“Without John Smith, who believed that God providentially orders history and that his own preservation could only be explained by the divine protection so evident throughout his life, the English colony at Jamestown in Virginia would have perished in ignominy and defeat at its very beginning in 1607.  Smith learned the Algonquian language enough to establish the precedents for dealing with the Powhatan natives of the Virginia coast, served as Governor of the Virginia Colony, and wrote the detailed history of early English America. Both Smith and William Gilmore Simms (author of this biography) have been ignored or forgotten by the keepers of the American historical flame.”
— William Potter, Historian