Name: __________________________________________
Jamestown and Captain John Smith Part 1
Zing! Zup! Zing! Zup!
What was that noise? A man had just stepped outside the
Jamestown palisade (fort walls). He stopped in his tracks and
looked quickly over his shoulder. He saw two arrows sticking in the
side of the palisade. The Indians were after him, and he had left his
gun in the fort. He started to run back and felt a sharp pain in his
shoulder. An arrow had hit him. He stumbled over something. It was his hat. One of the
Indians had shot it off, and an arrow was sticking through the top of it. Somehow he got back
to the fort alive! The Jamestown men were always in danger. There were hundreds of Indians
around them in the Virginia forest. They hid in tall grass and watched Jamestown. When a
settler came out of the fort, they shot at him. Once a man crept back into the fort with five
arrows sticking into his body.
The settlers were often hungry. They did not raise enough food in the Jamestown
garden. There were deer and wild turkeys in the forest, and the settlers needed meat. If
hunters went into the forest, Indians might dart out to kill or capture them. It was not safe to
go fishing either. But sometimes the Indians seemed friendly and wanted to trade with the
Englishmen. They would bring them deer and baskets of corn and beans. The settlers would
have starved to death if they had not traded with the Indians.
The best trader at Jamestown was Captain John Smith. He initiated, or started, trading
relationships with the native peoples. Captain Smith was a strong, brave man and a good
soldier. He had keen blue eyes and red hair and a big red beard. He loved adventure and did
not wait at Jamestown for a few Indians to come there to trade. He thought he could get
more food if he went to see the Indians in their own towns.
One day, Captain Smith and some of the other settlers put beads and hatchets and
knives in the Jamestown boat, the Discovery, and sailed along the James River. They knew
that the Indians wanted English hatchets and knives, because they were made of metal. When
Captain Smith came to an Indian town, he stopped to trade. The Indians saw his trading goods
and brought out their corn. The native peoples, Indians, traded mainly food with the English in
exchange for tools, pots, and copper for jewelry. At first, they did not bring enough corn.
Captain Smith made them bring more. At last, he had all the corn his boat could carry, and he
sailed back to Jamestown.
Directions: Circle the best answer or write an answer neatly on the lines to answer each
question.
1. What were Jamestown’s fort walls
called?
A. marinade
B. palisade
C. protective shields
D. bulwarks
2. What was NOT a difficulty the
Jamestown settlers encountered?
A. unfriendly Indians attacking them
B. starvation, since they did not grow
enough food
C. Indians not trading enough corn
D. the Discovery was not a fast
enough boat
3. What does the word initiate mean?
A. to belong
B. to save
C. to start
D. to show bravery
4. Who was Jamestown’s best trader?
A. Captain John Smith
B. Pocahontas
C. John Rolfe
D. Sam Collier
5. Why did the Indians want to trade
their corn for hatchets and knives?
A. They needed them to kill the
English.
B. They liked shiny things.
C. They needed sharp tools to make
their longhouses.
D. They did not have metal.
6. Why might the Indians attack the
English settlers?
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7. Why were the settlers needing to
trade with the Indians?
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8. What is one reason why John Smith
was important to the survival of
Jamestown?
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9. What character quality did Captain
John Smith show by not returning to
the fort until he enough corn?
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