Captain John Smith (c. January 1580-June 21, 1631) was an English sailor, soldier and author. He helped found the English colony of Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay beginning in 1607. He was rescued from being killed by Indian Chief Powhatan by the intercession his daughter, the young Indian princess, Pocahontas.
Captain John Smith had earlier fought the Muslims who were invading Europe. After the battles against the Muslims in the Mediterranean, Spain turned its attention to stopping the spread of the Protestant Reformation by sending its Armada to capture England and Holland in 1588. With 130 ships, 18,000 soldiers, 7,000 sailors, 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns, it was planning to transport an additional 30,000 Spanish soldiers from the Netherlands to invade Queen Elizabeth's England.
Spain's battle tactic was to board the English ships in combat as they had the Muslim ships at Lepanto, but Sir Francis Drake's smaller, more maneuverable vessels proved difficult to catch. Drake then dispersed the Spanish fleet by waiting till night and floating burning ships downwind directly toward the anchored Spanish ships. In the confusion, the Armada was scattered. A hurricane then destroyed two dozen more Spanish ships. With Spain's Armada destroyed, its dominance of the seas declined, as did its monopoly on colonizing the New World. Soon England, Holland, Sweden, and France began colonies in America.
In 1607, while helping to found the Colony of Jamestown, Virginia, Captain John Smith was about to be killed by Chief Powhatan, but was saved by the pleading of 11-yearold Pocahontas.
In his enlarged edition of New England's Trials (1622), Smith wrote:
<God made Pocahontas, the King's daughter the means to deliver me.> 1580JS001
In The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, (1630), Smith recorded that six years before he came to America, he had joined the Austrian forces and fought in the "Long War" against the Muslim Ottoman Turks in Hungary.
On his fighting experiences, Captain John Smith wrote:
<And truly there is no pleasure comparable to...employment in noble actions, especially amongst Turks, Heathen and Infidels...The Wars in Europe, Asia and Africa taught me how to subdue the wild savages in Virginia and New England, in America.> 1580JS002
Mehmed III (1566-1603) became the Ottoman Sultan in 1595 and immediately had his 16 brothers strangled to death to eliminate rivalry to his throne. He raised an army of 60,000 and in 1596 conquered the Hungarian city of Erlau. Mehmed III defeated the Austrian Habsburg and Transylvanian forces at the Battle of Mezõkeresztes.
The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, 1580-1631, edited by Philip L. Barbour (Institute of Early American History & Culture, UNC Press, 1986) reported that at age 21, John Smith joined the ranks of Austrian Hapsburg Earl of Meldritch, being assigned to the General of Artillery, Baron Kisell.
Charles Dudley Warner of Harper's Magazine wrote in chapters 2-3 of his book, Captain John Smith, (1881), that John Smith marched with German, French, Austrian and Hungarian troops to fight the Muslims, who had captured Budapest and were invading Lower Hungary, Wallachia, Moldovia, Romania and Transylvania near the Black Sea.
In 1600-1601, during the campaign of Romanian Prince, Michael the Brave, John Smith introduced ingenious battle tactics. When Muslims were besieging the garrison at Oberlymback, Smith devise a method of signaling messages with torches and using gunpowder to create diversions.
The resulting victory earned him the rank of captain with a command of 250 horsemen. Fighting with the Duc de Mercoeur at the siege of Alba Regalis, Smith devised makeshift bombs from earthen pots filled with gunpowder, musket shot and covered with pitch. These were catapulted into the city, contributing to the Muslim evacuation.
Muslims had captured the city of Regall, located in a pass between Hungary and Transylvania, "the Turks having ornamented the walls with Christian heads when they captured the fortress." Smith fought under General Moyses, serving the Prince of Transylvania, Sigismund Bathory, to lead a campaign to regain the city.
During a lull in the fighting, the bashaw (officer) of the Turks put out a challenge for a "David and Goliath" style contest. The 23-year-old John Smith was chosen to fight. He defeated the bashaw, cutting off his head. To avenge the bashaw's death, another soldier challenged Smith and also lost his head. This happened a third time.
General Moyses, with Captain John Smith, soon recaptured Regall, then Veratis, Solmos and Kapronka. At Weisenberg, Prince Sigismund Bathory conferred on John Smith a shield-of-arms with "three Turks' heads." John Smith continued in the regiment of Earl Meldritch, fighting in 1602 for Radu Serban to defend Wallachia against invading Turkish Muslims.
In the battle, the Earl of Meldritch was killed along with 30,000 soldiers. John Smith was wounded and left for dead: Smith among the slaughtered dead bodies, and many a gasping soul with toils and wounds lay groaning among the rest, till being found by the pillagers he was able to live, and perceiving by his armor and habit, his ransome might be better than his death, they led him prisoner with many others.
At Axopolis, Smith was sold with other prisoners at the slave market to Bashaw Bogall, "so chained by the necks in gangs of twenty they marched to Constantinople." There, Smith was pitied by Bashaw Bogall's mistress, who sent him to her brother, Tymor Bashaw.
Unfortunately, Tymor "diverted all this to the worst cruelty," stripped Smith naked, shaved him bald, riveted an iron ring around his neck, clothed him in goat skins and, as slave of slaves, was given only goat entrails to eat.
Following a beating while he was thrashing in a field, Smith seized the opportunity and killed his master. He hid his body in the straw, put on his master's clothes, took a bag of grain and rode off toward Russia. After 16 days he reached a Muscovite garrison on the River Don, where the iron ring was removed from his neck. With their help he found his way through Poland back to his troops in Transylvania.
After being released from service with a large reward, John Smith traveled through Europe to Morocco in Northern Africa to fight Muslim Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1605, at the age of 26, he returned to England and in 1606, Captain John Smith set sail to help found Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English colony in North America.
In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims arrived, Smith explored Maine and Massachusetts Bay.
In his Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters, published in London, 1631, John Smith wrote:
<When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning (which is an old saile) to three or foure trees to shadow us from the Sunne, our walls were rales of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut plankes, our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees, in foule weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few better...this was our Church, till we built a homely thing like a barne...
We had daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every day two Sermons, and every three moneths the holy Communion, till our Minister died, [Robert Hunt] but our Prayers daily, with an Homily on Sundaies.> 1580JS003
--
American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1580JS001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). John Smith, 1622, in his enlarged edition of New England's Trials.
1580JS002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). John Smith, Works, 1608-1631, (1884), Edward Arber, p. 925, 962. The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, 1580-1631, 3 volumes, Philip L. Barbour, Chapel Hill, NC, and London, published by University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1986.
1580JS003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). John Smith, Captain, 1631, in his Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters, published in London.