John Smith.

This is coolbert:

Very good program on television last night about Captain John Smith and the Jamestown colony.

This of course is the four hundred year anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. The first successful English colony in North America.

A success that is generally accepted as being due to the efforts of Captain John Smith. Without the presence of Smith, the colony would not have succeeded? Would have been doomed from the start?

Smith WAS a soldier of some ability, a man of action, a person possessing a robust physical constitution, and a natural leader of men!

Smith could legitimately claim the title of "Captain", having been a professional military man, having seen extensive combat prior to Jamestown. Recognized by his peers as a soldier, an officer, a leader.

"He served as a mercenary in the army of King Henry IV of France against the Spaniards and later fought against the Ottoman Empire. Smith was promoted to captain while fighting for the Habsburgs in Hungary, in the campaign of Mihai Viteazul in 1600-1601 . . . in 1602 he was wounded, captured and sold as a slave [a slave of the Turk] . . . Smith . . . escape[d] . . . then traveled through Europe and Northern Africa, returning to England during 1604."

Escaped and returned to England, traveling on foot TWO THOUSAND MILES TO DO SO!!

Assumed leadership of the colony and began on his own initiative explorations. Active, alert and about when many other colonists died or were sick from a combination of bad water and a lack of food.

Smith was an excellent cartographer, making maps continually as he journeyed into what was primarily hostile American Indian territory.

[military officers of the time were generally responsible for making their own maps. Graduates of West Point until fairly recently received a degree as an engineer, surveying and mapping being an important part of their curriculum.]

The episode where the good Captain was saved from execution by Pocahontas may have very well occurred. But not exactly transpiring as Smith perceived the event:

"Some experts have suggested that, although Smith believed he had been rescued, he had in fact been involved in a ritual intended to symbolise his death and rebirth as a member of the tribe."

[the Powhatan tribe engaged in an elaborate form of skit/theatrics so that Smith could be "adopted" by the tribe as a member, BUT ONLY AT THE SUPPOSED INTERCESSION OF POCAHANTAS!!]

"Smith was eventually released without harm and later attributed this in part to the chief's daughter, Pocahontas, who, according to Smith, threw herself across his body: 'at the minute of my execution, she hazarded [i.e. risked] the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown'."

The following year, being badly burned in an accident, Smith again demonstrated the attributes of a man with a robust physical constitution, recovering when most had given him up for dead. Repatriated to England, he recuperated, recovered, and resumed an active life.

"Smith was seriously injured by a gunpowder burn after a rogue spark landed in his powder keg. It is not known whether the injury was an accident or a murder attempt."

Smith returned to the New World, charting and mapping that part of North America later to become known as New England.

John Smith the soldier was a man of considerable talent and ability. Without him, NO Jamestown? Without Jamestown, NO English development and colonization of North America?

coolbert.