Peninsula In Passage

John Smith 1608 Nansemond Encounter In 1607 The Virginia Company charged John Smith to search for the colonists of Roanoke Island as he explored the Chesapeake Bay area. They had been missing for 21 years. The next year Smith sailed and mapped over 3000 miles of shoreline along the entire Chesapeake Bay. He searched for clues of the Roanoke survivors and questioned tribes. Unaware that the Chesapeakes had been annihilated, Smith, on a second Chesapeake Bay excursion between July 24 and September 7, 1608, decided to visit them and the Nansemonds. Smith later wrote of spending a stormy night near Point Comfort. The following morning they set off to search out the Chispeacks and Nandsamunds and sailed up a narrow river which was the present day Elizabeth River. It hath a good channel, but many shoals about the entrance. By that we had sailed six or seven miles, we saw two or three little garden plots with their houses, the shores overgrown with the greatest pine and fir trees we ever saw in the country. But not seeing nor hearing any people, and the river very narrow, we returned to the great river to see if we could find any of them. Smith then headed for the Nansemond. Coasting the shore towards Nandsamund, which is most oyster banks at the mouth of that river we espied six or seven savages making their weirs, who presently fled. The party traveled seven or eight miles up the Nansemond where they spotted large cornfields on the western shore and a “ little isle, and it was abundance of corn.” Smith met a small group of Nansemonds and traded “ such things as they seemed contented ” The Nansemonds said that most of their group was away hunting and asked Smith to travel farther up the river. He agreed and rowed up to where the river narrows considerably, perhaps beyond Sack Point. It was there where seven or eight canoes of warriors, as well as warriors from the shore, shot arrows at Smith and his party. The explorers shot back with their muskets and most of the Nansemonds fled behind the trees. Over 100 arrows hit Smith’s boat but none of the explorers were injured.

John H. Sheally II

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