John Smith Explores the Chesapeake

Captain John Smith explored the Chesapeake Bay in the early 1600s while seeking precious metals and a passage to Asia. He traveled the James, Chickahominy, and York rivers in 1607 and led two major expeditions from Jamestown in 1608. Smith and his crew sailed and rowed a primitive 30-foot boat nearly 3,000 miles, reaching as far north as the Susquehanna River. Although he did not discover gold or a river to the Pacific, his precise map and detailed observations of American Indian societies and the region’s abundant natural resources guided future explorers and settlers. At the time of his explorations, an estimated 50,000 American Indians lived in the Chesapeake region in sophisticated societies with arts and architecture, systems of government, extensive trade and communication networks, and shared spiritual beliefs. Native people hunted, fished, grew crops, and gathered food and raw materials from the land and waterways. Smith also encountered a region rich in natural life, including thick forests of giant pines, oaks, and hickories, vast marshlands, huge turtles, 800-pound sturgeon, great schools of shad and striped bass, massive flocks of ducks, geese, and swans, and enormous oyster reefs rising above the water’s surface.

Virginia · United States