University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER VIII

ADMINISTRATION OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

Only a few days after his return from his second voyage
in the Chesapeake, Smith was elevated to the office of President,
an office which he had previously insisted on declining in
spite of popular importunity. Under the influence of his
extraordinary energy of spirit, the complexion of the situation
at Jamestown underwent an encouraging improvement—work
on the large presidential dwelling-house which Ratcliffe, in his
hour of supreme power, had ordered to be built, was stopped
as of no public advantage; the rotting church was again
repaired; a warehouse for the storage of the goods expected
from England erected; the shape of the fort altered to make its
walls more defensible; while the entire population was
required to submit at least once a week to military training.
All the boats were trimmed for commerce with the Indians.

A few weeks after all this work had been begun, Newport
arrived at Jamestown with specific instructions to accomplish
at least one of three acts, if practicable; namely, to find a lump
of gold, or to discover the passage to the South Sea, or to
obtain authentic proof of the fate of Raleigh's lost colonists.
Smith was not pleased with these instructions. He thought
that, in endeavoring to carry them out, valuable time, exertion,
and supplies would be completely wasted; and he also thought
that an inexpensive piece of bright copper would have been
more useful to Powhatan than all the novel gifts actually
brought over for him would be. Nor, in his opinion, would
there have been as much danger that this copper would cause
that monarch to overvalue his importance in his own eyes and
make him more difficult to be influenced in the future. Newport

decided to deliver the presents in person when he found
that Powhatan was too proud to come to Jamestown. "This
country is mine," the latter replied when that request was
made of him, "why should I go?" And go he would not. The
gifts were transported to Werowocomico by shallop, whilst
Newport and a retinue of fifty persons made the journey
through the aisles of the woods. Among these articles was
a scarlet cloak. Powhatan refused to put it on until Namontack,
the emissary whom he had sent to London with Newport,
persuaded him that no peril lurked in the act; and even then
the shoulders of the grim and suspicious old barbarian had
to be pressed hard before he would bend enough to receive the
crown on his head. The volley fired in celebration of its
successful placing caused him to leap up in a fright.

Powhatan refused to permit but one person, Namontack,
to serve as a guide in the expedition projected for the country
beyond the falls; and he further disconcerted Newport's plans
by denying the accuracy of his own previous statements about
the proximity of that region to the South Sea. Newport, however,
was not to be discouraged, and accompanied by all the
prominent men of the Colony, except Smith, be pushed his
explorations as far up the great river as the mouth of the
modern Rivanna. A refiner was taken along to test such ores
as should seem to promise most. But no success followed.

In the meanwhile, Smith was employed at Jamestown with
every available hand in hewing out clapboard as a much more
valuable cargo than the adventurers up the river were likely
to collect. The spirit which he exhibited in his own bearing
became at once contagious. His companions listened with
delight to the thunder of the trees as they fell to the ground,
but as their palms were blistered by the helves in handling the
axes, some oaths were sputtered out, until Smith prescribed
that, for each one uttered, a can of water should be poured
down the sleeve of the person guilty of it, and this punishment
was so effective that, afterwards, not an oath was heard in the
course of a week. "Thirty or forty such voluntary gentlemen,"

said Smith, "did more work in a day that one hundred
of the rest that must be pressed to it by compulsion." When
this arduous task was finished, he got ready two barges and
with twenty men went off to the Chickahominy for corn; and
he returned with a load of one hundred bushels, although the
Indian crop that season had been seriously foreshortened by
drought. The seamen belonging to Newport's ship had taken
advantage of Smith's absence to exchange with the savages,
for furs, baskets, and other articles, all the agricultural implements
and supplies of food which had been brought over from
England on the last voyage.

As soon as Newport sailed from Virginia, Smith began
again to visit the different Indian towns to procure a large
quantity of grain; and in this scheme of obtaining subsistence
for the colonists, he had the energetic cooperation of both
Percy and Scrivener. His policy was to secure the corn peaceably
if he could, but forcibly if he must. He was afraid that
Powhatan would refuse to sell, and he had made up his mind to
surprise that astute old savage in his palace, when he received
word from him that he would load a ship for the English with
maize, if Smith would only send him carpenters to erect an
English house for his residence, and deliver at Werowocomico
a grindstone, fifty swords, seven guns, a few pounds of copper
and brass, and a cock and a hen. The request so far as it
included the carpenters was at once complied with. Four
Dutchmen and one Englishmen, who had been trained to the
art of building, were dispatched to the Indian capital, and
Smith quickly followed them in person. On his voyage thither
by pinnace, he instructed Captain Sicklemore and two guides
to travel through the woods to Chowan far to the south to find
out whether any of Raleigh's lost colonists still survived. The
report afterwards submitted by the members of this romantic
expedition threw no real light on the fate of those unfortunate
adventurers. There was a rumor that they had taken refuge
among the Indians on the mainland opposite Roanoke Island,
and had, in the end, coalesced with the savages in blood and

habit; but there was never any positive proof that this was
their actual fate.

Smith, on arriving at Werowocomico, began to higgle with
Powhatan for the corn which he had come for. The old chief
was a close bargainer as well as a canny reasoner. "A bushel
of maize," he said very shrewdly, "was worth a bushel of
copper, for the one could be eaten and the other could not."
Smith came quickly to the conclusion that Powhatan was
trifling with him, in a spirit of sardonic humor, and he gave the
signal to the men waiting in the barge at the shore to join him
in the village. At this motion of his hand, Powhatan and the
women and children scuttled away like rabbits to the woods.
Returning to the pinnace, Smith and his company advanced up
the river to the town occupied by Opechancanough. This he
found apparently deserted; but, in a short while, that fierce
chief, with a large retinue, approached the bank where the vessel
was anchored and an active trading began. The Englishmen
were now surrounded by so many savages that Smith grew
alarmed for their safety, especially as there were signs of a
hostile spirit in the general bearing of the Indians. "Let us
fight like men," he exclaimed to his followers when the menace
grew too plain to be mistaken. "Do not let us die like sheep."

When Opechancanough endeavored to back away, Smith
seized him by a lock of his hair and directed a pistol at his
breast. Still holding the evil-looking creature at arm's length,
Smith led him up to where his warriors had gathered in a sullen
crowd. "You promised to freight my vessel with corn," he
cried out to them, "and so you shall, or I mean to load her with
your dead carcasses." This threat, which was either not
understood or defied, caused no alacrity among them to bring
in the grain; but when, a few days afterwards, the barge was
seen to depart, the Indians, under the impression that an order
had been sent to Jamestown for reinforcements, hastened to
transport to the pinnace a large quantity of maize, although
they had to do so on their bare backs through the snow.
Several of the crew who ate of this grain showed symptoms of
poison.

Smith advanced further up the stream in the pinnace. At
Mattapony, he was able to obtain only a small quantity of corn,
and this was delivered up with such tears and lamentations
from the women and children that even the hungry Englishmen
were moved to deep compassion by their unfeigned distress.
It was now the opening of the severe winter season, and the
Indians were dependent upon their stores for their main subsistence
during that part of the year. "If we had only made
this voyage in the autumn," Smith records with impatient
regret, "instead of idly exploring the Monacan country for
gold and silver, it would have been easy to freight a ship of
forty tons while calling at the villages along the Pamunkey,
and twice as much was to be got along the banks of the Rappahannock,
Potomac, and Patuxent." As it turned out, he delivered
at the storehouse in Jamestown two hundred and seventy-nine
bushels of grain acquired by an exchange of only twenty-five
pounds of copper and fifty pounds of corn. He calculated
that this amount of maize would sustain forty men for a period
of six weeks in abundance.

The details that we have given of Smith's voyages in search
of food discloses the practical judgment which he exhibited in
the most vital department of his administration of the affairs
of the Colony. There is no self-glorification in his record of
these beneficent expeditions. They were looked upon by him
merely as steps essential to the salvation of the settlers from
ghastly famine, such as had several times already decimated
the unhappy people. While this plan of obtaining food seems
to have been precarious as a substitute for the production of
corn in the Company's fields, yet in the absence of such fields
on a large scale and of supplies from oversea, it was the only
practicable one left to him to adopt if the town and its inhabitants
were not to be completely destroyed. That Smith was
not vain in describing his power over the savages, was proven,
not only by his success in purchasing grain whenever he went
out for it, but also by his escaping the fatal blow of treachery
at their hands. He departed on these voyages and he always

Princess Elizabeth

returned without having had to pay the penalty of his life in
consequence of the Indians' malevolence or his own carelessness.
It was not of all his companions that this could be said.
When he arrived at Jamestown from his tour at Pamunkey,
what was he told as he set foot on the shore? That his associates
in the Council, Scrivener, Waldo, Anthony, Gosnold, and
eight other equally valuable men, had been drowned in the
river by the upsetting of their boat on its way down stream.

When Smith came to inspect the contents of the storehouse,
he found that every article left in it that was eatable had been
damaged by the rats. But for the corn which he had been able to
buy and bring back, the Colony would have been without food
to support its people for the space of a week. Naturally, there
had arisen among them a feeling of profound dismay,—only
alleviated by the hope that the expedition of the President
would change the situation of famine to one of temporary
plenty at least. He, with that practical good sense which distinguished
his administration at every turn, saw that only
some form of continuous and systematic employment would
remove the depression which had fallen upon the spirits of
the colonists. He divided the population of the town into
groups of tens and fifteens, and for all, he assigned four hours
of sunlight to steady labor, and the rest of the working day to
military exercises and amusing games. What direction did
the labor take? The cultivation of the ground for the production
of food, if the season permitted tillage. He instilled into
them the need of industrious habits in making use of the soil.
They must not expect to go on living in sloth because they
thought that they could always rely upon the purchase of corn
in the Indian villages, or the periodic arrival of supplies from
England. They must work or they must starve. He who
would not work should not eat; nor should the exertions of
thirty to forty men who were willing to put their hands to the
hoe and spade be allowed to maintain one hundred or more
men who were too lazy to use those implements for their own
subsistence. "There is no Council now," Smith exclaimed in

a public address, "to curb my decisions. I alone am left. All
authority is now concentrated in me. He that offendeth will
assuredly be punished." And he made a record of every man's
daily labor with the view of encouraging the industrious and
shaming the idle.

There were many persons in the town who were not only
praying for its dissolution by the return of its inhabitants to
England, but also conspiring by every means in their power to
bring that fatal consummation about. This section of the population
were in secret communication with the Dutchmen who
had been sent to Werowocomico to build a dwelling-house for
Powhatan. These foreigners received the powder, shot, and
swords, which were smuggled into their hands from Jamestown,
presumably for the specific purpose of encouraging the
Indian King to make an attack on the little settlement on the
river. The delivery was made at an appointed spot in the
woods by a traitor within the fort. Smith, getting wind of the
plot, quietly, with twenty men, stationed himself at this spot
and arrested the emissary without resistance. Returning
alone to Jamestown, he encountered the gigantic chief of
Paspaheigh in the path; they grappled; and the Indian
dragged him into the river, where he would have been in danger
of being drowned but for the opportune arrival of two of
his men. Smith gripped the savage by the hair, while the two
companions bound with strong cords, and led him away to
the fort, from which he afterwards escaped.

Smith now adopted a fixed plan for overawing the Indians,
who had been threatening the existence of the Colony; and by
a course of action that was at once aggressive and conciliatory,
the whole region in convenient distance of Jamestown became
for the time being entirely safe for exploration. Advantage
was taken of this interval of peace and friendship by Smith to
improve the condition of the settlers. A well that yielded
water untainted by brackishness was dug within the boundaries
of the town; twenty new dwelling-houses were erected;
many new weirs were constructed, and many new nets for

fishing substituted for the old. A fort of small dimensions, but
of ample size for defense, was built at a point situated on
elevated ground on the south side of the river. This was
probably intended as a refuge in case the town was attacked
by Indians and had to be abandoned; but to make this less of a
possibility, a blockhouse was constructed on the neck of land
which connected the island or peninsula with the main shore
on the north side. There a garrison was stationed to break an
assault at the start, should one be made.

Smith still perceived clearly that the cultivation of the
ground was, in the long run, the most trustworthy means of
warding off famine. In order to increase the returns from the
soil, he caused two Indian captives to teach the colonists the
best method of planting maize; but the area of land on the
peninsula suitable for corn and wheat was restricted by the
presence of marshes; nor was it considered wise for the tillers
of the soil to work too far from the fort, as the Indians were
always watching for the chance of killing an unprotected colonist.
It is possible too that it was apprehended that, should
the ranks of corn be allowed to grow into great masses in the
immediate neighborhood of the town, the covert thus formed
might become a fastness for the Indian bowmen.

The resourcefulness of Smith was not confined to expeditions
to the Indian villages for grain or to the use of the soil
for the production of crops. When the supply of food again
began to run low, he transferred groups of colonists to different
places where they could be more easily supported. One
of these groups was dispatched down the river to an island to
subsist on oysters; another to Point Comfort, still further on,
to catch fish for food; another yet to the falls of the Powhatan
to maintain life on the natural resources of the country in that
vicinity. But this dispersal, by making it less difficult for the
persons left at Jamestown to obtain enough to eat, did not
modify their previous reckless determination to dispose of
every article in their reach to the Indians for some trifling compensation.
Swords, tools, ironware, rattles, or what not, were

furtively placed in the hands of the savages when visiting the
fort, until it began to look as if no portable article that was
salable would be left in the houses at Jamestown. "They
heard," remarked Smith, "that Powhatan had one bushel of
corn for sale, and these men would have sold their souls to
get the second half after getting the first." In order to check
this thievish and wasteful spirit, he announced that every man
who failed to complete the task prescribed for him each day
should be banished to the wilderness lying on the south side of
the river. This threat created a murmur of discontent, but it
was so effective that few ventured to run the risk of its being
carried out in their case. As the result of the rigid discipline
which he enforced among the company retained at Jamestown,
and by the dispersal of the rest in different places, not more
than seven or eight perished in a total population of nearly
two hundred.

In summing up the history of the colony in the memorable
year of Smith's Presidency, during a part of which time he
was in sole charge of its affairs, we find that he acted upon
certain clearly defined lines of policy. First, he kept the savages
always in awe of the English; second, he required the
colonists to rely mainly upon the soil of Virginia,—whether
through its cultivation by the Indians or by themselves—for
their own subsistence; and third, he constrained every man to
work, not only as a means of increasing the supply of food, but
also as a means of reducing the spirit of discontent which that
remote situation, with its dangers and hardships, was so well
calculated in itself alone to breed in their minds. It is true
that he trusted more to the Indian markets for corn than he
did to the colonists' own hoes; but there were reasons, as we
have pointed out, why the land around the fort could not safely
be made the scene of a great production of grain. Before this
could be effected, the security of the situation had to be better
assured.

It has been asserted that the existence of a so-called communal
system in the beginning, by taking away all stimulus

for individual exertion, was the real explanation of the
Colony's slow progress at that time. But no other system but
the one in operation was feasible until the Indians had been
subdued, for until then the dispersal of the inhabitants among
their own separate holdings could not be rendered practicable
and secure to the degree desired. This was proven thirteen
years later by the Massacre of 1622.[1] If the scheme of the first
settlement had been one of colonization only, no doubt more
active military steps would have been taken from the start by
the Company to protect the settlers from those confusing
attacks, which, for many years, made the subdivision of the
soil impossible. Smith was one of the few men interested in
that great enterprise who perceived, with unwavering clearness,
what should be the chief purpose that the transplanted
Englishmen should always keep in view. We have seen the
impatience which the search for gold and silver aroused in his
mind; and he also thought, and so advised the London Company,
that it was a waste of money at this stage to look to the
Colony for supplies of pitch, tar, lumber, and the like commodities.
"Your factors," he said, "can buy in Northern
Europe in a week as much of these commodities as would be
required to load a ship. It would be better to give five hundred
pounds sterling for them in Denmark than send for them hither
till more necessary things be provided, for, in overtaxing our
weak bodies to satisfy this desire of present profit, we can
scarce ever recover ourselves from one supply to another."

It has been customary to attribute the failure of these first
years to the prevalence of various diseases, the depression of
nostalgia, and the indolence of the colonists themselves. All
these influences were, no doubt, at least partially productive
of that condition,—but only partially. The first great mistake

was the establishment of the Colony without the participation
of women. It is true that women had taken part in the settlement
on Roanoke Island, but that settlement had been destined
to ruin from the start, owing to its unfortunate situation. The
difficulties which had to be surmounted at Jamestown were not
more serious than those which all the successful pioneers in
the later history of the continent had to overcome without any
of the support which the London Company was constantly
giving. The spirit which conquered the country west of the
Alleghanies, when it was overrun with Indians, was the spirit
which Smith was the first great Englishman to endeavor to
inculcate in the breasts of his fellow colonists,—the spirit of
self-reliance; and he set a strenuous and unceasing example
for them all in his own action as the supreme head of the
community.

It has been objected to him, as well as to Dale, the second
of the two greatest administrators in the early history of
Jamestown, that they did not rely for their inspiration on a
more democratic principle of government. But there are times
and situations when the rule of a wise and masterful dictator
is essential to the safety of a new community; and never was
this fact truer than it was of the community at Jamestown
when Smith assumed the sole control of its affairs.[2] "Because
they found not English cities in Virginia," he remarked, with
justifiable bitterness in referring to the majority, perhaps, of
that people, "nor their accustomed dainties, with feather-beds
and down pillows, taverns and ale houses in every
breathing place, nor such plenty of gold or silver as they had
expected, they had little or no care of anything but to pamper
their bellies, to fly away with our pinnaces, or procure other
means to return to England. The countrie to them was a
misery, a ruin, a death, a hell."