John Smith (adventurer)
John Smith (* 1580 in Alford (Lincolnshire) , † June 21, 1631 in London ) was an English mercenary and adventurer. Smith went down in history as one of the founders of Jamestown , the first permanent English settlement in North America. To this day, historians find it difficult to ascertain the veracity of Smith's life accounts, as he was prone to self-reflection and strong exaggerations. In American folklore he was transfigured into a romantic hero through his alleged liaison with the chief's daughter Pocahontas .
Life
Smith ran away from home at the age of 16 after his father died and was hired as a sailor. In the service of Henry IV of France he fought as a mercenary against Spain, in 1600/01 on the Habsburg side under the leadership of Mihai Viteazul against the Ottomans. After Viteazul's death he fought on the side of Radu Şerban in Wallachia . After the successful duel with a Turkish leader, in which he cut off his head, he had to repeat this with two other Turks who wanted to avenge their commander. For this he was awarded a coat of arms by Sigismund Báthory , which depicts three severed Turkish heads.
In 1602 he was wounded in a fight near Rotenthurn and taken prisoner by the Turks. Sold as a slave to a Turkish noblewoman, he was able to return to England in 1604 after fleeing via the Crimea .
There he was hired by the Virginia Company , which had received a royal trade and settlement patent for North America. In 1607 he sailed with a small group across the Atlantic, which landed on May 13, 1607 at the unhealthy Chesapeake Bay and founded the settlement of Jamestown .
Indian attacks and a lack of supplies made the project seem almost hopeless. In December 1607, Smith was captured by the Virginia Algonquin . According to his presumably not too truthful report, he was saved from execution because the chief's daughter Pocahontas fell in love with him and threw herself in front of him while he was standing at the stake. After his release he was elected leader of the settler community in 1608. After being seriously injured in the explosion of black powder, he returned to England in 1609. In 1614 he went to America again to explore the two bays of Maine and Massachusetts , which he named New England . At the end of August 1619 the first 20 black slaves were sold to him by a Dutch ship, according to his claim in the report "General Historie of Virginia" .
Movie
- Pocahontas - Disney cartoon from 1995. Childish story of love between John Smith and Pocahontas
- The New World - Director Terrence Malick's 2005 feature film about what happened in the Jamestown Colony shortly after it was founded
Publications (selection)
- A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Happened in Virginia (1608)
- A Description of New England (1616)
- The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624)
- Anonymous, but most likely from John Smith: The Historye of the Bermudaes or Summer Islands . Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1108011570
literature
- Charles Dudley Warner: Captain John Smith . 1881, new: Captain John Smith ( Project Gutenberg Text )
- Philip L. Barbour: The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1964
- Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler: Captain John Smith: Jamestown and the Birth of the American Dream. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken (New Jersey) 2006
Individual evidence
- ^ André Maurois : The history of America. Rascher, Zurich 1947
Web links
- John Smith and Jamestown in National Geographic (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Smith, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English soldier and founder of Jamestown |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1580 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Alford (Lincolnshire) |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 21, 1631 |
| Place of death | London |