John Smith Assignment, Essay Example

John Smith was an outstanding figure in the period of colonizing the American continent, and he performed many functions as a sailor, a soldier and later – an author who led the thorough account of the events in which he was involved. He liked adventures and at first joined the French volunteers in the war for independence of Denmark from Spain, then he fought against Hungary, then he was a Turkish slave. During his life he even visited Russia and Poland and afterwards moved to England from where he got engaged in colonizing Virginia (Captain John Smith). There were many events that took place with him and his troop in Virginia – the harsh battles with Native Americans, the savior with the help of Pocahontas, exploration of Chesapeake Bay etc. and coming back to England became the topics of his books. He started writing them when, upon his return to England, he was denied an opportunity to go back to the USA and continue his adventures. Thus his literary path began, and he decided to inform the reader about the events that took place in the USA, the people they met and the discoveries they made at the continent that was a mystery for everyone at that period of time.

However, there is still much debate over the credibility of John Smith’s stories because of the inability to check and prove anything he told about. Surely, the works that were mostly geographical or descriptive in terms of Native Americans, the landscape, the major events that took place in the USA can be true because of lack of necessity to exaggerate some objective facts. But the events in which Captain Smith took part, his victories over the enemies, his numerous brave escapes and his travels may be the result of Smith’s imagination and wish to depict himself much braver, better, wiser and more skillful than he was in reality. It is a normal wish for those who had an interesting life full of adventures and who want to remain in the historical chronicles depicted in the best way; more than that, if they know there is no-one who can deny or support their stories, they are free to compose history of their own.

This is the idea that comes to mind reading Smith’s works in which he describes how he defeated a great number of Indians in Virginia being helpless and unarmed; how he escaped from the Turkish slavery and how he traveled to other countries. These events really seem to be fiction, but nobody is entitled to find out the truth anyway – every reader will have to accept his or her own measure of credibility that will be attributed to the readings, and make inferences and conclusions coming from this measure of trust lain upon the books of Captain John Smith.

References

Captain John Smith, 2009. 11 November 2009. <http://www.preservationvirginia.org/ rediscovery/page.php?page_id=25>