Is John Smith's account of his rescue by Pocahontas true?

The rescue of John Smith by Pocahontas is the story that made both Smith and Pocahontas famous, but the question is, did it happen? The story has been mythologized, politicized and adapted to fulfill various agendas, but it's been incorporated so many times into the various Jamestown narratives that it almost doesn't matter, It happened in the legend, and for most people, that's good enough. But for people with a serious interest in history, it's difficult to ignore the question, and it's interesting to consider the possibilities, even if we will never know the answer with 100% certainty.

Note that there are two aspects to this issue: 1) Was the rescue story true or merely a fabrication by John Smith? 2) Did John Smith misinterpret an adoption ritual as an actual rescue? This page addresses the first point.

The problem with the story is that there were no eye-witnesses to confirm or deny Smith's account. Of course, Powhatan and his entourage were with Smith during the time of his capture, but none of them kept a written account (writing not having been invented yet by the Algonquian Indians), and none of them, including Pocahontas, are on record as having spoken of such an incident to any of the Jamestown chroniclers. Smith alone told the story, and his account changed over time with each telling.

In John Smith's own words, in his most detailed telling in 1624, referring to himself in the third person, the story goes like this:

From The generall historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles : together with The true travels, adventures and observations, and A sea grammar

Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could layd hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperour was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper; for they thought him aswell of all occupations as themselves.

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles - Library of Congress

Arguments for and against the legendary rescue are presented below (scroll down).

The Rescue in Children's Books

The story of Pocahontas's rescue of John Smith is a staple of children's books. No book about Pocahontas can appear without it, so the question as to whether the story is true or not when told to children is rather a moot point. It is basically THE story of Pocahontas, and the one people really care about (though Disney did care enough about other details to make a straight-to-DVD video of her trip to England). Here is one telling of the rescue story from the book, Pocahontas; Young Peacemaker (1996), by Leslie Gourse (Aladdin Paperbacks)
.

... Pocahontas understood that Captain Smith never meant to harm her people. He was only trying to help his own people.

"He is only looking for food," she whispered into her father's ear.

"I understand that," Powhatan said. "But that is what he wants today. Tomorrow he may want all my land."

Powhatan shouted an order to his people. Pocahontas watched in horror as several men seated around Captain Smith jumped up. The brought two big stones from the side of the longhouse to the middle of the room and set them down, one atop the other. The men forced Captain Smith to lie down on the ground. They put his head on top of the stones and held him there.

Two more men jumped down from the bench near Powhatan, holding heavy wooden clubs above Captain Smith's head. Their eyes glinted fiercely at him. He closed his eyes.

Pocahontas couldn't watch this. She jumped from her seat and lay down on top of Captain Smith, her head shielding his. He opened his eyes to see her. She looked into his eyes. She knew they couldn't kill him without killing her, too.

Everyone was shouting. Powhatan's voice, louder than anyone else's, yelled for the men to put down their clubs.

Pocahontas stood back up and took her place again on the bench behind her father. She kept her eyes cast down at the ground, afraid to look at her father's face.

Captain Smith stood also. Several young men were pointing their bows and arrows at him, but Powhatan told them to put their weapons down. (p. 67-70)

The rescue as portrayed in Terrence Malick's The New World (2005)

The Case Against

Camila Townsend: Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma

It is quite a story. But did any of it happen? There have been those who have wanted to believe it for four hundred years, starting with Smith's first audience and continuing right up to the present day. Yet the answer is unequivocally no. The truth, as it happens, is more complicated but also more interesting. (p. 52)

How do we know it did not happen? It is not enough to point out that Pocahontas was only ten years old at the time. There is far better evidence against it than that. John Smith himself never wrote any such story until 1624, when he knew quite well, there was no one left alive who could refute it, and Pocahontas had-for other, unrelated reasons-become a celebrity in London whose very name could sell books. He did not mention the story in the reports he sent back to England shortly after the events. He did not mention it in either of the books he published on Virginia in 1612, which he directed to a London audience parched for tales about the region. Nor did he mention it when Pocahontas came to London. He only told the story seventeen years later, in 1624 .... (p. 52)

Furthermore-and this is perhaps the clincher-in Smith's later accounts of his exploits around the world, he never failed to mention that at each critical juncture a beautiful young woman had fallen in love with him and interceded on his behalf. (p. 52, 53)

... in general, how true were "The True Travels"? Did anyone who read them then expect them or even want them to be true? No, at least not literally true. Everyone then read travel narratives for the entertaining blend of fact and fantasy that they were. (p. 54)

Citing:
John Smith, The generall historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (p. 188, footnote #19)

My reaction to Townsend:
I find Townsend's argument on the timeline of John Smith's accounts persuasive. (Other researchers have pointed this out as well.) I think it's unfortunate that Townsend didn't mention the Juan Ortiz rescue story (see below) as part of her argument. If you add the Juan Ortiz incident to her timeline, it becomes very difficult to believe 100% in Smith.

I like the point about whether Smith's readers were expecting an absolutely true story or not, but I need to reserve judgement. That's the kind of question I like to see asked, but since Townsend didn't cite any sources for her conclusion on that, and I am not sufficiently versed in what people of that era expected when reading travel narratives, I'll need to learn more. Nevertheless, I think this is a good angle to take and deserves attention.

When Townsend states "... (Smith) never failed to mention that at each critical juncture a beautiful young woman had fallen in love with him and interceded on his behalf," she is exaggerating what Smith reported. Smith did describe Lady Tragabigzanda as "beauteous" and Pocahontas as "the nonpareil" of the Powhatan kingdom, but the other women who Smith claimed helped him in some way were not described as young and beautiful, but rather "charitable" (Lady Callamata) and "good" (Madame Chanoyes), and he did not claim that they fell in love with him. (More on this topic)

Helen C. Rountree; Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown

The "rescue" is part of a sequence of events that would be farcical if so many people did not take it seriously as "Virginia history." ... Upon these few lines, written a decade and a half later, hangs much of the "legend of Pocahontas." (p. 78)

Aside from the redundancy of bringing "two great stones" when one would have been sufficient for the task at hand, the method of killing a foreigner is all wrong here. Smith himself made it plain in his ethnographic work, the 1612 Map of Virginia, that disobedient subjects were clubbed to death, while enemy prisoners were slowly tortured. (p. 79)

... aside from the fact that he had just laid out an enormous amount of food to impress a foreigner, it simply does not make sense for the mamanatowick suddenly to ignore his supernaturally powerful advisors and order a potential source of information killed, especially in a culturally inappropriate way. John Smith was not in any danger. (p. 79)

The logical conclusion, then, is that Pocahontas did not rescue John Smith. Even if she had been inside the house at the time, he would not have needed rescuing from anything other than overeating. (p. 82)

My reaction to Rountree:
Rountree is usually a reliable source for things related to the Powhatan Indians. She may have been a little too clever here to point out the "redundancy" of bringing out two great stones, as this is the weakest part of her argument. When has logic ever applied to a ceremony? And how likely is it that Smith would have thought one stone needed embellishment? On the other hand, if there were actually two stones, he certainly would have said so. Perhaps, if you can assume for a moment that Smith was telling the truth, he should have had the foresight to reduce the number of stones to one in order to appear more credible to readers four centuries later..

* Note that Frederic W. Gleach, an anthropologist with a similar research interest as Rountree, (who I quote below in "The Case For") draws the exact opposite conclusion based on the same evidence.

James Horn, A Land as God Made It (2005)

The event would in time assume mythic importance as a symbol of the transcendent power of love over racial hatred. But did it take place? Smith was the only person to record what had happened, and even he did not write about it until years later. What we can say with some certainty is that the ritual did not happen as he described it. Pocahontas would not have acted on her own initiative to save the Englishman. As far as we know, she had never met Smith before the ceremony. Since she was just eleven years old, such a public display of disobedience to her father in the presence of his great men would have been unthinkable. (p. 68)

Citing:
No one in particular. He appears to be relying on his overall research and knowledge of Powhatan customs.

My reaction to Horn:
While I basically accept this very general argument, I also reserve a tiny bit of space for the possibility that something extraordinary happened here. The history of Jamestown is full of incredible stories that are not in dispute, such as the shipwreck and survival of the Sea Venture colonists on Bermuda, their managing to rebuild small boats and continue on to Jamestown almost a year later, and the miraculous and timely appearance of Lord De La Warr with three ships full of fresh supplies just at the moment the Jamestown colonists had abandoned their fort and were heading back to England. If Smith had recounted these stories with no other confirming evidence, we would certainly dismiss them as well on the grounds of improbability.

Edward Maria Wingfield, "A Discourse of Virginia" 1608

Edward Maria Wingfield was one of the seven original councillors of the Jamestown colony, a shareholder of the Virginia Company, and one of the main organizers and financiers of the Jamestown colonization effort. Upon arrival of the expedition in Virginia, Wingfield was elected the first president of the colony. The colony fared poorly under his leadership, however, and he was deposed by the other settlers and sent back to England to be investigated. Wingfield wrote his version of events in "A Discourse of Virginia" (1608). In his writing, he mentions that Smith was captured by Indians, but he makes no mention of a rescue by Pocahontas. In Wingfield's account, Powhatan (Wahunsenaca) simply sent Smith back to Jamestown.

Decem.--The 10th of December, Mr Smyth went vp the ryuer of the Chechohomynies46 to trade for corne. He was desirous to see the heade of that riuer; and, when it was not passible wth the shallop, he hired a cannow and an Indian to carry him vp further. The river the higher grew worse and worse. Then hee went on shoare wth his guide, and left Robinson & Emmery, twoe of our Men, in the cannow; wch were presently slayne by the Indians, Pamaonke's men and hee himself taken prysoner, and, by the means of his guide, his lief was saved; and Pamaonché, haueing him prisoner, carryed him to his neybors wyroances to see if any of them knew him for one of those wch had bene, some twoe or three yeeres before vs, in a river amongst them Northward, and taken awaie some Indians from them by force. At last he brought him to the great Powaton (of whome before wee had no knowledg), who sent him home to our towne the viij of January.

From "A Discourse of Virginia" 1608, available online at Virtual Jamestown

As this account does not mention any rescue, we are left to wonder, "Why?" Many would say the absence of a rescue story is evidence that there was no rescue. True believers, however, offer some possible explanations. Smith may have avoided telling the story at the time because he was embarrassed at having been rescued by a girl. Or, Smith may have wished to avoid being accused of scheming to forge a relationship with Powhatan's daughter and establish his own kingdom. As strange as that explanation may seem, Smith was actually accused of it later. In any case, we have three possibilities to consider; 1) the rescue didn't happen, 2) the rescue happened and Wingfield didn't know about it, or 3) Wingfield knew about the rescue and chose not to mention it for reasons we'll never know. Ultimately, the absence of the rescue in Wingfield's account is not proof that the rescue didn't happen, but it appears to be circumstantial evidence against a rescue.

John Smith's first account (redacted) of his experience Werowocomoco in A True Relation (1608):

"Arriving at Weramocomoco, their Emperour proudly lying uppon a Bedstead a foote high, upon tenne or twelves Mattes, richly hung with Manie Chaynes of great Pearles about his necke, and covered with a great Covering of Rahaughcums. At heade sat a woman, at his feete another; on each side sitting uppon a Matte uppon the ground, were raunged his chiefe men on each side of the fire, tenne in a ranke, and behinde them as many young women, each a great Chaine of white Beaddes over their shoulders, their heades painted in redde: and with such a grave and Majesticall countenance, as drave me into admiration to see such state in a naked Salvage, hee kindly welcomed me with such good wordes, and great Platters of sundrie Victuals, assuring mee his friendship, and my libertie within foure days. ... [redacted here]

In describing to him, the territories of Europe, which was subject to our great King whose subject I was, the innumerable multitude of his ships, I gave him to understand the noyse of Trumpets, and terrible manner of fighting were under captain Newport my father, whom I intituled the Meworames, which they call the King of all the waters, at his greatnesse, he admired, and not a little feared: he desired mee to forsake Paspahegh, and to live with him upon his River, a Countrie called Capa Howasicke: hee promised to give me Corne, Venison, or what I wanted to feede us, Hatchets and Copper wee should make him, and none should disturbe us. This request I promised to performe: and thus, having with all the kindnes hee could devise, sought to content me: hee sent me home with 4. men, one that usually carried my Gowne and Knapsacke after me, two other loded with bread, and one to accompanie me."

A True Relation at Virtual Jamestown

This first account by John Smith of his experience while prisoner obviously doesn't match what Smith wrote later. Some people have suggested the rescue may have been edited out at the request of the Virginia Company to minimize the 'savagery' of the Powhatans. While certainly possible, we are left to wonder why an incident that didn't result in Smith's death was edited out while other incidents resulting in the death of colonists were left intact.

From The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia (1612), compiled and edited by William Symonds, chapter credited to Thomas Studley (who had likely died prior to the writing of this), and presumed to have been actually written by John Smith or Smith together with others, possibly Richard Pots.

"A month those Barbarians kept him prisoner, many strange triumphes and conjurations they made of him, yet hee so demeaned himselfe amongst them, as he not only diverted them from surprising the Fort, but procured his owne liberty, and got himselfe and his company such estimation amongst them, that those Salvages admired him as a demi-God." p. 50, from The Proceedings, taken from James Horn, Capt. John Smith, Writings (2007)

In 1612, some four years after his first account of having been captured by the Powhatans, Smith still felt no inclination to reveal a heroic rescue by Pocahontas. He noted, however, that he himself had been heroic enough to save Jamestown from attack while prisoner thanks to the high evaluation the Powhatans allegedly placed on him.

From The Generall Historie (1624). This is the book in which Smith introduces Pocahontas as his rescuer despite having told a different story years before. Yet look at this mention (in The Third Book) of how he had earlier escaped death in Werowocomoco. In this passage, he's trying to encourage his men to stay strong against the Indians despite being vastly outnumbered:

"If wee should each kill our man, and so proceed with all in the house: the rest will all fly: then shall wee get no more then the bodies that are slaine, and so starve for victuall. As for their fury it is the least danger; for well you know, being alone assaulted with three or four hundred of them, I made them by the helpe of God compound to save my life. And wee are sixteene, and they but seaven hundred at the most; and assure your selves, God will so assist us, that if you dare stand but to discharge your pieces, the very smoake will bee sufficient to affright them." from Horn (2007) p. 377.

This is ambiguous, of course, as Smith had elsewhere equated Pocahontas with being an instrument of God. On the other hand, he seems to be reverting to the old story here, where Smith and God combined to free Smith, with no Pocahontas in the mix.

From A Voyage Long and Strange (2008), by Tony Horwitz

"In Smith's first account of their meeting, published the next year, he wrote that Powhatan welcomed him "with good wordes, and great Platters of sundrie Victuals." (p. 334)

Not until 1624, seventeen years after his capture, did Smith publish the story familiar to generations of American schoolchildren. (p. 335)

Smith's original account of his capture, in 1608, was heavily edited in London and published as propaganda for the Virginia Company. His near execution isn't mentioned, though it's possible the scene was censored by editors. It's also possible that Smith lifted his story from the strikingly similar account of Juan Ortiz, the Spanish captive in Florida who became De Soto's translator. By 1624, when Smith published the dramatic version of his rescue, Ortiz's account was available in England, and Pocahontas had become a well-known and admired figure." (p. 335, 336)

The Juan Ortiz story as told by Tony Horwitz in A Voyage Long and Strange

"Soon after landing in Florida, De Soto had an extraordinary stroke of luck. Near shore, mounted Spaniards came upon Indians with bows and arrows. One of the horsemen was about to charge with his lance when his intended target, a naked man with tattooed arms, cried out in Spanish. The tattooed man's name was Juan Ortiz. He'd come to Florida on an expedition eleven years before, only to be captured by Indians. He said his native captors had bound and laid him on a grill, and were about to kindle a fire under him when the chief's daughter intervened, begging that the Spaniard be spared.

This story bears a striking resemblance to that of John Smith's rescue by Pocahontas, which occurred eighty years later, near Jamestown. It's possible that Indians in both Florida and Virginia practiced a similar ritual, threatening to execute captives before adopting them. It's also possible that John Smith lifted his romantic story from published accounts of Juan Ortiz's earlier rescue." (p. 206, 207)

Links to articles about Juan Ortiz:

Princess Ulele and Juan Ortiz: a Tampa Bay Pocahontas Story (dead link to be replaced with PDF)
Juan Ortiz and Princess Uleleh Hirrihigua, Jan. 20, 2020, Gary C. Daniels
Juan Ortiz's Story A Lot Like 'Pocahontas
A Brief Account of the Adventures of My Appropriated Kinsman, Juan Ortiz, Indian Captive, Soldier, and Guide to General Hernando de Soto - Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Georgia Review, Vol. 66, No. 3

Interesting quote about John Smith making the exploits of others his own:

"So long as he lived, Smith kept himself informed of the progress of adventure and settlement in the New World, reading all relations and eagerly questioning all voyagers, and transferring their accounts to his own History, which became a confused patchwork of other men's exploits and his own reminiscences and reflections."

From Captain John Smith - New England's Trials - by Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900)

From Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative (1994), by Robert S. Tilton

"The unnamed daughter of Ucita (the 'Lord of the Floridians') who rescues Juan Ortiz seems a likely precursor of Smith's Pocahontas ...." (p. 6)

My comment:
Re-reading the Tilton book, I came across this 1994 reference to the Juan Ortiz story, which comes well before the Tony Horwitz mention (see above) in 2008. I don't know if the Juan Ortiz story has been mentioned even earlier by others, but it's unfortunate that Tilton chose not to expound on it, as the incident seems significant. Few of the major Pocahontas authors have taken up this thread.

My late reading of Frances Mossiker's Pocahontas: the Life and the Legend (1976) resulted in me not knowing that she had introduced the Juan Ortiz rescue incident many years prior to Tilton or Horwitz. She wrote that the incident was published in a travel book by Richard Hakluyt in 1609, the year Smith returned to England (p. 82).

The Case For

Frederic W. Gleach, Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures (1997)

The debate over whether this incident even happened has raged for over a hundred years; given its articulations with the ritual complex described here, however, it likely happened much as described. Smith has been accused of inventing or at least embellishing the incident, either for reasons of self-glory, as the arguments ran in the mid-nineteenth century (see Barbour 1986b:lxiii-lxiv), or as a conventionalized form of English appropriation of the other (e.g., Hulme 1992:136-73). Although these arguments based in Smith's English cultural tradition are interesting, and the biases proceeding from that culture certainly must be considered, the events described here and the larger ritual context in which they occur can be better understood in terms of the Powhatan culture, without resorting to such arguments. Like the articulation of this incident in the ritual context described here, the details Smith reported also support his account; they fit with the Powhatan world-view too well to be made up by an outsider. (p. 117)

My comment:
As mentioned above in "The Case Against," Helen C. Rountree drew the exact opposite conclusion based on the same evidence.

David A. Price, Love & Hate in Jamestown; John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation (2003)

Powhatan consulted with his advisors. Nearby, awaiting Powhatan's decision, were men with clubs in their hands. If the emperor so resolved, the clubs would be used to smash the prisoner's brains-a charitably swift form of execution that the natives employed. (p. 67) ...

After long deliberation, Powhatan made his choice. A pair of large stones were set in front of him, and Smith was brought forward to accept the inevitable. (p. 67)

What happened in the moments that followed is, in all probability, the most often told tale in American history, inspiring drama, novels, paintings, statuary, and films. The fourth chief justice of the United States, John Marshall, writing in 1804, narrated it as well as anyone: (p. 67)

There he was doomed to be put to death, by laying his head upon a stone, and beating out his brains with clubs. He was led to the place of execution, and his head bowed down for the purpose of death, when Pocahontas, the king's darling daughter, then about thirteen years of age, whose entreaties for his life had been ineffectual, rushed between him and his executioner, and folding his head in her arms, and laying hers upon it, arrested the fatal blow. Her father was then prevailed on to spare his life. ["There he was doomed": Marshall (1804), vol. I, p. 42, from The Life of George Washington]

Pocahontas's sudden intervention put Powhatan in an awkward spot. He was careful, always, to maintain imperial dignity. To remonstrate with his daughter in front of everyone in the packed hall would undermine his stateliness. He could order his attendants to carry her off - another undignified spectacle. Powhatan instead allowed himself to be won over by his daughter's plea, and declared that he was content for Smith to live. The prisoner will make hatchets for him, he announced, and bells, beads, and copper objects for his daughter. (The latter was perhaps at Pocahontas's whispered suggestion.) (p. 68)

Just why Pocahontas interceded is impossible to know for certain. Smith attributed it to her compassion for a man in distress. Others through the centuries have put a romantic gloss on the scene, holding that Pocahontas was infatuated with him. Still another possibility is that she had some pragmatic purpose in mind for him, as the requirement of the bells, beads, and copper would suggest. Smith's own view of her motives is presumably due some extra weight, since, after all, he was there. (p. 68)

... Smith now owed Pocahontas his life. Before long, he would owe her his life several times over. (p. 69)

Price then goes on in the "Marginalia" section at the end of the book (p. 241-243) to explain why he is persuaded that the rescue happened as Smith recounted it. His arguments are as follows:

Smith's reputation was unfairly maligned by Reconstruction era historians, but we should not hold the same prejudices.
The rescue story didn't cast Smith in a heroic light and he wasn't proud of it, so it has the ring of truth.
His short accounts of the rescue, in both New England Trials and Generall Historie, are evidence that he preferred not to talk about the rescue at all, but that he had to mention it, as it would likely be addressed by his opponents.
A contemporary of Smith, Reverend Samuel Purchas, believed and reprinted the account as Smith told it.
Pocahontas's second rescue of Smith had multiple eyewitnesses and there is no evidence it was ever disputed.
Smith's writings were recommended to others by some of his contemporaries.
Some details of Smith's European military adventures were confirmed.
J. A. Leo Lemay's book, Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith (1992) makes an overwhelming case for believing Smith's account.

My reaction to Price:
I like that Price took the time to address this question in the book, laying out the reasons for his opinion. Of those reasons, some of them are persuasive, or at least interesting. I disagree that Lemay's book makes an overwhelming case in favor of believing Smith. I think it's unfortunate that most of the authors who have written about Smith, including Price, have not addressed the Juan Ortiz account and whether or not it may have influenced Smith's writings. We have to consider that Smith may have liked the Juan Ortiz account enough to allow it to embellish his thinking about what had transpired during his own captivity and release. Ultimately, I remain on the fence about Smith, but I'm inclined to have more doubts than Gleach, Price, Lemay and Woolley, who I have quoted in this section..

J. A. Leo Lemay, Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith (1992)

As we saw above, David Price attributed much of his faith in John Smith's rescue account to this book by Lemay. While there are many interesting and at times persuasive arguments in this book, I don't share Price's enthusiasm for Lemay's opinion that the evidence is overwhelming in favor of Smith's truthfulness. In particular, the book's 3-page concluding chapter is problematic. The bulleted paragraphs below are quotes from Lemay's book, followed by my commentary.

"There are eight unmistakable references in Smith's writings to Pocahontas's saving his life. The circumstances of five - the 1616 letter to the queen, the 1622 New England Trials, the 1623 testimony before the commissioners, the main account in The General Historie, and the reference in The True Travels - make it seem certain that if we had only one of these accounts, we would nevertheless have excellent evidence that Pocahontas saved his life. The overall evidence supplied by all eight (and possibly nine) references proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pocahontas rescued him. " p. 98

My comment:
Lemay says here that a single rescue claim by Smith would have been believable enough, but that every time he repeated the claim, even obliquely, his credibility solidified until it was "beyond a shadow of a doubt." I'm thinking Lemay must have been a terrible poker player, folding whenever an opponent upped the ante. In any case, John Smith's claims are the issue, and many historians are not concerned with the number of claims, but rather with the fact that they appeared so late in the game after a long period with no mention of a rescue.

"Additional confirmation exists. Numerous Indians were present at the ceremony. Some must have lived until at least the time of Opechancanough's death in 1644. Like Opechancanough himself, these Indians could have been asked about the Powhatan episode, if there was any reason at all to doubt it. If anyone did ask the Indians, they evidently confirmed the story, for no one in the seventeenth century ever specifically questioned it." p. 98

My comment:
This argument is almost laughable. If I'm a doubter of John Smith circa 1624 or later, could I have got on the phone in London and dialed up "the Indians"? How was I supposed to contact "the Indians," and who would I have addressed my questions to? True, there might have been some Indian survivors from that time, but who would have been an authority, and how would that person know precisely which incident (possibly mythical) I was referring to? Even if I lived in Virginia, and remember this is after the attack of 1622, and even if I knew of the rescue claim (a big if), could I have reasonably interrogated the few remaining unidentified Indian survivors? Ultimately, I don't believe any of Smith's contemporaries cared enough about this issue to pursue it, even if they privately doubted Smith's story.

"Further, Smith and Pocahontas both behaved as if a special relationship existed between them after Smith's captivity. The best explanation for the special relationship is that Pocahontas saved (or appeared to save) his life." p. 98, 99.

My comment:
Certainly a rescue would have made for a special relationship, but is that the only possible explanation? What about the possibility that Pocahontas's charisma appealed to Smith, and that his foreignness intrigued her? Maybe his attention to her as a child created a bond? And too, maybe there was no special relationship at all, and that it existed only in Smith's imagination. After all, we have no words from Pocahontas on this; only the words Smith claimed she spoke.

"Many old Virginia hands, including several enemies who must have known the truth, were alive after Smith's story of being rescued by Pocahontas appeared in 1622 and 1624. If any of the old Virginia hands doubted him, they would have spread the word that he was lying." p. 99

My comment (questions, really):
How would anyone have known "the truth" if they weren't there during the incident? If they doubted Smith, can we be sure they would have made an issue out of it to the point of publicly, and in writing, calling him a liar? Did the rescue story mean as much to Smith's contemporaries as it does to us in the 20th and 21st Centuries? If some of them did make an issue of it, how can we know that the evidence, if any, hasn't simply been lost or destroyed over the centuries?

"Samuel Purchas, the foremost scholarly authority on Virginia colonization, made it his business to know all the old Virginia hands and to know everything that went on concerning Virginia. Purchas believed Smith and reprinted the story of his captivity and of being saved by Pocahontas in the 1625 Hakluytus Posthumus. Purchas knew and talked with Smith's enemies, including George Percy, Francis West, and Edward Maria Wingfield, but he told the story of Virginia's earliest years from Smith's point of view. Obviously he never heard anything from Smith's friends or enemies that made him think Smith was lying." p. 99

My comment:
No, not "obviously." While I do accept this argument as a degree of corroborating evidence for Smith's account, we can't know Purchas's motivations for repeating Smith's story. He may have simply liked the story, much as we do today, or he had no better story to go with. Also, we don't doubt all of the details about Virginia told by Smith, but mainly the ones regarding the Pocahontas rescue. Perhaps Purchas didn't inquire too deeply about the rescue, and perhaps none of the people mentioned by Lemay chose to make Smith's rescue claim an issue,.

"If Smith lied about the Pocahontas incident, then he also lied about the 1616 letter to Queen Anne." [long paragraph about how the court circle could have exposed Smith as a liar, since they would have known of the letter's existence or non-existence.] p. 99

My comment:
As with many parts of the Pocahontas story, we know of the letter to Queen Anne only because Smith wrote about it and was able to reproduce it word for word some 8 years later. Neither Smith's copy, if he had one, nor the "original" to Queen Anne has ever been found. That's not to say the letter was imaginary. However, there is a range of possibilities. It may have existed as Smith revealed it, or It may have existed, but differed from what Smith wrote later. (These are the most probable scenarios.) In an extreme view, it may never have existed at all, and Smith believed that no one would have the time or inclination to verify his elaborate and wholly fictional story. To believe the latter theory, however, one would have to assume Smith was not a mere exaggerator, but a true pathological liar and fraud. Although I have some doubts about Smith, I find this scenario a little too unbelievable. Ultimately, the Queen Anne letter probably does support Smith's version of the rescue to some extent. Also, as Lemay points out, (with credit to a mysterious Charles Deane "reviewer"), "What imaginable motive can be assigned for Smith's jeopardying [sic] his character at court, by fabricating a story redounding only to the honor of Pocahontas?" (p. 36)

"Finally, numerous men of honor were friends of Smith. It is obvious that they respected and admired him. Sir Samuel Saltonstall, Sir Humphrey Mildmay, and Sir Robert Bruce Cotton were among Smith's close friends and were his patrons. At least two well-known contemporaries asked him to write commendatory verses for them. It is obvious that neither they nor anyone else in Smith's day thought that he lied about the Pocahontas episode. If he had lied, they would have learned out it." p. 100

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My comment:
Nothing about this is "obvious." My view of Smith and his entourage is that Smith, having had many far flung adventures and being a good story teller, could have enthralled his friends with tales of daring-do. Stories that started with a grain of truth would have grown more elaborate in the telling. His friends may have cared little about whether the rescue happened exactly as he told it, as long as they were entertained. Of course, I don't know if this theory is true or not, but neither does Lemay. We'll never know how the people mentioned above viewed Smith's story.

"By any reasoning, we must conclude ... that the Pocahontas story 'can be shown to be true in all probability.' I hope that I have ended the 'Great Debate,' as Bradford Smith called the controversy over the Pocahontas episode. It actually happened." p. 101

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My comment:
An end to the debate? Not even close.
___________

Summary of Lemay's argument by Stan Birchfield, March 3, 1998

From Smith's own writing; July 16, 1622

It is commonly said that John Smith first revealed his famous rescue by Pocahontas in 1624, some 16 years after the fact, and about 7 years after her death (in The Generall Historie). However, in 1622, in a re-published account of New England Trials, Smith wrote this:

"It is true in our greatest extremetie they shot me, slue three of my men, and by the folly of them that fled tooke me prisoner; yet God made Pocahontas the Kings daughter the meanes to deliver me: and thereby taught me to know their trecheries to preserve the rest." - p. 188, from Horn's Captain John Smith: Writings with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America (2007)

Smith wrote these lines soon after the Powhatan uprising of 1622. I find myself thinking like Lemay (above) here, but five years after the death of Pocahontas and at a time when anti-Powhatan sentiment was at a new high, what would possess Smith to suddenly give credit to Pocahontas for his release? Remember, Smith has often been called "self-serving", so why would he introduce the idea of Pocahontas saving him when he had previously credited his own expertise in handling the Indians? And if he was trying to place himself at the center of a myth-like drama, why would he venture the idea in such a low-key way, and in a context separate from his personal biography?

And that brings up another point about these lines, which is how casually they're offered, and without providing any details. It's hard to imagine that Smith hadn't already referenced this incident elsewhere (for example, simultaneously to sending his letter to Queen Anne), or perhaps spoken about it to others. He doesn't say how Pocahontas was the means to deliver (free) him, but he gives her credit for his release in what we imagine today to be the first time based on the existing Smith writings. I would suggest (but cannot prove) that Smith had revealed the legendary rescue at some point prior to this mention in 1622. It may have been in writings that were lost, or it may have only been verbally, but it's difficult to see these lines as the actual first mention.

Benjamin Woolley: Savage Kingdom - The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America (2007)

No sooner had Smith finished his presentation, than he was seized by as many guards as could hold him, and two great boulders, rarities in these soft and watery lands, were brought into the room. Smith was then dragged to one of the rocks, and the guards held his head over it like an infant's over a font, the sprinkling of holy water to be a deadly rain of blows.

It was in this vulnerable position, expecting death, that he first beheld the peerless beauty of Powhatan's twelve-year-old daughter, Pocahontas. She was a nonpareil, her features and proportions exceeding all the rest of her people. When no entreaties would prevail with the king to save Smith, she ran to the stone upon which Smith's head was about to be dashed. She clasped his head in her arms, and laid her cheek upon his, to save him from death, interposing her countenance between the deadly intentions of her father Powhatan and the welfare of the brave captain. (p. 132)

Comment on Woolley:
In his 2007 book, Woolley chooses to allow Smith to give his own account, revealing his (Woolley's) vague skepticism by setting Smith's words in gray ink. My assumption is that Woolley is choosing not to enter into the debate on what really happened, but simply present the only record of it that exists. However, one might read this book and conclude that Woolley was fully on board with Smith's version. That the subtitle of Savage Kingdom is "The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America" makes me realize why Custalow & Daniel thought to name their fictitious book The True Story of Pocahontas.

All mentions of Pocahontas in John Smith's writings (HTML)

Relevant timeline of events (with thanks to the Pocahontas Archive, Virtual Jamestown, HumanitiesWeb.org (Warner page) and Horn's (2007) Captain John Smith Writings with Other Narratives for data)

1607 - Jamestown founded on May 13
1607 - John Smith captured by the Powhatan Indians in December, returning to Jamestown in Jan. 1608
1608 - John Smith's A True Relation has the first mention of Pocahontas, but not of the rescue
1608 - Edward Maria Wingfield writes of Smith being captured, but describes no rescue; Powhatan simply released Smith.
1609 - John Smith returns to England in October after being severely burned by his own gunpowder
1609 - The Juan Ortiz account of his own rescue from death by a chief's daughter (in Florida in 1539) is available in English in London
1612 - John Smith mentions Pocahontas (but not the rescue) in A Map of Virginia.
1612 - The Proceedings confirms the encounters between Pocahontas and Smith mentioned in A True Relation, and adds the meeting in the woods where Pocahontas allegedly warns Smith of a plot on his life. There is still no mention of the famous rescue.
[1616 - John Smith's 'Letter to Queen Anne', not published until 1624, would have been written and sent at this time]
1616 - Pocahontas visits England (June) and is reunited with John Smith a short while before her death ~March 21, 1617
1616 - John Smith's Map and A Description of New England published; no mention of Pocahontas
1617 - Death of Pocahontas at Gravesend; funeral on March 21
1620 - John Smith publishes first version of New Englands Trials, which revisits events found in A Description of New England of 1616, again with no mention of Pocahontas (see Warner webpage, Captain John Smith)
1622 - John Smith's New Englands Trials is re=published and contains mention of a rescue by Pocahontas. This is written after Smith hears of the massacre of 1622 at Jamestown; "... yet God made Pocahontas the Kings daughter the meanes to deliver me: and thereby taught me to know their trecheries to preserve the rest."
1624 - John Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, contains the full version of the rescue; in this account he also claims to have written a letter in 1616 to Queen Anne (with a copy of the letter included) describing the aid Pocahontas provided to him and the colony (including the legendary rescue)
1630 - John Smith dies

Relevant Documents

A True Relation by Captain John Smith, 1608 at Virtual Jamestown
"A Discourse of Virginia" 1608, by Edward Maria Wingfield
A Map of Virginia 1612 - at Internet Archive (PDF)
A Map of Virginia. 1612 (html)
A Description of New England, 1616 (PDF)
New England's Trials by Captain John Smith, 1620 (rare first edition, PDF)
The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Isles by Captain John Smith (PDF)
John Smith's Letter to Queen Anne; an excerpt from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (html)
Excerpts from The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith, 1630 (html)
The Complete Works of Captain John Smith at Virtual Jamestown (html)
Charles Dudley Warner's 1881 analysis of John Smith's writings (PDF)
All of John Smith's references to Pocahontas (compiled by me on this site; html)

Virtual Jamestown - First-Hand Accounts - By Date

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