Love and Hate in Jamestown : John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation

Rating:
Summary: Love and Hate in Jamestown
Review: Once you get past the mass market title you will find this to be a remarkably enjoyable and easy to read history of the Jamestown Colony, beginning in 1607. The star character is Capt. John Smith, who comes across as someone you would really, really like to have by your side in any dangerous situation. But - at first at least - he was not the boss. Indeed, some of those above him seem not to have the sense they were born with. But they did have what was important to the company back in England: Royal Blood.

Read how Capt. Smith, in spite of the odds, managed to save the colony, how he met and befriended the brave Pocahontas (who saved his life twice and the lives of many other settlers, and whose picture ought to be on a U. S. coin (perhaps in 2007)), and how he was essentially forced to return to England. His leaving practically spelled doom for the colonists, some of whom had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive.

Pilgrim & Mayflower buffs: To me, this book pointed out very clearly that perhaps the biggest mistake the Pilgrims would make in 1620 was in not hiring Capt. John Smith to be their military leader when they had the chance (no reflection on Myles Standish, who did an outstanding job, but didn't have the experience).

All in all a magnificent book and one that ought to be required reading to all with an interest in American history.

Rating:
Summary: New understanding of a familar story
Review: One might shy away -- with a Disney-phobic mind-set -- from a book about the Jamestown colony, John Smith, and, of course, Pocahontas. Most of us feel we know the story anyway. "Love and Hate in Jamestown" by David Price however fills in the familiar outline with some new muscles and sinews.

The book principally follows the history of Smith and of the Jamestown colony from the departure of the three ship flotilla from London in 1606 until Smith's death in 1631. This history is of course in large measure one of relations with the Indians. Price, not a historian, has written for both the Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily, so the economic motivations and structure of the colony also are given significant attention.

The story is told in a straight-forward style that is largely a strength, but at times makes it seem to be no more than a summary of others' work. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly, it's a well-documented book, with an extensive Bibliography.

The book highlights many facets of the Jamestown/Smith story that add to a reader's understanding. I found certain aspects especially effective in this regard. 1) John Smith's background as a commoner, fighter for Dutch independence, self-taught student of military tactics (especially munitions), enlistee in Austrian forces battling the Ottoman Empire, and a captive slave to the Turks. 2) The ease with which the Spanish could have destroyed the colony, changing the whole course of North American history, and the big power politics that led King Philip of Spain to inaction. 3) The evolving expectations of the Virginia Company's managers back in England of what they could expect as return on their investment.

At the well-known and crucial point in the story, the author does an effective job of recreating the circumstances of Smith's capture by the Powhatans and Pocahontas' role in his deliverance from certain death.

Although strong in presenting these various facets, the book suffers I believe from the lack of a centralizing focus. At many points it seems a biography of Smith, then veers into the dramatic details of the colony's travails after Smith is shipped back to England, then returns to a focus on Smith as he struggles to find an avenue for returning to the New World. Each shift of attention seems abrupt and the level of detail varies uncomfortably.

John Smith apparently kept good notes while in Virginia and then wrote extensively about his colonizing experiences. Price of course draws heavily on these narratives and appears to always accept Smith's version of events. This is both natural (Smith had many supporters who verified his accounts) and somewhat unbalanced. The book paints the other colonial leaders - with whom Smith was in unremitting conflict - as incredibly selfish, naïve, and catastrophically unwilling to learn from their mistakes. A more nuanced depiction of those with whom Smith clashed would have added depth to the book.

Oddly, while the book does deal with disease among the settlers, there is no such discussion of the role European germs might have played in the decimation of the natives. This is a disconcerting omission. Price also has an amateurish habit of unnecessarily foreshadowing events: "shortly he would disclose it", "before long, he would owe her his life several times over", and "Smith would not learn of this for a long time to come".

There are two well-rendered maps, one of the voyage from England through the West Indies and onto the North American coast, and one of the layout of Indian tribes in the large area surrounding Jamestown. A map of the colony and its immediate area would have been helpful, particularly since recent archaeological efforts have added greatly to knowledge of the site. The web site of "Jamestown Rediscovery" (http://www.apva.org/jr.html) provides a useful adjunct while reading Price's book.

Some notes on "Editorial Method" (covering the rendering of dialogue, spelling, place names, dates, etc.) follow the main text. These would have been better placed as an introduction. Readers would be advised to read these notes first.

I have no hesitation in an overall recommendation for "Love and Hate in Jamestown". It should add extensively to the general reader's understanding of a nation's beginnings and the crucial role played by one of history's most singular characters.

Rating:
Summary: Price Simplifies the Complex
Review: The literature of Jamestown exemplifies a history of frustrating complexity. This is partly because the history of Jamestown has become the playing field of propagandists (e.g. post Revolutionary Americans justifying the Revolution, as Tisdale says, by putting down the "gentlemen" of the colony) to Henry Adams, one of the otherwise great minds of America-perhaps its greatest-who admittedly set out to demolish the history of the South in the Civil War era, as Price himself points out. Romanticists have enjoyed a field day inventing a relationship that never existed between a mature John Smith and the child Pocahontas, and Smith himself is so unlikable a hero as to make an unpleasant historical subject. Add the fact that most of the productive research on Jamestown in our century has been archaeological or documentary, and add the fact that during the period concerned Jamestown officials come and go and return again, one is presented with a kaleidascope of confusion. Only with the recent publication of JAMESTOWN NARRATIVES, which arranges the sources in an order comprehensible to the gentle reader and Ivor Noel Hume's outstanding THE VIRGINIA ADVENTURE, has the picture begun to come together for any but the specialists. Bearing in mind that Hume, one of the world's top archaeologists, covers both the Roanoke settlement and Jamestown, this is the first modern book I have seen that embodies the latest research, deals only with Jamestown and does so in a way that is both accurate and readable. This is an excellent starting place for anyone who wants to understand the early colony.

I do have one very small problem with the volume. The gentlmen still come off badly. Contentious, prickly, arrogant and self interested, they undoubtedly were, but their contribution to the colony was considerable, as the adventurers who explored and fought. But this (which I must admit is my own take) is more than overcome by Price's masterful account of how John Smith, one man of rather minor status, brought order out of chaos. It is hard to like Smith, but without him, I think there would have been no Virginia. And it is very easy to like Price, who has done us the inestimable favor of,at last, bringing the threads of the tapestry together.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth More Fascinating than the Legend
Review: The love story between Pocahontas and John Smith is one of the most famous stories in American history. It is learned by schoolchildren and reinforced by movies and popular songs. At the very start of _Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation_ (Knopf), David A. Price notes that the "imaginative" Disney movie gave Pocahontas a Barbie-doll figure, a deerskin from Victoria's Secret, and Smith as a love interest. Peggy Lee sang that Pocahontas pled to her father that "He gives me fever with his kisses." It should not surprise anyone that such accounts are wrong, but the degree to which they are wrong and the intricacies of the real story, as much as we have them, make fascinating reading.

The upper-class councilors and leaders only succeeded in making Jamestown dangerous, and did not make it profitable. Smith, a commoner who had studied Machiavelli and intended to use his knowledge, got into trouble even on the voyage from England. He was actually imprisoned on the ship, for insurrection; probably he was doing nothing more than insisting that people do things his way. He learned the language and customs of the Indians. This was essential; these were not unorganized tribes, but a confederation of tribes ruled by Powhatan, an intelligent and ruthless military leader. Although Smith was only in Jamestown for little more than two years (1607- 1609), much of the book is devoted to the displays of friendship, enmity, trust, and betrayal between the two strong central characters. The third main character, Pocahontas, remains obscure in history, partially because Smith, in all his writings, had little to say about her. It does seem that she rescued him not once but twice, but at the time she was around twelve years old. While it is possible she might have had some adolescent infatuation for the powerful leader of the colonists, no historian seriously believes in a romance between them. After Smith left, due to an injury, she was captured to blackmail Powhatan, but joined the settlers. She was married to John Rolfe, a widower who gave us the blessings of tobacco as a cash crop. She sailed to England, where she and Smith had one awkward reunion, but he was able to ensure that she was not neglected by the court when he wrote a letter to Queen Anne to confirm her merits, the aid she had given the settlers, and her status as the daughter of the equivalent of an emperor. The Old World was too much for her; she died, probably of pneumonia or tuberculosis, before Rolfe could take her, against her will, back to the New.

John Smith never returned to Jamestown, although he explored and mapped New England (he gave it that name) and he was always writing books to promote further colonization. Price's book makes clear that Smith's enterprise, and the Virginia Company's, were commercial from the start; Jamestown was a company before it was a colony. As the man who saved it, Smith became memorialized as a particularly fine example of an American; Chief Justice Marshall, George Bancroft, Noah Webster, and others praised his courage, prudence, and resolution. (It might be, too, that his interest in wealth, exploitation, and self-promotion are also American characteristics.) Price is right to show that that though Smith was no Founding Father, and that the Founding Fathers did not look to him directly for an example, he had prescient views of America as a place of liberty, where one could pursue one's own purposes and passions as far as one's ability and industriousness could go.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth More Fascinating than the Legend
Review: The love story between Pocahontas and John Smith is one of the most famous stories in American history. It is learned by schoolchildren and reinforced by movies and popular songs. At the very start of _Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation_ (Knopf), David A. Price notes that the "imaginative" Disney movie gave Pocahontas a Barbie-doll figure, a deerskin from Victoria's Secret, and Smith as a love interest. Peggy Lee sang that Pocahontas pled to her father that "He gives me fever with his kisses." It should not surprise anyone that such accounts are wrong, but the degree to which they are wrong and the intricacies of the real story, as much as we have them, make fascinating reading.

The upper-class councilors and leaders only succeeded in making Jamestown dangerous, and did not make it profitable. Smith, a commoner who had studied Machiavelli and intended to use his knowledge, got into trouble even on the voyage from England. He was actually imprisoned on the ship, for insurrection; probably he was doing nothing more than insisting that people do things his way. He learned the language and customs of the Indians. This was essential; these were not unorganized tribes, but a confederation of tribes ruled by Powhatan, an intelligent and ruthless military leader. Although Smith was only in Jamestown for little more than two years (1607- 1609), much of the book is devoted to the displays of friendship, enmity, trust, and betrayal between the two strong central characters. The third main character, Pocahontas, remains obscure in history, partially because Smith, in all his writings, had little to say about her. It does seem that she rescued him not once but twice, but at the time she was around twelve years old. While it is possible she might have had some adolescent infatuation for the powerful leader of the colonists, no historian seriously believes in a romance between them. After Smith left, due to an injury, she was captured to blackmail Powhatan, but joined the settlers. She was married to John Rolfe, a widower who gave us the blessings of tobacco as a cash crop. She sailed to England, where she and Smith had one awkward reunion, but he was able to ensure that she was not neglected by the court when he wrote a letter to Queen Anne to confirm her merits, the aid she had given the settlers, and her status as the daughter of the equivalent of an emperor. The Old World was too much for her; she died, probably of pneumonia or tuberculosis, before Rolfe could take her, against her will, back to the New.

John Smith never returned to Jamestown, although he explored and mapped New England (he gave it that name) and he was always writing books to promote further colonization. Price's book makes clear that Smith's enterprise, and the Virginia Company's, were commercial from the start; Jamestown was a company before it was a colony. As the man who saved it, Smith became memorialized as a particularly fine example of an American; Chief Justice Marshall, George Bancroft, Noah Webster, and others praised his courage, prudence, and resolution. (It might be, too, that his interest in wealth, exploitation, and self-promotion are also American characteristics.) Price is right to show that that though Smith was no Founding Father, and that the Founding Fathers did not look to him directly for an example, he had prescient views of America as a place of liberty, where one could pursue one's own purposes and passions as far as one's ability and industriousness could go.

Rating:
Summary: Loving "Love and Hate in Jamestown"
Review: This is a great exploration of early American History. Price gives truly balanced picture of two of the defining characters in the history of the United States and the peoples and circumstances that surrounded them. Smith and Pocohantas both embodied the maverick spirits that were so important to the formation of our country.

"Love and Hate in Jamestown" is very readable, enjoyable, and written with seriousness and a bit of humor as well.