John Smith

Lecture Notes #2

America vs. Europe:

1.)  Smith’s description of New England combines two images of the New World that were current in Europe in the 1600s:

• The image of America as a paradise, a voluptuous land of easy riches
• The image of America as a land that would reward those showing the Protestant  virutes of enterprise and willingness to work hard

But doesn’t the Indian captivity narrative in some regards frighten people away?  Depends on the audience—would it have been published in Europe?

2.)  The American environment and its great distance from Europe prohibited the easy transfer to America of England’s:

• Feudal class structure
• Widespread belief in the worth of a noble class and an idle gentry
• Upper-class contempt for those in “trade” or whose jobs required hard, physical labor
• High valuation of the contemplative, intellectual life
• Customs of labor, farming, law, and political organization

Smith and Jamestown:

1.)  Until the settling of Jamestown, English colonizing efforts in the New World were conspicuous for their failure.  Smith sets forth the essentials for colonizing success:

• Potent local government
• Housing
• Means of self defense
• Adequate provisions
• Trained craftsmen

2.)  Many reasons have been offered to explain why the Jamestown colonists failed to exert themselves sufficiently in establishing of their colony:

• That too many of the colonists were “ne’er do wells” and gentlemen who were unused to hard work
• That the colonists were weakened by hunger and disease
• That the “communal basis” of the settlement discouraged individual enterprise
• That many of the early colonizing reports, especially those written by the Spanish colonizers, encouraged the expectation that riches would be quickly found and profits quickly earned, that the “naturals” could be forced to supply the colonists with food, and that therefore diligent labor was unnecessary
• That the colonists expected their needs to be met by their London backers

Note that none of the above explanations suggest that the English colonists, lacking government support such as the Spanish enjoyed, failed because their attempt to colonize Virginia at that time and place was simply beyond their abilities.

3.)  Smith attributed the difficulties at Jamestown to dissension, weak government, lack of organization, and mistaken attempts by a central governing body (in London) to exert control at long distance.  Such problems of government and society arose partly from human characteristics that later came to be considered distinctly American:

• Radical individualism
• Disrespect for law and governments
• Hostility toward distant, central governments
• Contempt for traditions of rank, privilege, and authority

Note how such characteristics were prominent among the causes of the American revolution, 170 years later, and how those same characteristics win popular praise today.

4.)  The first Englishwomen did not arrive at Jamestown until the Second Supply in October 1608.  Note that in listing the benefits to be gained from colonizing, Smith failed to include any that would apply particularly to women and wives.

Smith and the Pilgrims and Puritans:

1.)  Smith’s writing as compared to other colonial reporters such as William Bradford or Thomas Morton or the authors of the Bay Psalm Book or the New England Primer:

• Smith’s perspective is that of a pragmatic and secular reporter rather than as a religious historian.
• Smith writes of the visible, material world—describing plants, animals, and men—rather than the immaterial, speculative world of philosophy and theology.
• Smith assumed that the New World was for man’s exploitation, for his physical enjoyment, and for his earthly fulfillment.  Contrast that assumption to the Puritans’ view of the New World as a place of spiritual testing and of preparation for a fulfillment to be achieved only in heaven.

2.)  Smith is often contrasted to the Puritans and the Pilgrims.  But consider these similarities:

• Both saw America as a place where individual men and women could escape from Old World restraints and tradition.
• Both celebrated the possibility of communal as well as individual regeneration in the lands claimed by England in the New World.
• Both condemned luxury and emphasized the virtues of hard work, abstinence, and enterprise.  And both saw a life of ease and luxury as a sign of decay that portends inevitable destruction.

3.)  As a writer, Smith was dominated by secular and not religious concerns.  His references to God’s providences, for example, are few and perfunctory.  They are not extended reflections on divine reward and punishment.

• “God the guider of all good actions”
• “had God not blessed the discoverers”
• “God, the patron of all good endeavors”
• “thus God unboundless by his power”
• “almighty God (by his divine providence)”

Compare them to the references to providences made by Bradford and the Boston Puritans – see Bradford.

Smith's Writings as Travel Literature:

1.)  The lists of plants, animals, and minerals drawn up by Smith resemble mercantile catalogs designed to attract buyers.  Such detailed lists—by then a convention of travel and exploration reports—gratified the appetites of readers hungry for specific details of the New World.

The very length and detail of such a catalog could make an exploration report more believable—an important advantage in a literary genre notorious for its exaggerations.

2.)  There were many ancient and modern – 16th and 17th century – travel reports published before Smith wrote his.  Smith differs from the conventional writers of the time in two ways:

• He pays greater attention to reporting particular details of discontent, enmity, and mutiny—aspects that other English travel writers often suppressed for reasons of prudence and good public relations
• He places greater emphasis on character portrayal and narratives of dramatic events—such as his Indian capture and rescue by Pocahontas.

3.)  Smith’s reports also follow the pattern of the travel books of the time by reporting barbaric rituals, threats of death, physical suffering, and the eventual triumph of the European hero.  Smith’s writing employs still other conventions of the travel literature of the age by:

• Describing a difficult ocean passage, a voyage prolonged by the weather, and the strong temptation to turn back with the voyage uncompleted.
• Reporting the advantages offered by European technology, especially firearms.
• Describing New World geography—cataloging plants, animals, natural resources—and thereby reporting a profusion of exotic things unknown to Europeans.
• Mixing practical advice with rhetorical landscape descriptions that emphasized the riches and pleasures of the land.
• Describing nature and natives as both friendly and ferocious.
• Revealing how the expedition was plagued by intrigue and disunity.
• Emphasizing the flaws and virtues of expedition leaders.
• Contrasting the virtue of life in a strange foreign land to the idleness and corruption prevalent in the Old World.
• Emphasizing New World plentitude and easy riches and contrasting that superabundance to the privation and poverty of the Old World.
• Describing initial successes and triumphs followed by defeats and failures.

Smith and the Land:

1.)  Smith repeatedly emphasized the unique quality of the American scene and the wealth and variety of it s animals, plants, and minerals.  See – A Description of New England.

2.)  Reports by Smith and others, describing the material abundance of the New World, helped instill in the English the presumptuous idea of North America as “Britain’s Barn,” a source of raw materials rightfully to be exploited.  The wilderness was a storehouse of riches to be exploited for material benefit.

This vision contrasts with the later, Romantic vision of the wilderness as a comforting, spiritual reservoir, an emblem of divinity, a source of the sublime, the perception of which could elevate the human soul and bring it to profound awareness of the power of the supernatural.

3.)  Smith and Crevecoeur both advocated the pastoral ideal of a subdued, “middle landscape.”  They both advocated hard work and exploitation of the wilderness, and they praised those who are industrious and self-sufficient – also like T. Jefferson.

4.)  Smith rarely remarked on the natural beauty of the America he explored—even in his first writings, as initial exploration literature normally expounds on the beauties of the land.  Instead, he viewed the American wilderness as a vast treasure to be exploited and enjoyed.

5.)  Compare Smith’s view of the wilderness with:

• Bradford – hideous desolate wilderness
• Morton – who celebrated the American wilderness and its natives with maypole revels
• Williams – whose poems portrayed the Indian as a rebuke to hypocritical Christians who “want humanity”
• Rowlandson – who saw the landscape as a “vast and desolate wilderness” and the Indians as wretches, hellhounds, and beasts
• Crevecoeur – for whom the wilderness was a place of discord and degeneration
• Bartram – who glorified the wilderness and saw it as a source of spiritual benefit
• Bryant – who celebrated the wilderness in such poems as “Thanatopsis” and “A Forest Hymn”

Smith as a Hero:

1.)  Striking similarities exist between the events of Smith’s life and those feats traditionally ascribed to the heroes of epic literature.  Smith, like the traditional epic hero, struggles to reach a distant goal and:

• Leads a people to a new land
• Acts as diplomat and lawgiver
• Makes orations before foreign lings
• Quiets dissension among his people
• Heals the sick
• Tours a hellish region where he contends with fiends and demonic forces
• Engages in single combat and is subdued by savage hordes
• Is recognized, even by his demonic enemies, as a brave and chivalric opponent
• Suffers from a mysterious wound and withdraws permanently from the scene (Smith’s return to England in 1609 followed his injury in a gunpowder explosion, the details of which still remain obscure).

2.)  The self-portrait that Smith presented to the world shows him as closely resembling the traditional hero of folk literature:

• A man of humble birth, lacking family or descendants
• One whose character is especially marked by self-confidence and practicality
• One who, like Robin Hood, triumphs not merely through bravery and strength but through guile and cleverness.

Smith and "American-ness"

1.)  Smith’s writing—and its themes, treatments, and characters—can be seen as a forerunner to a native, American literature.

2.)  Smith’s accounts emphasize human qualities / traits that become commonly thought to be typically American:

• Practicality
• Boastfulness
• Dislike of showy elegance
• Desire to exploit the environment

3.)  Smith frequently uses his “history” to praise and justify himself and to denounce his enemies.

4.)  The ideal of the SELF-MADE MAN has long been a force in American culture, apparent in the speeches of politicians, in the popularity of the rags to riches tales, and in the currency of such aphorisms as Franklin’s “God helps those who help themselves.”

Smith could be seen as a SELF-MADE MAN who rose from lowly origins to become first a captain and then a colonial governor.  Note how his descriptions of American abundance emphasized the rewards available to self-made men.

The continued celebration of the SELF-MADE MAN myth is apparent in Franklin’s Autobiography, Horatio Alger’s tales, Howells’ The Rise of Silas Lapham, and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

5.)  Smith, who could only venture 9 pounds of his own money in the Jamestown colonizing scheme, was far from wealthy.  Perhaps for that reason, his reports are dominated by ideas of the material riches that might be gained from colonizing the New World.  Smith’s early writing is an early expression of the belief, still current, that America is primarily land of economic opportunity where the hardworking poor can achieve material success.

Smith and Native Americans:

1.)  During his captivity, Smith feared the Powhatan Indians would eat him, a fear derived from the widespread European belief that some New World Indians were cannibals.  Columbus wrote a report of the CARIBS = CANIBS = CANNIBALS who were “very ferocious and who eat human flesh.”

Contrast that idea of Indian cannibalism to the later view of the Indian as the NOBLE SAVAGE.

2.)  The idea of the Noble Savage is not evident in the writing of Smith.  Instead, his writing exhibits the unquestioned assumption by Englishmen that they and their culture are superior to the Indians and Indian culture.  Such a view:

• Made it difficult for Europeans to understand Indians
• Naturally led Europeans to explain puzzling Indian behavior as heathenish whim or cunning deviltry
• Justified the Europeans’ subjugation of the Indians

Pocahontas:

1.)  At the time of their adventure, Smith was 28 and Pocahontas was 12 or 13.  She died in 1617 while on a visit to England, before any detailed description of her rescue of Smith was published.  It is not known whether Smith say Pocahontas while she was in England, and little is known of her character.

2.)  Smith may have gotten the idea of his rescue by Pocahontas by reading other narratives of similar situations by explorers and Indians.

3.)  It is possible that the “execution” of Smith was a mock execution ceremony, part of the initiation and adoption rites common among Indian tribes, during which the candidate underwent a symbolic death and salvation as a way of severing him from his former life and binding him to his new tribe.

4.)  Historians have questioned Smith’s account of his capture and confinement (December to January 1607) by the Indians and his subsequent rescue by Pocahontas.  Five arguments are usually offered against Smith’s veracity:

• That no contemporary report confirms Smith’s story—accounts of events at Jamestown written by other colonists describe Pocahontas and Smith’s captivity but none mentions her rescue of Smith.
• That the mode of execution described by Smith, “to beat out his brains on sacrificial stones, was unusual for Indians of that region.
• That Smith’s own descriptions of events were inconsistent.
• That Smith reported a suspicious number of similar rescues by admiring women.
• That Smith waited until well after Pocahontas’ death (in 1617) before giving (in 1624) a detailed report of her actions in his behalf.

5.)  John Smith and Pocahontas were “rediscovered” in the 19th century South as cultural hero and heroine.  It is suggested that the rediscovery was the South’s patriotic response to 19th century New England’s glorification of Pilgrims and Puritans as the real “founders” of American culture.

Primary Source: The Prentice Hall Anthology of American Literature

Date Revised: 16 September 2010 10:43 AM