Captain John Smith was born in Willoughby, Lincolnshire, England, sometime at the end of 1579 or the beginning of 1580, the son of George and Alice Smith. He was baptized on 9 January 1580 and died at the age of fifty-one, 21 June 1631. Apart from his baptism and the dates of his voyages to America, most of the events of Smith's adventurous life have been the subject of controversy. Since Smith's most important works are, to a great extent, autobiographical, a survey of his adventures may serve as a summary of his major works.

According to The true Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith (1630), he attended "the free schools" at Alford and Louth (Lincolnshire), but "His parents dying when he was about thirteen years of age, left him a competent meanes, which he not being capable to manage, little regarded; his mind being even then set upon brave adventures, should his...