survived several remarkable escapades in western Europe before joining a Christian army fighting the Turks in Hungary. After more improbable episodes, including three victories in duels, he was captured and enslaved. Smith killed his master and then wandered through eastern Europe and sailed briefly to Morocco before returning to England in 1604. His years abroad predisposed him to military solutions. “The Warres in Europe, Asia, and Affrica,” he later boasted, “taught me how to subdue the wilde Salvages in … America.” Smith’s military exploits also provided the necessary social distinctions for a position of colonial leadership–a captaincy and a coat of arms."
"Colonizer and publicist. During his two years in America, Smith was principally responsible for the survival of England’s first permanent colony in the New World. His bold leadership, military experience, and determination brought a measure of discipline to the dissolute colonists; his negotiations with the Indians prevented starvation; and his dispersal of the colony from unhealthy Jamestown lowered mortality. After his return to England, his promotional writings contributed significantly to English efforts for an American empire.
Smith’s early career had prepared him for Virginia’s challenges. As a teenager he fought in the Low Countries (“that university of warre”) and survived several remarkable escapades in western Europe before joining a Christian army fighting the Turks in Hungary. After more improbable episodes, including three victories in duels, he was captured and enslaved. Smith killed his master and then wandered through eastern Europe and sailed briefly to Morocco before returning to England in 1604. His years abroad predisposed him to military solutions. “The Warres in Europe, Asia, and Affrica,” he later boasted, “taught me how to subdue the wilde Salvages in … America.” Smith’s military exploits also provided the necessary social distinctions for a position of colonial leadership–a captaincy and a coat of arms."
John Smith
Posted from history.com
World History
American History
Military History
Exploring
Native Americans
Posted 3 y ago
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SGT (Join to see) "From 1608 until the eve of his death, Smith was British America’s most prolific and insistent champion. His publications offered practical advice on seamanship and colonization, but mostly he advocated British imperial vigor: “be it by Londoner, Scot, Welch, or English, that are true subjects to our King and Countrey … there is more then enough [in America] for all.” By the time of his death in 1631, he had published nearly a dozen tracts, including a comprehensive Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624), which mixed (and often repeated) his earlier writings with reports by others of events after 1609. He also published an account of his True Travels, Adventures, and Observations (1630). Along with the Pocahontas rescue (belatedly recounted in his Generall Historie), True Travels instigated the skepticism about his veracity that flourished in seventeenth-century England and revived in mid-nineteenth-century America. Since about 1950, however, the essential accuracy of Smith’s autobiographical writings has been established by several scholars."
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