Captain John Smith (c. January 1580 – June 21, 1631), the Admiral of New England, was an influential English soldier, explorer, and author. He is best known for founding the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, and for his intriguing connection with the Virginia Indian girl Pocahontas amid tensions with the Powhatan Confederacy. Serving as a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, Smith embarked on extensive explorations of Virginias rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. His writings and maps greatly inspired further English colonization of the New World. He coined the name New England, urging settlers with the inspiring notion that Here every man may be master and owner of his own labour and land. After multiple attempts to revisit the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts Bay, including being captured by French pirates, he returned to England and published his adventures in A Description of New England. He never ventured back across the Atlantic, passing away in London in 1631 at the age of 51. (Introduction by Wikipedia)