A True Relation Summary

In writing A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz’s goal is clear, to educate others on early America and debunk ignorant myths. Horwitz’s reason for wanting to achieve this goal is because of his own ignorance that he sees while at Plymouth Rock. “Expensively educated at a private school and university- a history major, no less!-I’d matriculated to middle age with a third grader’s grasp of early America.” Horwitz is disappointed in his own lack of knowledge of his home country, especially with his background history and decides not only to research America’s true beginnings, but to also follow the path of those who originally yearned to discover America.

The early 16th century, many british colonies came to the new world for various reasons, some for power, money, land, and for religious reasons. This idea of coming to a land of freedom to do whatever they want and to create a new way of living among the natives that already had been stable in the new world. John Smith and William Bradford in their stories, the General History of Virginia John Smith and Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford they had explained how they struggled in the boat to come to the new world and how they had to work together to survive in an unknown land with no resources. Smith and Bradford support their explanation by illustrating how they were able to build a community in the new world and their interrelations with the native Americans. Their purpose is to demonstrate how the new world was formed by their small colonies and their intentions to come to the new world in order to have a clearer perspective on why they came. Like in Jamestown and in Plymouth Plantation they had similarities and differences to become one of the first colonies to stable in America.

Primary sources are evidence written by people who witnessed or experienced the events that happened. Primary sources can be government documents, oral histories, memoirs, biological evidence, and paintings. They were created at the period when the events were occurring. The most useful primary sources are the ones that were created the most recently to the time period that the historian is reaching. Histories should assess their validity carefully because not all primary sources are true. Historians do not know if Captain John Smith was telling the true about “Pocahontas”. Historians should ask themselves questions before they believe in the primary sources. Historians should assess their validity by asking questions like did the writer of

John Smith is now a house-hold name in American folklore due to his involvement with American Indians and his portrayal in the Pocahontas Disney movie, but many fail to know that he was responsible for the survival of England’s first colony in America. His leadership, and determination helped discipline the colonists, while his negotiations with the Indians prevented starvation and lowered the mortality rate.

&&“Love and Hate in Jamestown” is a book that tells the story of the U.S.’s first colony in the eyes of the American legend John Smith and through the accounts of the other settlers. The book starts with a small history lesson and eventually ties it in with John Smith, a soldier who eventually becomes a leader among the men in Jamestown. As we read, there is more detail to whom Smith is; where he came from, a small farm in London; what he went through, he became a soldier fighting in foreign lands with the Turks and getting caught; his family, the battles with his father that kept Smith home as an archer. Moreover, Smiths’ story rolls over to how he was able to go to Virginia; the colony in Virginia started out as a business investment until it was royal property in the 1620’s. Now, while going to

John Smith and William Bradford were similar in many ways when it comes to both writing and experiences. In their stories, they both talked about how they encountered American Indians but the experiences were very different. They both also talked about how they came over to America and what life was like during that time. Bradford and Smith both agreed on the fact that they wanted the new land to be settled and inhabited; they wanted their land filled with good, hard working men.

Because of the Industrial Revolution, many Europeans began to seek out other places and countries to colonize in and to find resources. In the 1760s natives from other lands were seen as individuals, thanks to Enlightenment thinking, and they were praised as individuals and seen as noble savages. Later, however in the 1910s the views of natives began to change and the natives began to be seen as uneducated primitives, a people who did not understand things as well as the “European mind.”

Coming to the New World with little knowledge was difficult for those like Captain John Smith and William Bradford. Both men came to the Americas in search of new land and a better place. They were both English and had Christian faith. Although they both wanted to take over the New World they each had their reason on coming to the New World. Their trip to the New World was difficult due to the struggles with diseases and the lack of supplies they had. In both of the British colonies they had trouble with the supply of food.

Now we have all heard about the story of Pocahontas, unfortunately many of the stories we were told growing up are not completely true. Camilla Townsend, the author of “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma”, intends to inform its readers about the evolution of the many lies written and told by the Englishmen regarding their relationships with the Native America peoples that many of us have heard about today. However, Townsend has ineffectively given her readers information about the whole truth to the stories she has written about the many relationships of the English and Native Americans.

William Cronon’s book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England identifies, examines and explains the ecological history and changes that took place in New England between the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, and how it affected the future of the region.

Historians who practice historiography agree that the writings from the beginning of what is now known as the United States of America can be translated various ways. In James H. Merrell’s “The Indians’ New World,” the initial encounters and relationships between various Native American tribes and Europeans and their African American slaves are explained; based on Merrell’s argument that after the arrival of Europeans to North America in 1492, not only would the Europeans’ lives drastically change, but a new world would be created for the Native Americans’ as their communities and lifestyles slowly intertwined for better or worse. Examples of these changes include: “deadly bacteria, material riches, and [invading] alien people.” (Merrell 53)

Most likely, one has heard about the story of Pocahontas and John Smith. However, John Smith was not as loving and kind as he was portrayed. In the letter Address to Captain Smith, the speaker, Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas’ father, takes a condescending tone and addresses to the English settlers, especially John Smith, how the chief’s generous hospitality has not been appreciated. Literary devices such as rhetorical questions, antithesis, and repetition, diction, and pathos and ethos are exercised by Chief Powhatan to address his purpose and produce it as impactful as fully possible.

John Smith was the son of a farmer, but he became a soldier at the age of six. He travelled well in Europe and NearEast fighting and winning many wars which later saw him promoted to captain. In 1607, Smith led a group of colonist across the Atlantic Ocean and came down to settle in the now the United States. He established a good relationship with the natives. In his book, A True Relation of Virginia, Smith describes the life in America and encourages English to change their misconception about Americans (Smith, 16). Initially, on arriving in the America had thought of Americans as barbarians who love to fight, but after sometimes, was able to change his attitude to positive.

John Smith, the leader of the Jamestown Colony in America, wrote a book named The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. This book is a factual account of what John Smith encountered on his journeys between Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles. David Read states that “the book is full of second- and third hand information” (Read 429). In Chapter 2: What Happened till the First Supply, Smith tells what happened when the settlers first arrived at Jamestown, and

The men were “...tall of stature, and strength...and the women have handsome limbs, slender arms, and pretty hands…” (Strachey 20). All the way from the individual men who were masculine with “tall [] stature, and strength” to the women who were beautiful, shows the individuals in the society were elite. The society as a whole was very elite and intricate society with “a Monarchial government” gaining land through “inheritance” and “several conquests,” with a type of justice system, where those who “offend [the Powhatan]” are punished (Smith 22 & 23). The Natives were already an intricate society, but when foreigners arrived, they proved to be a dynamic society by adapting to further their civilization. When the English arrived the Natives were “bold and audacious as they dare [came] unto [the English’s] forts, truck and trade with [them]...” (Strathcey 21). The Native Americans from the individual people all the way to their hierarchy, justice system and willingness to adapt set them in the same category of eliteness and intricacy as all other foreign societies at the