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Project: Jamestown
Jamestown american history chapter 1
Jamestown american history chapter 1
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Recommended: Project: Jamestown
John Smith had many characteristics that helped to make him an important person in the beginning settlement of the New World. He was a brave and strong person who seemed to have little fear. He ran away from home when he was young and became a soldier in Europe and the Near East (Barbour). He thrived for excitement and adventure. During the settlement of Jamestown, he took on the responsibility of leadership by saving the colony from starvation (Microsoft). He made the men plant crops and build houses, while he was trading with the Indians for food (Microsoft). The colony chose him President of the Jamestown settlement.
The settlers believed and trusted him because he had saved them. John Smith was a very smart man, and he wrote many accounts about the happenings in Jamestown. He also published an article about his voyage of 1614. His longest and best-known work was entitled The General History of Virginia (Gwinn). Without these accounts, we would know very little about the colony in the New World.
Not only was he a writer, but he could also draw. He drew many maps showing his expeditions and adventures. Many of these maps were used by other groups of settlers who came to the New World. John Smith was brave, strong, smart, and a good leader. His name is probably best remembered as the man who was to be beheaded by Indians, when the chief’s daughter rushed to his side and saved his life.
Many historians doubt this incident and said that Smith was just bragging and was a teller of tales (McMichael). He had so many different adventures and he sometimes stretched the truth. Even if John Smith did exaggerate at times, he was still an interesting and important character in American History.
Critique: I don’t remember learning too much on John Smith, though of course I learned about him. My reaction to his work is questioning; I’ve heard how he was this brave and courageous hero, yet in the book it asserts that he was “a vain braggart” and “a teller of tall tales”. He didn’t mention the whole Pocahontas thing, which is the first that pops in my mind when I think about Smith. However, I think I admire him more than Columbus because he seemed to be more peaceful and open-minded when it came to the Indians. It claims in the American Literature book that he “traded for food with the Indians, learned their customs and language”.
In the very beginning of the movie, you can already see two differences. For starters in the movie, John Smith was tall and blond, however, in real life, he was short, red-headed, and had a red bushy beard. You can see in my cover that he looks nothing like the John Smith in the movie. Also, another thing that you notice very early on is that they are only traveling to Jamestown in one ship. When actually they came to Jamestown in three ships: the Godspeed, the Discovery, and the Susan Constant. My cover shows the replicas of the three ships in Virginia.
“So many therefore of these professors as saw the evil of these things, in these parts, and whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for his truth, they shook off this yoke of anti-Christian bondage..” (123). Also, even though the leaders of the colony of Jamestown and Plymouth were both Englishmen, they had different goals. William Bradford was dedicated to his cause of finding a safe haven where they could find religious freedom, while John Smith was more interested in finding land, natural resources for his
As a young child many of us are raised to be familiar with the Pocahontas and John Smith story. Whether it was in a Disney movie or at a school play that one first learned of Jamestown, students want to believe that this romantic relationship really did occur. As one ages, one becomes aware of the dichotomy between fact and fiction. This is brilliantly explained in David A. Price's, Love and Hate in Jamestown. Price describes a more robust account of events that really did take place in the poorly run, miserable, yet evolving settlement of Jamestown, Virginia; and engulfs and edifies the story marketed by Disney and others for young audiences. Price reveals countless facts from original documents about the history of Jamestown and other fledgling colonies, John Smith, and Smith's relationship with Pocahontas. He develops a more compelling read than does the typical high school text book and writes intriguingly which propels the reader, to continue on to the successive chapters in the early history of Virginia.
In this book, Kupperman is telling a well-known event in remarkable detail. She intentionally uses last three chapters of the nine to tell the Jamestown’s history. The first six are in relation to how Jamestown came to be. The first chapter deals with political, national and religious conflicts during this period and how it motivated the English to venture West. The second is titled,” Adventurers, Opportunities, and Improvisation.” The highlight of this chapter is the story of John Smith, and how his precious experience enabled him to save ”the Jamestown colony from certain ruin.” (51) He is just an example of the “many whose first experiences along these lines were Africa or the eastern Mediterranean later turned their acquired skills to American ventures.” (43) Chapter three discusses the European and Native American interaction before and during this period. “North America’s people had had extensive and intimate experience of Europeans long before colonies was thought of, and through this experience they had come to understand much about the different kind of people across the sea.” (73) This exchange of information happened because a lot of Europeans lived among the Natives (not as colonist or settlers), and Natives were brought back to Europe. The people in Europe were very fascinated with these new people and their culture. Chapter four analyzes this fascination. It starts off talking about Thomas Trevilian, an author of “an elaborate commonplace book,” that showed “the English public was keenly interested in the world and in understanding how to categorize the knowledge about all the new things, people, and cultures of which specimens and descriptions were now available to them.
The article, “Native Reactions to the invasion of America”, is written by a well-known historian, James Axtell to inform the readers about the tragedy that took place in the Native American history. All through the article, Axtell summarizes the life of the Native Americans after Columbus acquainted America to the world. Axtell launches his essay by pointing out how Christopher Columbus’s image changed in the eyes of the public over the past century. In 1892, Columbus’s work and admirations overshadowed the tears and sorrows of the Native Americans. However, in 1992, Columbus’s undeserved limelight shifted to the Native Americans when the society rediscovered the history’s unheard voices and became much more evident about the horrific tragedy of the Natives Indians.
John Smith explains the hardships of the voyage in the “General History of Virginia” he and others endured. While finally landing on land and discovering the head of the Chickahamania River, The colony endured Disease, severe weather, Native American attacks, and starvation all threatened to destroy the colony. Smith talks about his accomplishments of being a “good leader” and how he helped in many ways. John Smith was captured by the Native Americans and brought back to the camp. Within an hour, the Native Americans prepared to shoot him, but the Native Americans done as Chief Powhatan ordered and brought stones to beat Smiths brains out. John Smith gave an ivory double compass to the Chief of Powhatan. The Native Americans marveled at the parts of the compass. After the Native Americans admired the compass for an hour Chief Powhatan held...
The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith, portrays the enormous troubles the settlers were faced with by the Native Americans. He explains how he was captured by Indians and also saved by a young Native American girl, Pocahontas. He vividly describes the ceremonies and rituals of the Natives performed before his execution. However, the execution never occurred due to the tremendous mercy showed by the king’s daughter who blanketed John Smith’s body her own. Pocahontas went on to persuade the Native Americans to help the settlers by giving them food and other necessities. Despite her efforts to reach peaceful grounds, her people were still bitter and planned an attacks on the colony. Nevertheless, Pocahontas saved them once again by warning the settlers of attacks. Pocahontas went on to marry an Englishman and traveled to England. She resembled the prosperity and good that was to be found in an untamed land.
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
Mann’s biggest point, I believe, is that the Indian settlements he studied were much more civilized than grade school textbooks make them out to be. For instance, in the introduction, ‘Holmberg’s Mistake,’ Mann tells his readers about how Holmberg misinformed the world about the Sirionó being a tribe without history or common sense when they were, in fact, a highly populated tribe that flourished before diseases wiped them out.
Christopher Columbus is a name known to nearly every American that has ever had an elementary education. He is imagined as the brave explorer that against all odds prevailed in his belief of a round earth. Credited with the discovery of America, Columbus has a holiday and even the Nation’s capitol and a powerful Catholic service organization are named after him. What isn’t as well known is the dark side of his arrival to the New World. Though he did make the first steps in founding modern America, these steps came at the cost of thousands of lives. Columbus enslaved the natives he came across and ruled the Caribbean with an iron fist. He killed thousands in a relentless pursuit to find gold and used Christianity to justify the destruction of entire cultures. Yet the true much less favoring story is pushed aside by the romanticized tale of the great Christopher Columbus. The graphic and sad nature of the truth make the myth a much better story; a story that eclipsed reality. Vestiges of the belief in White superiority perpetuated the belief that Columbus was more of a hero th...
The Chesapeake region of the colonies included Virginia, Maryland, the New Jerseys (both East and West) and Pennsylvania. In 1607, Jamestown, the first English colony in the New World (that is, the first to thrive and prosper), was founded by a group of 104 settlers to a peninsula along the James River. These settlers hoped to find gold, silver, a northwest passage to Asia, a cure for syphilis, or any other valuables they might take back to Europe and make a profit. Lead by Captain John Smith, who "outmaneuvered other members of the colony's ruling and took ruthlessly took charge" (Liberty Equality Power, p. 57), a few lucky members of the original voyage survived. These survivors turned to the local Powhatan Indians, who taught them the process of corn- and tobacco-growing. These staple-crops flourished throughout all five of these colonies.
The ways in which the author could strengthen the book, in my opinion, is instead all the descriptive, to me meaningless points as how they were coloring themselves, the author should have put a little bit more facts in there to make it more documentary. Anyhow, overall the book has strength in letting the reader understand the history from both sides, whites and Indians. Many people have different views on the persecution of Native Americans, some think that it was all Indians’ fault and that they caused their own suffering, which I think is absolutely ridiculous, because they were not the ones who invaded. And Native Americans had every right to stand up for the land that was theirs.
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
After their original leader, Bartholomew Goznold, dies, John Smith takes up his leadership position. Determined to survive and keep the colony going, he starts learning and observing the ways of the Indians. He tried to learn their language as well and tried to break the language barrier. He took a big gamble and came into the Indian camp to speak to chief Powhatan to bargain for food. Luckily for him, Powhatans daughter, Pocahontas, influenced her father to aid the Englishmen and John was able to secure food for the
Joseph Smith Jr. was a very religious and God fearing man. He founded the Latter Day Saint movement, better known as the Mormon Church. He was persecuted by some and embraced by others, as well. He has been one of the most controversial men in history, today, because of his beliefs and his teachings. They were different for his time and still very strange for our time.