John Smith started to right the ship, but he was beginning to pay a heavy price. He had severely strained relations both with the English and the Native Virginians.

Though he was making progress through Winter 1608 and into Spring 1609, that progress came at high cost. The Powhatans used intrigue and direct attack to dislodge John Smith, but Smith prevailed, sort of.

While events were unfolding in the New World, Christopher Newport arrived back in England with Smith’s letter, as well as two of Smith’s most formidable enemies. The Virginia Company was less than happy at their arrival, but this time, the Company leaders agreed in that something needed to change.

Thus, as Smith was fighting to stay alive in Virginia, he was losing his power as a new charter reformed the struggling Virginia colony. Smith didn’t know it, but he was nearing the end of his presidency, and the colony would never be the same again as a new group of settlers began to take shape in 1609.

LINKS TO THE PODCAST:

• John Smith’s Time Nears The End
• 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. Virtual Jamestown
3. The Chancel Burials 
4. Robert Hunt at Jamestown Rediscovery
5. Maps of John Smith’s Chesapeake Voyages
6. Virginia History Podcast Store

 

 

 

All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted. The featured image is of the four recently discovered graves located within the 1608 Jamestown Church chancel.

Music used for this episode – Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers,”Carry Me Back to Old Virginia” available on iTunes, and “Mountain Song” by Little Chief, available on Soundcloud.