Following his escape, he tracked Báthory down, collecting the money and honors promised him. With the war in Transylvania over, he traveled the German duchies, France, Spain, and North Africa, before jumping a ship for England. He returned to find his homeland engulfed by colonization mania. For a man like Smith, who grew up worshipping English explorers, the chance to join an expedition was an opportunity not to be missed. It would also give him an opportunity to prove himself to his countrymen. The English nobility sneered at his hard-earned title. To them, he remained John Smith, yeoman farmer.
Smith made it a point to became friendly with the men interested in colonizing Virginia, including Henry Hudson, the famous navigator, Richard Hakluyt, a geographer, and Bartholomew Gosnold, a privateer who led the campaign to settle Virginia. In April 1606, the Virginia Company, which was financed by London's merchant class, received a royal charter granting it permission to colonize part of the east coast of North America. Smith's connections, skills, and willingness to invest his own money helped him secure a spot in the expedition and an appointment to the colony's governing council.
Smith had found the obsession with privilege a tiresome aspect of his life in England, but it became life threatening during the first year of the expedition. In December 1606, three ships carrying the expedition sailed for Virginia. The feisty Atlantic turned what should have been a month-long journey into a five-month ordeal. The slow voyage allowed disease to fester in the cramped quarters and factions to form among the colonists. When the expedition docked at the Canary Islands to take on provisions, Smith was put in chains. He was charged with plotting to murder his fellow council members and make himself king of Virginia. The records from this part of the journey are somewhat confused-and also intentionally obscure. It appears that Smith, a commoner with strong opinions, ran afoul of Edward Maria Wingfield, a gentleman and one of the lead investors. Wingfield was the type of man who expected and demanded deference from men of Smith's rank. When Smith refused to submit, Wingfield put him in chains, where he remained for the final thirteen weeks of the voyage to Virginia.
The colonists spied the coastline of Virginia on April 26, 1607. After some scouting about, for which Smith was released to assist, they settled on a site forty miles up the James River. On May 13, 1607, they founded Jamestown, Britain's first permanent settlement in North America. Food was a problem from the beginning. The long voyage had depleted most of the colony's stocks and the colonists had arrived too late in the planting season to make up for it. On top of that, the class discord that led to Smith's being shackled permeated daily life in the settlement. Many of the gentlemen refused to work-that was for laborers and tradesmen. It did not help matters that Wingfield was elected the colony's first president. Within six months, fifty colonists had died from illness stemming from a combination of bad diet, disease-bearing mosquitoes, unsuitable clothing, and heat.
Smith's refusal to let the colony starve led to his encounter with Pocahontas. He began trading for maize with the local Indians and exploring the region looking for additional food sources. In December 1607, while mapping the Chickahominy River and hunting for deer, Smith and his party were ambushed by a band of Powhatan Indians. They captured Smith and delivered him before Wahunsunacock, the Powhatan chief, to decide his fate. Differing accounts describe what happened next. One telling has Pocahontas, the chief's young daughter, placing herself between Smith and his intended executioner. Another telling suggests that Wahunsunacock, impressed with Smith's bravado, adopted him into the tribe. Whatever happened that fateful day, a friendship between Smith and Pocahontas developed and that bond kept the Jamestown colony from starving.
