The American Dream of Captain John Smith

Here is a study of the character, writings, and ideals of Captain John Smith, popularly recognized as the greatest English explorer and colonizer of his time - perhaps of all time. Reading closely the facts of Smith's life and, especially, Smith's own words, J. A. Leo Lemay offers the fullest appreciation to date of Smith's contributions to American colonization and culture. The result is a new interpretation and appreciation of the man who, more than any other of his time, saw the potential of America for creating a new society unencumbered by the feudal vestiges of the Old World. Smith fulfilled the heroic roles of both the European Renaissance and the American frontier. Before sailing for Jamestown in 1607, he fought in two major European theatres of war, finally serving as captain of a Christian cavalry company in the Balkans fighting against the Turks. In America, Smith became early Virginia's most famous and feared Indian fighter. Powhatan himself testified that "if a twig but breake every one cryeth there commeth Captaine Smith". According to Lemay, Smith was also one of the 17th century's greatest political and social egalitarians and visionaries. His American Dream prefigured and contributed to the ideals that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Joel Barlow, James Madison, and other founders of the American republic built into their aspirations for a new nation and new society. The author describes Smith as an explorer whose skill was unmatched in his time. His maps of the Chesapeake Bay area and the New England coast provided essential information for the colonization of the Virginia, Maryland, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay colonies and remained the most reliable guides to those areas until nearly the end of the century. Lemay also shows Smith to have been a skilled diplomat and trader who treated the Indians fairly and with respect. He was, in the author's words, "the best friend among the whites that the Indians ever has as governor in early Virginia". He sympathized with the Indians' situation and appreciated their point of view, although he conceded that in the end "progress" would prevail.