John Smith is one of the most famous people in American literature history.
He was a dedicated man to his country of England, and wanted nothing more than to claim America in the name of the king. During his adventures to the new land he encountered many new things and people including a young Native American woman named Pocahontas. He also wrote many journals enticing people to want to come to America. This shall tell you the story of John Smith from his journeys as a young man all the way to when he finally came to America, and how his writings still influence people to immigrate to America still today. John Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England to a farmer and his wife in 1580.
He only had a grammar school education, but with this education he was able to join the British volunteers fighting in the Dutch war of independence from Spain. While in the military, he was captured by the Turks and sold as a slave. He eventually escaped and came back to his mother land of Great Britain in 1605. He then became interested in settling Virginia in the new world. The following year, Smith sailed to Virginia with the Virginia Company’s first colonist as one of seven councilors. This was the first of many voyages to the new world for him.
Smith spent much time exploring the land. By this time, the governor of Jamestown was executed for treason and Smith was then elected president of Jamestown colony. He then began building houses, churches, and fortifications. He also had a policy that stated, “he who does not work shall not eat”. This was not liked upon the fellow workers, especially the higher-class people who thought they were better than the working class people. 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. 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 of food. Today many of the things that Smith said about America are still around. Over four hundred years have passed since these writing have been written and published and still people are still influenced by them. Many foreigners think that America has everything anyone can ever want.
You do not have to worry about food or money. They will pack up everything they can carry and try to move to America in hopes that what they have heard is true. This is the same thing the colonizers did in the colonial period. Today there is a rapid flow of people migrating to America in search of better life. John Smith was known for his explorations of the new world and also for his leadership.
He led many people to the Virginia plantations and unfortunately some of them lost their lives. He did how ever build a successful community. He is not however known as a fictional writer, which is what he really was. Most of the things he wrote about were not real, but were based on real events. He elaborated and stretched the truth as to make things almost seem like a fairy tail.
He wanted people to think things were better than they really were and he was successful at that and many people left everything they had behind to follow the writings of John Smith. He was nothing more than a businessman wanting to sell America as his own. He was probably the most successful at this seeing as people are still resorting to his writings as reasons to move to America. As a result, I also think that he was probably the best businessman ever because if he had gotten commission for every person who moved to America because of what he wrote, he would still be collecting money four hundred years after he died.
