Captain John Smith

by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay

There had been a great deal of discussion about the freighting of the Phœnix. Ratcliffe, Martin, and, in fact, the majority were for loading the vessel with the delusive dust which had formed Newport’s cargo. Smith and Scrivener protested against another shipment of what they strongly suspected to be no more than “glittering dirt.” Captain Nelson took the same view of the matter and in the end the Phœnix sailed out of the James with an honest lading of good Virginia cedar. This was on June the second, 1608. The same day Smith left the settlement in an open barge of three tons’ burden, accompanied by fifteen men. Most of these were newcomers, who were not a little set up on account of an experience they had gained with Newport during his recent visit. That able seaman generally contrived to make himself ridiculous when he transferred the scene of his activities to dry land. He had brought out a large boat in five sections designed to be carried across the mountains in his projected journey to the South Sea. The expedition started with a great flourish of trumpets and after being gone two and a half days returned to Jamestown and abandoned the enterprise. Now those of Smith’s force who had been in Newport’s company thought that the latter’s expedition was a fair sample of exploration. They were eager for adventure and very much feared that Smith, in an open boat committed to the sea, would not journey far enough to satisfy their appetite. The leader heard these doubts expressed and promised himself some amusement at the expense of his eager adventurers.

Smith’s determination was to thoroughly explore Chesapeake Bay. It was no light undertaking. The region was quite unknown to him and peopled by Indian tribes with which he had not yet come in contact. The mere matter of navigation involved grave dangers, for the Bay being wide and open, is subject to almost the full force of wind and tide. But in the face of all these difficulties, and many more that arose with the progress of the exploration, Smith accomplished his purpose and that so effectually that his map of the Bay was the best in existence until recent times, and is still acknowledged to be an excellent one. The work was at that time of course of the utmost importance and, although it took the authorities at home some time to see it, information of the country and inhabitants of Virginia was of much greater value than fanciful stories of gold mines and short cuts to the South Sea.

Our adventurers soon found that exploring with Captain Smith was a very different thing from a picnic expedition with Captain Newport. They encountered rough weather from the outset. Their hands blistered and their backs ached with rowing against a strong wind. The briny waves drenched their clothes and soaked their bread. Their water keg was broached by some accident and before they could replenish it they came so near to being famished that they “would have refused two barrels of gold for one of puddle water.” This was their condition when a terrible storm struck them, carrying away their masts and sails. By good fortune, rather than any effort of their own, they contrived to gain the shelter of an uninhabited island where they went ashore.

The men who had been fearful lest Captain Smith should not venture far enough, were now all for returning to Jamestown, but their leader had no mind to turn back. Opposition and difficulty ever increased his determination and nerved him to greater effort.

“Gentlemen,” said Smith to the disheartened company, “remember the example of Sir Ralph Lane’s company in worse straits, how they begged him to proceed in the discovery of Moratico, saying that they had yet a dog that would sustain them for a while. Then what shame would it be to us to return, having ample provision of a sort, and scarce able to say where we have been, nor yet heard of that we were sent to seek. You can not say but I have shared with you in the worst that is past; and for what is to come, of lodging, diet, or whatsoever, I am content you allot the worst part to me. As to your apprehensions that I will lose myself in these unknown large waters, or be swallowed up in some stormy gust, abandon these childish fears, for worse than is past is not likely to happen, and to return would be as dangerous as to proceed. Regain, therefore, your old spirits, for return I will not—if God please—till I have seen the Massawomekes, found Patawomek, or the head of this bay which you imagine to be endless.”

They remained two days upon the island, and when the storm abated resumed their journey with fresh sails fashioned from their shirts.

The exploring party had been out just two weeks when they came across the mouth of the Potomac—or Patawomek, as Smith called it. They sailed thirty miles up the river without sight of human being, when two Indians appeared from nowhere, after their mysterious manner, and offered to serve them as guides. Pretending to take them to a village at the head of a creek, the wily savages neatly led them into an ambuscade. Suddenly the English found themselves in the centre of three or four hundred Indians, “strangely painted, grimed and disguised, shouting, yelling and crying, as so many spirits from hell could not have showed more terrible.” Had they discharged their arrows at once, instead of wasting time in capering about, the explorers must have been killed to a man. But these Indians, who had not yet become acquainted with the dreadful “spit-fires” of the strangers, thought that they had them entirely at their mercy and doubtless proposed to reserve them for the torture. Smith ordered his men to fire a volley in the air and the effect of the discharge of fifteen muskets at once was all that could be wished. Many of the savages fled into the forest, others threw themselves prone upon the ground and all cast aside their weapons in sign of surrender. Smith learned that messengers from Powhatan had instigated these people to attack the expedition and had urged upon them, above all, to secure the white men’s weapons. Had they known the terrible nature of those weapons they certainly would not have indulged in any such foolishness and they did not think kindly of their brothers, the Powhatans, for having egged them on to it. Smith established friendly relations with these people who never occasioned further trouble.

In their progress the voyagers found the Indians almost everywhere in arms and ready to attack them, having been prompted thereto by the emissaries from Werowocomico. In most cases, however, the natives were converted to peaceful good-will without bloodshed, the flash and report of the fire-arm proving to be a powerful pacifier. Wherever they went, the explorers heard of the Massawomekes. They seem to have been a particularly warlike tribe, situated near the head of the bay, who were dreaded and hated by all their neighbors. Smith was very anxious to see these people and proceeded up the bay with the intention of visiting their country. But his men were succumbing so fast to the fatigue and exposure that, when at length there were but five left fit for active service, he deemed it wise to defer the exploration of the head of the bay. Before turning homeward, however, he sent a messenger inland to the country of the Susquehannocks who had the reputation of being a tribe of giants.

After a delay of a few days a deputation of sixty warriors from the Susquehannocks visited the camp of the Englishmen. They were bigger and more warlike than any Indians that the settlers had encountered up to that time, and it was agreeable to Smith to find that they had come prepared to make an alliance with him and, indeed, to adopt him into the tribe as a chief. In token of their good-will they presented him with a bear’s skin cloak, such as was only worn by great Werowances, eighteen mantles, a chain of beads weighing six or seven pounds and a number of other gewgaws. Their chief was a man of extraordinary size, even for a Susquehannock. Smith thus describes him:

“The calf of his leg was three-quarters of a yard about, and all the rest of his limbs so answerable to that proportion that he seemed the goodliest man we had ever beheld. His hair on one side was long, the other shorn close with a ridge over his crown like a cock’s comb. His arrows were five quarters of a yard long, headed with flints or splinters of stone in form like a heart, an inch broad and an inch and a half or more long. These he wore at his back in a wolf’s skin for his quiver, his bow in the one hand and his club in the other.”