John Smith “The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles”, Essay Example

The book “The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles” was written by John Smith at the end of his career as a sailor and discoverer of the American continent. In this book Smith describes much new what he saw and experienced in America – even for such an experienced traveler and explorer as he used to be the meeting with Native Americans was a real challenge that nearly caused his death. As he described in the book, he had to fight with 300 Indians with a small troop of soldiers when he was the ruler of Jamestown. He was finally captured by the members of the tribe and was taken to their residence where he had to be killed. But the daughter of the chief, Pocahontas, managed to save him and further on helped him with food and water, as well as many other Indians became Smith’s friends for the qualities that they respected in real men so much (Smith, 1624).

This is the story told by John Smith in this book, and the reader can see the transformation of the attitude towards Indians that can be tracked through the whole book – it is clear that Smith gave a detailed account of everything he learned about America in his book, including the natural phenomena, residents of American lands etc. So at first Smith is represented as a regular explorer who is partly a scientist willing to inform his citizens about strange lands. As for Indians, he not only describes them and their style of living, but also draws pictures illustrating their clothes, villages, children and women craftsmanship etc. Thus, Indians are shown as a strange, unknown race for Europeans (Smith, 1624).

But as soon as the soldiers come across the first battles with Indians, Smith shows their skill of war, the hostile attitude of other settlers towards them and their cruelty as well. This is partly untrue because we now understand that Indians were urged to protect their lands from invaders, thus being made to be cruel. Nevertheless, it is necessary to understand that the settlers were treating Indians not objectively, as further on Indians helped them very much, teaching them agriculture and hunting, the peculiarities of local plants etc. For this reason it is clear that the initial vision of the Native Americans was wrong and they were depicted needlessly harsh and brutal (Smith, 1624). .

References

Smith, John. The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles. I. D. and I. H. for Michael Sparkes, 1624