Author: John Smith

PRIMARY DOCUMENT

A True relation of such occurrences and accidents of note, as hath hapned at Virginia, since the first planting of that Collony by John Smith (1608)

In A True relation of such occurrences and accidents of note, as hath hapned at Virginia, published in 1608, Captain John Smith tells of his experiences as one of the first English settlers of the colony at Jamestown. Smith originally wrote the account in 1607 as a letter to a friend; it was published the next year without his knowledge or permission.

PRIMARY DOCUMENT

John Smith’s Letter to Queen Anne; an excerpt fromThe Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith (1624)

In the fourth book of his Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, published in 1624, John Smith describes the content of a letter he allegedly wrote to Queen Anne, the wife of King James I of England, asking her to give special consideration to Pocahontas, the daughter of the Virginia Indian paramount chief Powhatan, on the occasion of Pocahontas’s visit to London in 1616.

PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“The maner of their language”; an excerpt from “Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion” by John Smith (1612)

In this excerpt of “Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion,” first published in 1612, the Jamestown colonist John Smith provides a list of Algonquian-language words and phrases he encountered in his dealings with the Virginia Indians of Tsenacomoco.Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.