The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 25Virginia, hardly matter. What does matter is that this was symptomatic of a general
tendency to see the New World, particularly in the South, as a New Eden that might
and should develop into a new commonwealth: a new England in which would be
recovered the lost virtues of the old. That tendency was to have a profound impact,
not only on individual writers and thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, but on the whole
project of imagining America.
The name most often associated with the early English settlement of Virginia is
not that of William Bullock, however, or John Hammond – or, for that matter, any
of the other pamphleteers – but that of Captain John Smith (1580–1631). In 1606,
when the Virginia Company sent out its first colonists, Smith, who already had a life
of adventure behind him, sailed with them as one of seven councilors. The organizers
of the Virginia Company, and many of the settlers, had the Spanish model of
colonization in mind: profit for the company’s investors was to be acquired through
conquest and the discovery of gold. But, even before he became president of the
settlement in 1608, Smith had a very different aim. For him, survival not profit was
the priority. To this end, he spent time exploring the region and negotiating with the
Native Americans for food. He sent men out to live with the natives to learn their
language, customs, and system of agriculture. And he framed a policy summed up in
his formula that “he who does not work shall not eat.” Smith’s policy proved unpop-
ular among many of his fellow colonizers, who were expecting the easy pickings
promised by a city of gold or the easy living promised in a New Eden. Smith was
replaced by the Virginia Company in 1609. He went back to England, never to return
to Virginia. Soon shifting his vision to the region he would name New England, he
traveled there in 1614 to gather information about its climate and terrain. And,
when his further efforts to colonize New England were stymied, he devoted his time
to writing about a project in which he was no longer allowed to participate, in the
North as well as the South. A True Relation of Virginia had already appeared in 1608.
This was now followed by A Description of New England (1616), The Generall Historie
of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624), and The True Travels,
Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith (1630).
Smith was quick to explain in these books how he differed from other travel
writers like the Hakluyts. “I am no Compiler by hearsay, but have been a real Actor,”
he proudly asserted at the beginning of The Generall Historie. He had had firsthand
experience. So, he felt, he could speak with authority about the New World and “the
Salvages” he had found there. As all his books reveal, however, that experience seems
only to have compounded his sense of European superiority. The Virginia Company
recommended a tactful, even gentle policy toward Native Americans, no doubt
because they were aware of just how easily local enmity could threaten their
investment. Despite that, though, and despite the fact that Smith and his compan-
ions in Virginia were dependent on the local tribe, the Powhatans, for food, Smith
never ceased to think of Native Americans as inferior and was never reluctant to
intimidate them with a show of force. Even while he was negotiating with the
Powhatans for provisions, Smith refused their request for him and his men to lay
aside their arms during negotiations. “Many doe informe me,” Smith records theGGray_c01.indd 25ray_c 01 .indd 25 8 8/1/2011 7:54:54 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 54 AM