Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and The Start of a New Nation

John Smith is a historical figure who was largely ignored and minimized by his contemporaries. Modern scholars know Smith from his own writings—in which he played a central, heroic, and often uncorroborated role. In this sense, it is very difficult to separate “John Smith” the myth from his peers’ defamation.

David A. Price frames John Smith as definitively pragmatic. Smith embodies his most famous phrase: “he that will not worke shall not eate” (108). He sought individual glory regardless of morality and allegiance. The conflicts he and the incompetent highborn found themselves in ranged from incidental (almost comical) to life-threatening; Smith was a man who liked to stir things, such that he was not taken seriously when it was necessary for the survival of the colony. This lack of charisma apparently did not deter the Algonquin, who considered Smith an equal, and could often be convinced by him whereas others were dismissed. In short, Price’s Smith is an American lost among the English.

Like John Smith, Pocahontas is a figure shrouded in myth, a romantic figure fit for treatment as a Disney princess—her true story being difficult to pin down.

Pocahontas’s status as Powhatan’s favorite daughter is debatable; it’s clear Powhatan had many daughters by many mothers, none of whom had any special status.