Hero Tales from History — John Smith, The Captain of Many Adventures

COLONISTS AND PIONEERS

JOHN SMITH, THE CAPTAIN OF MANY ADVENTURES

Stories of the strange adventures of Columbus, John Cabot, and other explorers made a restless lad of little motherless John Smith, of Willoughby, England.

When he was fourteen he had made ready to run away from home; but then his father died and left him the owner of an estate, in the charge of guardians.

Those mean men cared more for the property than for the boy who was to have it when he was old enough.

So they gave him only a little pocket-money and hired him out by law as apprentice to a tradesman, who treated the well-to-do lad as if he were a slave.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH] In less than a year young John Smith ran away in good earnest, leaving master, guardians, and property behind.

He had attended two free schools and had gained what would be equal to a common-school education in these days.

He went right to Paris, because France and Spain were at war just then; but peace was declared almost as soon as he was able to enlist.

After several hard experiences, young Smith engaged in the service of the duke of a little kingdom which was fighting the Turks.

In one of his books, John Smith describes his adventures in these desperate battles.

He tells of killing three Turks single-handed in mortal combat, and of how his princely master designed for him a coat-of-arms having in it three Turks’ heads.

But ill fortune soon befell young Captain John Smith.

In a battle with the Turks he was wounded and left for dead, and became the property of a Turkish chief, who, as Smith goes on to tell, “sent him forthwith to Constantinople to his fair mistress for a slave.

By twenty and twenty, chained by the necks, they marched in file to this great city where they were delivered to their several masters.

” The princess, to whom Captain John Smith was sent, was too young to own any kind of property.

Afraid her mother would sell her white slave before she was of age, she sent him to her brother, a distant chief, asking him to be kind to her prize.

But the brother treated his sister’s slave so brutally that Smith killed him and escaped in his master’s clothes to Russia.

Here he found people who were unfriendly enough to the Turks to file off the iron collar which he still wore.

On his way back to England, Smith found himself on the ship of a friendly French pirate, where he had to fight for his life against two Spanish men-of-war.

The French ship succeeded in escaping from the Spaniards into a port on the northern coast of Africa.

From here Smith took ship for London and entered the service of the Virginia Company, whose business it was to carry on the settling of America, begun by Sir Walter Raleigh.

The Virginia Company secured a charter from King James and in December, 1606, sent more than a hundred men to America.

It was a strange company for such an enterprise.

There were four carpenters, one blacksmith, one bricklayer, one mason, one tailor, one sailor, one drummer, two surgeons, two “boys,” or men-servants, and only twelve laborers.

But there were forty-eight “gentlemen,” of whom some were ne’er-do-wells and others downright criminals, who could not work because they did not know how to do anything useful.

Even before they reached Virginia, quarrels broke out among members of the party and Captain John Smith was falsely accused of conspiracy and condemned to be hanged.

He escaped, however, and afterward forgave the conspirators.

The king had sent out the colony with sealed orders, which were not to be opened until they reached Virginia.

When the orders were opened, John Smith was found to be among the seven men appointed as council for the colony.

But the men highest in control were unfit to command such an enterprise.

They spent seventeen days searching for a good site for a settlement.

The place which they finally chose was a long distance from the coast, was hard for a sailing vessel to reach, and lay in an unhealthy place between the shallow river and a bad swamp.

The river was named the James and the settlement Jamestown, both in honor of the king.

As for Captain John Smith, the others of the party were jealous of him.

They thought he knew too much, because he saw how little they knew.

Most of the party expected to get rich quick, and they did not care how they did it, so long as it was at the expense of some one else.

So, instead of fishing for oysters, planting gardens, and clearing farms, they went hunting for gold and making trouble with the Indians.

They did discover something they thought was gold, but Know-it-all Smith told them the yellow stuff was only “fool’s gold,” which is the common name for iron pyrites.

Instead of following Smith’s advice and working all together to prepare for the future, they became so spiteful that they would have imprisoned him if he had not been too shrewd for them.

The Indians grew more and more hostile.

The condition of the settlers was fast becoming hopeless.

Smith himself wrote of their condition: “What toil we had, with so small a power (twelve laborers out of more than one hundred men) to guard our workmen a-days, watch all night, resist our enemies, and effect our business--to re-lade the ships, cut down trees and prepare the ground to plant our corn.

” The settlers’ provisions were disappearing faster than they expected.

One of them wrote at this time of the sad state of affairs: “Our drink was water; our lodgings, castles in the air.

” The foolish president of the council was soon displaced.

The man elected in his stead was said to be “of weak judgment in dangers, and less industry in peace”; but he had the sense to leave the management of affairs to John Smith.

That capable captain now took hold with a firm hand.

He fought the Indians till they gained a wholesome respect for him and the English.

Then he played on their curiosity and superstition so as to get them to bring Indian corn, venison, and wild turkeys to feed the white men.

He set the idlers to work at chopping down trees and the like.

When he had things going right in Jamestown, the tireless captain went out exploring the wilderness.

Captured by a hostile tribe of Indians, he showed them his compass and told them a story which made them afraid to kill him.

So they took him, as a great prize, to the Powhatan, or head chief of all the tribes of that part of the country.

The Powhatan and his chiefs knew too well that this was the mighty chief who had thus far kept the white men out of their clutches.

They held a solemn powwow and [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS] condemned the troublesome captain to death.

They laid his head on a stone and a chief was lifting his war-club to dash out the prisoner’s brains, when Pocahontas, the Powhatan’s beautiful daughter, rushed out and threw herself between the death-club and Smith’s head.

She pleaded so earnestly, threatening to kill herself if Smith was harmed, that her father gave orders to stop the execution, and to keep the white man prisoner.

With the help of the Indian girl, he soon made his escape.

Pocahontas proved a true friend to the English.

More than once she warned Captain Smith of the deep-laid plans of the Virginia tribes to murder all the white settlers at a stroke.

She became a convert to Christianity, was christened Rebecca, and was confirmed in the Church of England.

Then a young settler, John Rolfe, married her and took her to England, where she was received in the homes of lords and ladies, and entertained by the queen as Lady Rebecca and the Princess Pocahontas.

Some of the “First Families of Virginia” proudly prove that this beautiful and devoted Indian girl was one of their ancestors.

Not long after his escape from the Indians, John Smith was seriously injured by the explosion of some gunpowder, and was compelled to return to England for treatment.

His work in Virginia was done.

But the restless soul of the old Captain could not let him be content to remain at ease in England.

He made other voyages of exploration along the coast to the north of the Dutch island of Manhattan.

From his careful observations he drew a good map of that northern country and gave it the name New England.

So besides starting the greatest southern colony of North America, he prepared the way for the Pilgrims to settle at Plymouth.