Captain John Smith, fortunately, was neither a cavalier nor a simple mariner, but a man in a class by himself, and just at that juncture the most useful that could possibly have been attached to this adventure. His career even before the present period had been so romantic that, partly for that reason, and partly because he himself was his own chief chronicler, historians have been prone to discredit or modify many of its episodes. But what we know of Smith from other than a Smith source tallies so well with the stories which rest upon his sole authority that there seems to be no sound cause for rejecting the latter. After making all deductions, he remains a remarkable personage, and his influence upon the promotion of the English colonial scheme was wholly beneficial. He was brave, ingenious, indefatigable, prudent and accomplished; he knew what should be done, and was ever foremost in doing it He took hold of the helpless and slow-witted colonists as a master carpenter handles blocks of wood, and transformed them into an efficient and harmonious structure, strong enough to withstand the first onsets of misfortune, and to endure until the arrival of recruits from home placed them beyond all danger of calamity.
Smith was born in England in 1579, and was therefore only twenty-eight years of age when he embarked with Gosnold. Yet he had already fought in the Netherlands, starved in France, and been made a galley-slave by the Moslem. He had been shipwrecked at one time, thrown overboard at another, and robbed at a third. Thrice had he met and slain Turkish champions in the lists; and he had traversed the steppes of Russia with only a handful of grain for food. He was not a man of university education: the only schooling he had had was in the free schools of Alford and Louth, before his fifteenth year; his father was a tenant farmer in Lincolnshire, and though John was apprenticed to a trade, he ran away while a mere stripling, and shifted for himself ever after. An adventurer, therefore, in the fullest sense of the word, he was; and doubtless he had the appreciation of his own achievements which self-made men are apt to have. But there was sterling pith in him, a dauntless and humane soul, and inexhaustible ability and resource. Such a man could not fail to possess imagination, and imagination and self-esteem combined conduce to highly-colored narrative; but that Smith was a liar is an unwarranted assumption, which will not be countenanced here.
The Gosnold colony had provided itself with a charter, granted by King James, and as characteristic of that monarch as was his treatment of Raleigh. It was the first of many specimens of absentee landlordism from which America was to suffer. It began by setting apart an enormous stretch of territory, bounded on the north by the latitude of the St. Croix River, and on the south by that of Cape Fear, and extending westward indefinitely. To this domain was given the general title of Virginia. It was subdivided into two approximately equal parts, with a neutral zone between them, which covered the space now occupied by the cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and the land adjoining them. The northern division was given in charge to the "Plymouth Company," and the southern to the "London Company"; they were separate mercantile and colonizing organizations, but the charter applied to both alike.
The colonies were to be under the immediate control of a council composed of residents, but appointed by the king; this council was subordinate to another, meeting in England; and this in its turn was subject to the king's absolute authority. The emigrants were to pay a yearly rent of one-fifth of the gold and silver produced, and a third as much of the copper. A five per cent duty levied on alien traffic was for the first five-and-twenty years to inure to the benefit of the colony, but afterward should be the exclusive perquisite of the Crown. The right to call themselves and their children English was permitted to the emigrants; and they were also allowed to defend themselves against attacks, though it was enjoined upon them to treat the natives with kindness, and to endeavor to draw them into the fold of the Church.
Such was James's idea of what a charter for an American colony should be. He was taking much for granted when he assumed the right to control the emigrants at all; and he was careful to deprive them of any chance to control in the least degree their own affairs. America was to be the abode of liberty; but this monarch thought only of making it a field for his private petty tyranny. The colonists were to be his own personal slaves, and the deputy slaves of the Companies; after discharging all their obligations to him and to them, they might do the best they could for themselves with what was left, provided of course that they strictly observed the laws which his Majesty was kind enough also to draw up for them, the provisions of which included the penalty of death for most offenses above petty larceny. A colony which, amid the hardships and unfamiliar terrors of a virgin wilderness, could enjoy all the benefits of a charter like this, and yet survive, would seem hardy enough for any emergency. But James was king, and kings, in those days, if they pleased no one else, pleased themselves.
As we have seen, the members of the colony, being persons unused to the practice of the useful arts, were little apt to succeed even under the most favoring conditions. But they had Smith, in himself a host, and a few other good heads and able hands; and to speak truth, the provisions of their charter do not seem to have unduly embarrassed them. It could annoy and hamper them occasionally, but only themselves could work themselves serious injury; there were three thousand miles of perilous sea water between their paternal monarch and them, and the wilderness, with all its drawbacks, breeds self-confidence and independence. The mishaps of the colony were due to the shiftlessness of most of its members, and to the insalubrity of the site chosen for their city of Jamestown, whereby more than half of them perished during the first few months. On the voyage out, Smith, who had probably made himself distasteful to the gentlemen adventurers by his unconventional manners and conversation, had been placed under restraint—to what extent is not exactly known; and when the sealed orders under which they had sailed were opened, and it was found that Smith was named a member of the council, he was for some weeks not permitted to exercise his lawful functions in that office. When the troubles began, however, the helpless gentlemen were glad to avail themselves of his services, which he with his customary good humor readily accorded them; and so competent did he show himself that ere long he was in virtual command of them all. The usual search for gold and for the passage through the continent to India having been made, with the usual result, they all set to work to build their fort and town, and to provide food against the not improbable contingency of famine. As crops could not be raised for the emergency, Smith set out to traffic with the natives, and brought back corn enough for the general need. All this while he had been contending with a prevalent longing on the part of the colonists to get back to England; there was no courage left in them but his, which abounded in proportion to their need for it. Prominent among the malcontents was the deposed governor, Wingfield, who tried to bribe the colonists to return; another member of the council was shot for mutiny. In the end, Smith's will prevailed, and he was governor and council and King James all in one; and when, at the beginning of winter, he had brought the settlement to order and safety, he started on a journey of exploration up the Chickahominy. He perceived the immense importance of understanding his surroundings, and at the same time of establishing friendly relations with the neighboring tribes of Indians; and it was obvious that none but he (for the excellent Gosnold had died of fever in the first months of the settlement) was capable of effecting these objects. Accordingly he proceeded prosperously toward the headwaters of the river, a dozen miles above its navigable point; but there, all at once, he found himself in the midst of a throng of frowning warriors, who were evidently resolved to put an end to his investigations, if not to his existence, forthwith.
Another man than Smith would have committed some folly or rashness which would have precipitated his fate; but Smith was as much at his ease as was Julius Caesar of old on the pirate's ship. His two companions were killed, but he was treated as a prisoner of rank and importance by the brother of the great chief Powhatan, by whom he had been captured. He interested and impressed his captors by his conversation and his instruments; and at the same time he kept his eyes and ears open, and missed no information that could be of use to himself and his colony. Powhatan gave him an audience and seems to have adopted a considerate attitude; at all events he sent him back to Jamestown after a few days, unharmed, and escorted by four Indians, with a supply of corn. But precisely what occurred during those few days we shall never certainly know; since we must choose between accepting Smith's unsupported story, only made public years afterward, and believing nothing at all. Smith's tale has charmed the imagination of all who have heard it; nothing could be more prettily romantic; the trouble with it is, it seems to most people too pretty and romantic to be true. Yet it is simple enough in itself, and not at all improbable; there is no question as to the reality of the dramatis personae of the story, and their relations one to another render such an episode as was alleged hardly more than might reasonably be looked for.
The story is—as all the world knows, for it has been repeated all over the world for nearly three hundred years, and has formed the subject of innumerable pictures—that Powhatan, for reasons of high policy satisfactory to himself, had determined upon the death of the Englishman, rightly inferring that the final disappearance of the colony would be the immediate sequel thereof. The sentence was that Smith's brains were to be knocked out with a bludgeon; and he was led into the presence of the chief and the warriors, and ordered to lay his head upon the stone. He did so, and the executioners poised their clubs for the fatal blow; but it never fell. For Smith, during his captivity, had won the affection of the little daughter of Powhatan, a girl of ten, whose name was Pocahontas. She was too young to understand or fear his power over the Indians; but she knew that he was a winning and fascinating being, and she could not endure that he should be sacrificed. Accordingly, at this supreme crisis of his career, she slipped into the dreadful circle, and threw herself upon Smith's body, so that the blow which was aimed at his life must kill her first. She clung to him and would not be removed, until her father had promised that Smith should be spared.
So runs the Captain's narrative, published for the first time in 1624, after Pocahontas's appearance in London, and her death in 1617. Why he had not told it before is difficult to explain. Perhaps he had promised Powhatan to keep it secret, lest the record of his sentimental clemency should impair his authority over the tribes. Or it may have been an embellishment of some comparatively trifling incident of Smith's captivity, suggested to his mind as he was compiling his "General History of Virginia." It can never be determined; but certainly his relations with the Indian girl were always cordial, and it seems unlikely that Powhatan would have permitted him to return to Jamestown except for some unusual reason.
Pocahontas's life had vicissitudes such as seldom befall an Indian maiden. Some time between the Smith episode of 1607, and the year 1612, she married one of her father's tributary chiefs, and went to live with him on his reservation. There she was in some manner kidnapped by one Samuel Argall, and held for ransom. The ransom was paid, but Pocahontas was not sent back; and the following year she was married to John Rolfe, a Jamestown colonist, and baptized as Rebecca. He took her to London, where she was a nine days' wonder; and they had a son, whose blood still flows in not a few American veins to-day. If she was ten years old in 1607, he must have been no more than twenty at the time of her death in Gravesend, near London. But her place in American history is secure, as well as in the hearts of all good Americans. She was the heroine of the first American romance; and she is said to have been as beautiful as all our heroines should rightly be.