Captain John Smith and the campaign for New England: A study in early modern identity and promotion

New England Quarterly-A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters

Volumn 81, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 91-124

  Woodward, Walter W ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 66049158839     PISSN: 00284866     EISSN: 19372213     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/tneq.2008.81.1.91     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. On colonial promotional writing, especially for the early ventures, the work of David Beers Quinn is indispensable. Recent scholarship has often concentrated on promotional works' arguments for colonization in isolation from the specific contexts of those works' deployment. See, e.g., Andrew Fitzmaurice, "The Commercial Ideology of Colonization in Jacobean England: Robert Johnson, Giovanni Botero, and the Pursuit of Greatness," William and Mary Quarterly 64 (October 2007): 791-820;
2. David Armitage, "Protestanism and Empire: Hakluyt, Purchas, and Property," in Ideological Origins of the British Empire, vol. 59, Ideas in Context, ed. Quentin Skinner et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 61-99.
3. Peter Mancall's extraordinary, if necessarily incomplete, effort to reconstruct the contexts of Hakluyt's output produced an interpretation of his work markedly different from that of Armitage. See Mancall's Hakluyt's Promise: An Elizabethan's Obsession for an English America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).
4. John Smith, A Description of New England: or the Observations, and Discoveries, of Captain John Smith (Admirall of That Country) in the North of America, in the Year of our Lord 1614: with the Successe of Sixe Ships that Went the Next Ycare 1615; and the Accidents Befell Him Among the French Men of Warre: with the Proofe of the Present Benefit This Countrey Affoords: Whither This Present Yeare, 1616, Eight Voluntary Ships Are Gone to Make Further Tryall (London: Humfrey Lownes, for Robert Clerke, 1616).
5. Smith, A Description of New England, pp. 37, 10, 16, 29, 21, 11.
6. Richard Hakluyt, Divers Voyages Touching the Discouerie of America, and the Hands Adiacent vnto the Same ... (London: Thomas Woodcocke, 1582);
7. Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimage, Or Relations of the World and the Religions Ohserued in Al Ages and Places Discouered ..., 3rd ed. (London: William Stansby for Henry Fetherstone, 1617);
8. David B. Quinn, The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590; Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America under the Patent Granted to Walter Raleigh in 1584 ... (London: Hakluyt Society, 1955);
9. David B. Quinn and Alison M. Quinn, eds., The English New England Voyages, 1602-1608 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1983).
10. Of the Newfoundland fishery, Smith wrote "all is overlaide with fishers, as the fishing decayeth, and many are constrained to retume with a small fraught" (A Description of New England, p. 16);
11. On early seventeenth-century Newfoundland plantation schemes, see Peter Pope, Fish into Wine: The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Ornohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2004), pp. 45-65.
12. Stephen Innes offers an interesting proto-capitalistic interpretation of Smith's economic philosophy in "'An Honest Gaine': John Smith, John Winthrop, and the Political Economy of Colonization," in his Creating the Commonwealth: The Economic Culture of Puritan New England (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), pp. 64-106.
13. Nicholas Canny, "'To Establishe a Commonwealthe': Captain John Smith as New World Colonist," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 96 (April 1988): 213-22;
14. Everett H. Emerson, "Captain John Smith as Editor," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 75 (1967): 143-56.
15. and James Rosier, A True Relation of the Most Prosperous Voyage Made This Present Yeere 1605, by Captaine George Waymouth, in the Discouery of the Land of Virginia ... (London: George Bishop, 1605).
16. See also Everett Emerson, Captain John Smith, rev. ed. (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993), pp. 11-15;
17. Faith Harrington, "'Wee Tooke Great Store of Cod-fish': Fishing Ships and First Settlements on the Coast of New England, 1600-1630," in American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture, and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega, ed. Emerson Baker et al. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), pp. 191-216, 197;
18. William Strachey, "Historie of Travaile into Virginia," in Early English and French Voyages Chiefly from Hahluyt, 1534-1608, ed. Henry S. Burrage (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906), p. 419;
19. B. F. DeCosta, ed., A Relation of a Voyage to Sagadahoc Now First Printed From the Original Manuscript in the Lambeth Palace Library (Cambridge: John Wilson and Son University Press, 1880), p. 35. DeCosta attributes the authorship of the manuscript to James Davies or Captain Robert Davies, though a preface to the manuscript attributes the authorship to Sir Fernando Gorges.
20. Alfred A. Cave, "Why Was the Sagadahoc Colony Abandoned? An Evaluation of the Evidence," New England Quarterly 68 (December 1995): 625-40.
21. See also Karen Ordahl Kuppennan, "Fear of Hot Climates in the Anglo-American Colonial Experience," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 41 (April 1984): 213-40, 216.
22. Roy C. Strong, Henry, Prince of Wales, and England's Lost Renaissance (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986);
23. Kevin Sharpe, "So Hard a Text: Images of Charles I, 1612-1700," Historical Journal 43 (June 2000): 383-406.
24. J. B. Harley, "Maps, Knowledge, and Power," in The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Fast Environments, ed. Dennis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 282.
25. J. B. Harley, "New England Cartography and Native Americans," in American Beginnings, pp. 296-304;
26. Raymond M. Brod, "The Art of Persuasion: John Smith's New England and Virginia Maps," Historical Geography 24 (1995): 91-106, esp. p. 102. Brod's excellent analysis is the source of most of my exegesis of Smith's map.
27. Malcolm C. Salaman, The Old Engravers of England in Their Relation to Contemporary Life and Art, 1540 to 1800 (Philadelphia: Lippincott Publishing, 1907; reprinted, Whitefish, Mont.: Kessenger Publishing, 2005), pp. 18-20;
28. Philip L. Barbour, The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964), pp. 329-30.
29. See also The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, 1580-1631, ed. Philip L. Barhour, 3 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1986), 1:306-7.
30. Barbour, ed., in Smith, Complete Works, 1:302.
31. Other backers of Smith's 1614 voyage who may have continued their support into 1617 included Captain George Langham, a leading London wine merchant, and Master John Buley and Master William Skelton. See Smith, Complete Works, 1:323, n. 1.
32. The charter prousions actually gave the two companies partially overlapping jurisdictions. The North Virginia Company had underwritten the failed Sagadahoc plantation attempt of 1607. Though Gorges himself was active in promoting fishing and exploration, Sagadahoc was the only major attempt at settlement the company undertook before its reorganization as the Council for New England in 1620. See Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, vol. 1: The Settlements (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), pp. 82-97, 320-26.
33. Barbour, The Three Worlds of Smith, pp. 333-34.
34. "Hobert Bertie," entry in the "Biographical Director)'" of Smith, Complete Works, 1:xxx-xxxi.
35. Smith, Generall Historie, pp. 228, 228-29.
36. Smith, Generall Historic, p. 228, margin.
37. The modern spellings of the towns on Smith's itinerary are from Smith, Complete Works, 2:440, n. 1.
38. John Smith, Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New-England, or Any Where. Or, the Path-Way to Experience to Erect a Plantation with the Yearely Proceedings of This Country in Fishing and Planting, Since the Yeare 1614. To the Yeare 1630. And Their Present Estate. Also How to Prevent the Greatest Inconveniences, by Their Proceedings in Virginia, and Other Plantations, by Approved Examples. With the Countries Amies, a Description of the Coast, Harbours, Habitations, Land-Markes, Latitude and Longitude: with the Map, Allowed by our Royall King Charles. By Captaine Iohn Smith, Sometimes Governour of Virginia, and Admirall of New-England (London: John Haviland, 1631), p. 16.
39. John Smith, New Englands Trials Declaring the Successe of 80 Ships Employed Thither within These Eight Yeares; and the Benefit of That Countrey by Sea and Land. With the Present Estate of That Happie Plantation, Begun but by 60 Weake Men in the Yeare 1620. And How to Build a Fícete of Good Shippcs to Make a Little Nauie Royall. Written By Captaine Iohn Smith, Sometimes Gouernour of Virginia
40. Smith, New Englands Trials, p. B3-3.
41. Smith, The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine Iohn Smith, in Europe, Asia, Affrica, and America, from Anno Domini 1593. to 1629. His Accidents and Sea-Fights in the Straights; His Service and Stratagems of Warre in Hungaria, Transilvania, Wallachia, And Moldavia, Against The Turks, And Tartars; His Three Single Combats betwixt the Christian Annie and the Turkes. After How He Was Taken Prisoner by the Turks, Sold for a Stave, Sent into Tartaria; His Description of the Tartars, Their Strange Manners and Customes of Religions, Diets, Buildings, Warres, Feasts, Ceremonies, and Living; How Hee Slew the Bashaw of Nalbrits in Cambia, and Escaped from the Turkes and Tartars. Together with a Continuation of His Generall History of Virginia, Summer-Iles, New England, and their Proceedings, Since 1624. To This Present 1629; As Also Of The New Plantations of the Great River of the Amazons, The Iles of St. Christopher, Mevis, and Barbados in The West Indies. All Written by Actuall Authours, Whose Names You Shall Finde Along the History (London : John Haviland for Thomas Slater, 1630), p. 46.
42. reprinted as "Letter to Bacon," in Smith, Complete Works, 1:380-83, esp. p. 382.
43. On pirate raids on the Newfoundland plantations, see Pope, Fish into Wine, pp. 50-53.
44. Barbour, in Smith, Complete Works, 1:374.
45. Smith, True Travels, p. 46.
46. Captaine Richard Whitboume, A Discourse and Discovery Of New-Found-Land, with Many Reasons to Prooue How Worthy and Beneficiall a Plantation May There Be Made ... (London: Felix Kyngston for William Barret, 1620), p. A3.
47. John Smith, New Englands Trials. Declaring the Success of 26. Ships Employed Thither Within These Sixe Yeares: with the Benefit of That Countrey by Sea and Land: and How to Build Threescore Sayle of Good Ships to Make a Little Navie Royall (London: William Jones, 1620), pp. C4r.-C4V.
48. Innes, "Smith, Winthrop, and the Political Economy of Colonization," pp. 64-78;
49. J. D. Gould, "The Trade Depression of the Early 1620s," Economic History 7 (1954): 81-90.
50. Smith, Complete Works, 2:442, n. 3.
51. "The Charter of New England: 1620," The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/masso1.htm (accessed 19 November 2007).
52. Richard D. Abate, "On the Meaning of a Name: 'Norumbega' and the Representation of North America," pp. 61-90, in American Beginnings, pp. 61-90.
53. Smith, Advertisements for Planters, p. 16.
54. Barbour notes Smith's gathering resignation in his 1618 letter to Francis Bacon, but I would date its first manifestation to the second (1622) edition of New Englands Trials. See John Smith, New Englands Trials. Declaring the Successe of 80 Ships Employed Thither within These Eight Yeares; and the Benefit of That Countrey by Sea and Land. With the Present Estate of That Happie Plantation, Begun but by 60 Weake Men in the Yeare 1620. And How to Build a Fleete of Good Shippes to Make a Little Navie Royall. Written by Captaine John Smith, Sometimes Governour of Virginia, and Admirall of New England. The Second Edition (London: William Jones, 1622).
55. Robert V. Wells, 'The Population of England's Colonies in America: Old English or New Americans?" Population Studies 46 (March 1992): 85-102, table 3, p. 92.
56. Smith, New Englands Trials (1622), C4V.
57. Karen Ordahl Kupperman, "The Future of Colonization," in Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1988), pp. 239-86.
58. Frederic W. Gleach, Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993);
59. J. Frederick Fausz, "The 'Barbarous Massacre' Reconsidered: The Powhatan Uprising of 1622 and the Historians," Explorations in Ethnic Studies 1 (1978): 16-36.
60. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, 1:165-79.
61. Significantly, perhaps, Smith's work on the Generall Historie coincided with the period during which the Virginia Company's charter was reviewed and revoked by the king. See Smith, Complete Works, 2:27-32, passim.
62. D. R. Ransome, "A Purchas Chronology," in The Purchas Handbook: Studies of the Life, Times, and Writings of Samuel Purchas, 1577-1626, ed. L. E. Pennington, 2 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1997), 1:338;
63. Michelle O'Callaghan, "Patrons of the Mermaid Tavern (act. 1611)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/therne/95279 (accessed 29 March 2007).
64. Barbour believes that it was at Purchas's recommendation that Smith obtained official certification in 1625 of the coat of arms he had been given while fighting in Transylvania (The Three Worlds of Smith, p. 374).
65. Robert Norton, The Gunner Shewing the Whole Practise of Artillerie: With All the Appurtenances Thereinto Belonging. Written by ... One of His Maiesties Gunners And Enginiers (London: Augustine Mathewes for Humphrey Robinson, 1628), p. 4.
66. Emerson, Captain John Smith, p. 85.
67. Jolin Smith, A Sea Grammar, with the Plaine Exposition of Smiths Accidence for Young Sea-men, Enlarged. Written by Captaine John Smith, sometimes Governour of Virginia, and Admirall of New-England (London: John Haviland, 1627).
68. Simon Anholt, "Some important distinctions in place branding," Place Branding 1 (2005): 116-21.
69. Robert Charles Anderson, "A Note on the Changing Pace of the Great Migration," New England Quarterly 59 (September 1986): 406-7;
70. Virginia Dejohn Anderson, New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
71. David Grayson Allen, In English Ways: The Movement of Societies and the Transferal of English Local Law and Custom to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1981).
72. Robert Charles Anderson, review of Alison Games's Migrations and Origins of the English Atlantic World, Harvard Historical Studies vol. 133 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), in New England Quarterly 73 (June 2000): 318-21.
73. Joseph Conforti, Imagining New England: Exploration of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001);
74. Edward L. Ayers, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Stephen Nissenbaum, and Peter S. Onuf, All Over the Map: Rethinking American Regions (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).