Captain John Smith Who First Meets Native Pennsylvanians Sailed for England, September 29, 1609

There seems to be no doubt but that the first European to meet the Indians who resided in what is now Pennsylvania was Captain John Smith.

This adventurer explored the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in 1608, and made a map of his observations, which with the one he made at a later date, of his explorations along the New England coast, were for many years recognized as the authority for this hemisphere.

The Dutch who first came to these shores formed an acquaintance with the Indians in 1615, and the Swedes first met them in 1638.

It seems, therefore, that a story about this intrepid navigator, statesman, soldier, and writer is timely.

Captain John Smith, founder of the Virginia Colony, was an English soldier, a native of Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, where he was born January, 1579; he died in London, June 21, 1631.

From early youth he was a soldier, enlisting in 1596, in the French Army to fight against Spain, but after the peace of 1598, he transferred his services to the insurgents in the Netherlands, and there remained until about 1600.

Returning home he almost immediately started on a career of marvelous adventure.

He sailed from France to Italy, where he was thrown overboard because it was learned he was a Protestant, but he was rescued by a pirate and landed on Italian soil.

He traveled through Italy and Dalmatia to Styria and fought with the Austrian Army against the Turks, distinguished himself in Hungary and Transylvania, for which service he was ennobled and pensioned.

Taken prisoner by the Turks, Smith was sent a slave to Constantinople, where he won the affections of his young mistress. He was sent by her to her brother in the Crimea, with a letter avowing her attachment. The indignant Turk cruelly maltreated Smith, when the latter one day slew his taskmaster, put on the Ottoman’s clothes, mounted a horse and escaped to a Russian port.

On his return to England, in 1605, Bartholomew Gosnold persuaded Smith to engage in founding a colony in Virginia, and at the age of twenty-seven years, already greatly renowned, he sailed from Blackwell for America, December 16, 1606, with Captain C. Newport, who commanded three vessels that bore one hundred and five emigrants.

677Smith was accompanied by men of property, and the voyage being by the southern route was long and tedious. They landed, May 13, 1607, about fifty miles from the mouth of the river they called the James, where they built Jamestown, and chose that for the seat of the new empire.

Captain Smith, with Newport and twenty men, explored the James River as far as the falls, the site of Richmond, and made the acquaintance of Powhatan, emperor of thirty Indian tribes.

On the voyage to Virginia, Smith had become boastful and arrogant, causing him to be much disliked by Wingfield, of the London Company.

On his return from the first exploration trip Smith found Wingfield had set himself up as president, and that he was under arrest, but was acquitted at the trial and took his seat in the council, when that body demanded that the president should pay Smith £200 for false imprisonment.

All of Wingfield’s property was seized to pay it, when Smith generously placed it in the public store for the use of the colony.

Sickness prostrated the colony before the close of the summer.

Smith was soon made the leader of the colony, and brought order out of chaos, made the Indians bring in stores of corn, and had the colony well supplied with food for the ensuing winter.

After erecting fortifications Smith began a series of excursions into the surrounding region. He proved an excellent leader and became in fact the principal head of the colony.

He went up the Chickahominy in an open boat. Leaving the craft, he with two others and two Indian guides penetrated the forest, when Smith was seized by savages under Opechancanough, King of Pumunky, an elder brother of Powhatan, and conducted to the presence of the emperor.

At a great council presided over by Powhatan, Smith was doomed to die. Matoa, or Pocahontas, a daughter of Powhatan, begged her father to spare the prisoner’s life, but in vain.

Smith’s head was laid upon two stones, and two warriors had raised heavy clubs to crush it, when Pocahontas sprang from her father’s side, clasped Smith’s head with her arms, and laid her own on his.

The emperor yielded, and Smith was released and returned to Jamestown, where only forty persons were left, the little church burned to the ground, and the inhabitants on the point of abandoning the settlement.

On September 10, 1608, Smith was elected president of the colony; and, upon assuming this office, he enforced discipline, strove to convert their unthrifty methods, had them rebuild the church, strengthen the defenses, and make provision for agriculture and fishery.

678Smith made two voyages, covering hundreds of miles, about the coast of the Chesapeake and its tributaries.

When his successor was elected Smith refused to surrender the government and served until September 29, 1609, when he sailed for England, and never again returned to Jamestown.

This was unfortunate for the colony, as his better leadership was necessary at that time to save it from frequent and serious disturbance.

In 1614 he made a voyage of exploration to New England and prepared a map of the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod.

When Captain Smith sailed his barge up the Chesapeake, entered the Susquehanna River and pushed as far up that stream as was possible, he made the first exploration of that great river from its mouth for several miles, and if he did not actually enter Pennsylvania, he was very close and certainly did meet some of the Susquehanna Indians, who resided in what is now called Lancaster County.