John Smith’s presidency started out well enough, but when the Mary Margaret arrived with Christopher Newport and 70 new settlers the situation in Virginia deteriorated rapidly.

Smith had created an understanding with the surrounding Powhatan tribes. Newport threatened that.

Smith was working to supply the colony in advance of the rapidly oncoming winter. Newport wanted to search for more gold, as well as explore the region.

Smith wanted to impose his command, but Newport offset the balance of council power, and in so doing undermined Smith’s presidency.

Smith would have to suffer, and he did at the hands of both Newport and Powhatan, but in the end, Newport left, and Smith regained control. It was a hard first 100 days, but Smith once again survived, and because he did, the colony would make it through to 1609.

LINKS TO THE PODCAST:

• John Smith’s Presidency – Part 1
• RSS Feed
• VA History Podcast on iTunes
• VA History Podcast on Stitcher

SOURCES:

1. Billings, Warren M.; Selby, John E.; and Tate, Thad W. Colonial Virginia: A History. White Plains, NY: KTO Press. 1986.
2. Dabney, Virginius. Virginia: The New Dominion, A History from 1607 to the Present. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1971.
3. Deans, Bob. The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James. Plymouth, UK: Rowan and Littlefield, 2009.
4. Firstbrook, Peter. A Man Most Driven: Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Founding of America. London: Oneworld Publications, 2014.
5. Horn, James. A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
6. Hume, Ivor Noel. Here Lies Virginia. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1963.
7. Hume, Ivor Noel. The Virginia Adventure: Roanoke to James Towne – An Archaeological and Historical Odyssey. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
8. Kelso, William M. Jamestown: The Buried Truth. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2006.
9. Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown The Journal of American History, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jun., 1979), pp. 24-40
10. Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press published for the Omohundro Institute, 1988.
11. Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. The Jamestown Project. Cambridge, MA: The Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
12. Mapp, Alfred J. Virginia Experiment: The Old Dominion’s Role in the Making of America, 1607-1781. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2006.
13. Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation. New York: Vintage, 2003.
14. Rothbard, Murray N. Conceived in Liberty. Auburn, AL: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 1999.
15. Rountree, Helen C. Powhatan Foreign Relations: 1500-1722.Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993.
16. Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown. Charlottesville, VA: UVA Press, 2005.
17. Smith, John. The Generall History of Virginia. 1624.
18. Wallenstein, Peter. Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
19. Williams, Tony. The Jamestown Experiment: The Remarkable Story of The Enterprising Colony and the Unexpected Results that Shaped America. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2011.
20. Wooley, Benjamin. Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America. New York: Harper and Collins, 2007.

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

1. Historic Jamestowne
2. Historic Jamestowne Glasshouse Giftshop
3. Virtual Jamestown
4. Maps of John Smith’s Chesapeake Voyages

 

 

 

All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted. The featured photograph is of a cooling glass six-lipped vase produced at the Jamestown Glasshouse. The secondary picture is of the original 1608 glasshouse primary kiln.

Music used for this episode – Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers,”Carry Me Back to Old Virginia” available on iTunes, and “The Fire” by Virginian band The Last Bison, available on Soundcloud.