[In my continuing effort to combat the Left’s historical revisionism (or outright elimination) of Western Civilization in general and American history specifically, I provide the following original source in defense of the much maligned, uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving. In this transcription a tract written by Captain John Smith describing his first exploratory expedition:]
Captain John Smith
“Some of the most desired seventeenth century luxuries – silk, spices, dates, figs – were obtained from the Orient and elsewhere only with great difficulty and expense. Tales of the rich produce found in the New World raised hopes that such commodities could be secured there easily and profitably. But interest decreased when more realistic reports became known. Still, a number of men continued colonization efforts, promoting the less glamorous products of the region, such as furs, timbers, and fish. Captain John Smith conducted an exploration party along the New England coast in 1614. As a result of this venture, he wrote the tract:
A Description of New England (1616)
The ground is so fertile that doubtless it is capable of producing any grain, fruits, or seeds you will sow or plant, but it may be that not every kind of plant will grow to such a perfection of delicacy. Some tender plants may not live because the summer is not very hot and the winter is colder in those parts near the sea than we find at the same latitude in Europe or Asia. Yet, I made a garden upon the top of a rocky island in 43º30’N, four leagues from the mainland , in May, that grew so well that it provided us salads in June and July.
All sorts of cattle may be bred here and fed in the islands or peninsulas, safely for nothing. In the interim, until they begin to increase, if need be (observing the seasons) I would undertake to have enough corn for 300 men from the savages for a few trifles, and if the savages should be hostile(as it is most certain they are), thirty or forty good men will be sufficient to bring them all to subjection. If they understand what they do, a provision can be made whereby 200 can be employed nine months of the year in making merchantable fish, until the rest provide other necessities, fit to furnish us with more commodities.
In March, April, May, and half of June, cod is here in abundance; in May, June, July, and August, mullet and sturgeons, whose roe makes caviar, and puttargo [botargo], If any desire them, I have taken many herring out of the bellies of cods and some I caught in nets. The savages compare their store in the sea to the hairs of their heads, and surely there is an incredible abundance upon this coast. In the end of August, and in September , October, and November, you have cod once again to make corfish [salt fish] or Poor John; each hundred cod is as good as two or three hundred in Newfoundland. Half the labor of hooking, splitting, and turning is saved, and you may have your fish at whatever market you will before they can have any in Newfoundland, where their fishing is chiefly in June and July, whereas it is here in March, April, May, September, October, and November, as I said. So that by reason of this plantation, the merchants may have freight both to export and to sell at home, yielding an advantage worth consideration.
Your corfish you may in like manner transport as you see fit, to serve the ports in Portugal, and diverse others, or what market you please, before the islanders return – they being tied to the season in open sea. You having a double season, and fishing before your doors, may sleep every night on shore with good cheer and what fires you will, or when you please with your wives and families. The islanders must remain on their ships in the main ocean.
The mullets here are in such abundance that you may take them in nets, sometimes by the hundreds, where at Cape Blank they hook them, and they are only a foot and a half in length. I have often measured these at two, three, or four feet. Some men have found many salmon up the rivers, as they have passed. Here the air is so temperate that salmon may well be preserved at any time. Young savage boys and girls, or any others, not being idlers, may turn, carry, and return fish, without either shame or any great pain. He is very idle who is past twelve years of age and cannot do very much, and she is very old who cannot spin a thread to make engines [traps] to catch them.
For their [settlers] transportation, the ships that go to fish may transport the first [settlers], who for their passage will spare the charge of double manning their ships, which they must do in Newfoundland to get their freight; but one-third of that company is only fit to serve a stage, carry a barrow, and turn Poor John, notwithstanding, they must have meat, drink, clothes, and passage, as well as the rest. …..
Their ships returning home, they should leave such things with me (with the value of what they should receive coming home), as provisions and necessary tools, arms, bedding, and apparel, salt, hooks, nets, lines, and suchlike as they can spare of the remainings. Until the next return these persons will keep their boats and do for them many other profitable offices.
I must have men of ability to teach them their duties, and a company fit for soldiers to be ready upon occasion because of the abuses against the poor savages, and the liberty with which the French and others deal with them as they please. These disorders will be hard to reform, and the longer the worse. Such order might be taken with facility if every port town or city observes but this order, and with free power converts the benefits of their freights to what advantage they please and increases their numbers as they see occasion Whoever are able to subsist of themselves may begin new towns in New England in memory of their old towns. This freedom is confined but to the necessity of the general good, and the event, (with God’s help) might produce an honest, a noble, and a profitable emulation.
Salt upon salt may assuredly be made, if not first in ponds, at least, until they be provided; this may be used. Then the ships may transport cattle, horses, goats, coarse cloth, and such commodities as we want. When these things arrive, the ships can return with a freight of fish, so if the sailors go for wages it matters not. It is hard if this return does not defray the charges, but care must be had that they arrive in the spring, or else provision must be made for them in the winter.
Certain red berries called alkermes, worth 10s. a pound, but which have been sold for 30s. or 40s. a pound, may yearly be gathered in good quantities.
Muskrat may be raised for profit and is well worth the labor. Six or seven thousand beavers, otters, martens, black foxes, and furs of value may be had a year, and if the trade of the French were prevented, many more. This year, 25,000 were brought from those northern parts into France. We may have as good a part of the trade as the French, if we take good measures.
Of mines of gold, silver, and copper, and the probabilities of lead, crystal, and alum, I could say much if stories were good assurances. It is true I made many trials according to those instructions I had, which persuade me that I need not despair, and that there are metals in the country. But I am no alchemist, nor will promise more than I know. Who will undertake the rectifying of an iron forge if those that buy meat, drink, coals, ore, and all necessities at a dear rate do profit? Where all these things are to be had for the taking up, in my opinion one cannot lose.
There is plenty of all kinds of woods, and all other provisions for the nourishing of man’s life. If those that build ships and boats buy wood at as great a price as it is in England, Spain, France, Italy, and Holland, they will live well by their trade, when all that is required to take those necessities, without any other tax, is labor. There is no hazard and they will do much better. And what commodity in Europe decays more than wood?
For the goodness of the ground, let us take it fertile, or barren, or as it is, . The same for the sea, where several sorts of fishes I have related. seeing it is certain it bears fruits to nourish and feed man and beast as well as England
Thus, seeing that all go0d provisions for man’s sustenance may with facility be had by a little extraordinary labor until more has been transported; and that all necessities for shipping can be had but for the labor; to which may be added the assistance of the savages which may be easily had if they be discreetly handled in their kinds toward fishing, planting, and destroying woods– what gains might be raised if this were followed may easily be conjectured. (When there are but once men to fill your storehouses, swelling there, you may serve all Europe better and far cheaper than can the Iceland fisherman, or those of Holland, Cape Blank, or Newfoundland, who must be at much more charge than you.)
Two thousand pounds will fit out one ship of 200 and one of 100 tons. If they both have freight of dry fish and go to Spain and sell it at 10s, a quintal, commonly going for 15s or 20s, (especially when it comes first to the market), this amounts to L3,000 or L4,000 – but say at 10s , which is the lowest, allowing the rest for waste – it amounts at that rate to L2,000, which is the whole charge of your two ships and their equipage. The return of the money, and the freight of the ship for the vintage, or any other voyage, is clear gain. ….besides the beavers and other commodities. And that you may have at home within six months, if God please but to send on ordinary passage [good winds and weather].
Then staying half this charge by your ships not staying, your victuals, oversupply of men and wages, with the freight of things necessary for the planters, the salt being made there….if nothing were to be expected but this, it might equal your Hollander gains, if not exceed them. They return but wood, pitch, tar, and such gross commodities, you return wines, oils, fruits, silks, and such straight commodities as you please to provide by your factors, against such times as your ships arrive with them. This would increase our shipping and sailors, and employ and encourage a great part of our idlers and others that want employment, fitting their qualities at home where they are ashamed to do what they would do abroad. If they could but once taste the sweet fruits of their own labors, doubtless many thousands would be advised by good discipline to take more pleasure in honest industry than in their humors of dissolute idleness.
The most northern part I was at was the Bay of Penobscot, which is – east, west, north, and south – more than ten leagues. But such were my occasions, I was constrained to be satisfied by those [persons] I found in the Bay, that the river ran far up into the land and was well inhabited with many people, but they were away from their habitations, either fishing among the isles or hunting the lakes and woods for deer and beavers. The Bay is full of islands, of one, two, six, eight, or ten miles in length, which divide it into many fair and excellent harbors.
And then the country of the Massachusetts, which is the paradise of all those parts. Here are many isles all planted with corn, groves, mulberries, savage gardens, and good harbors. The coast is, for the most part, high clay and sand cliffs. The seacoast as you pass show you all along large cornfields and great troops of well-proportioned people.
We found the people in those parts very kind but in their fury no less valiant. Upon a quarrel we had with one of them, he along with three others crossed the harbor of Quonahassit to certain rocks whereby we must pass. There they let fly their arrows for our shot, until we were out of range.” – from The Annals of America, Vol. 1, p. 36
[Note: Part II will contain Captain John Smith’s diary describing the incredible hardships suffered by the colonists at Jamestown during the winter of 1608-1609 (called “The Starving Time”). ….Making one ask the question “Why, in the midst of such bounty, did they suffer? And, in particular, starve? I italicized portions of both documents to direct the reader to the possible causes.]
