• Includes quotes from Smith's accounts of his adventures.
• Explains the controversies and debates over Smith's relationship with Pocahontas.

"Here every man may be master and owner of his owne labour and land.... If he have nothing but his hands, he may...by industrie quickly grow rich." (Captain John Smith)

John Smith is one of the most common names in the English language and akin to the use of John Doe, but every Briton and American is familiar with the explorer and mercenary Captain John Smith, who helped found the first permanent British colony in the New World, at Jamestown, in 1607. From there, he went on to become the first Englishman to explore New England, and it was Smith who named the Chesapeake Bay. He wrote several accounts of his exploration and his time spent in the New World, becoming one of the first and most invaluable primary sources on European settlement in North America.

In America, John Smith is better known for his association with Pocahontas, a Native American princess. She was the daughter of the paramount chief (mamanatowick) Powhatan, leader of an Algonquian-speaking native group in eastern Virginia. It was this group that Smith and the other English settlers came into contact with, and Smith credited her with saving him from being killed by the Native Americans. After that, Smith was able to establish relatively friendly relations and trade with the local inhabitants, ensuring Jamestown's survival. Subsequent retellings of the story have often fictitiously cast Smith and Pocahontas as lovers, and even husband and wife, portraying both characters in a more romantic - and positive - light.

Smith's central role in the establishment of the British colonies has helped obscure the more controversial elements of his story, including his time as a mercenary in Turkey. Naturally, the conflicts between English settlers and the Native Americans are also glossed over.