“This dear bought land with so much blood and cost, hath only made some few rich, and all the rest losers.” ~John Smith, Virginia Colony, 1624

In 1607 fifteen year old Davy Warren joins the sailors “before the mast” as the expedition sails to found a colony in Virginia. As Davy’s father says, Davy’s participation in the expedition is inevitable since “every ship that ever sailed for the glory of England has carried a Warren.”

However, when young David meets the bold and bellowing Captain John Smith, and when Davy finds out what a sailor’s life is really like, he has a choice: grow up and face danger and hardship like a man or give up and go home. In fact, the choice presents itself over and over again as the founding of Jamestown becomes an exercise in survival punctuated by Indian attacks, starvation, disease, and violence and thievery among the settlers themselves. David goes back and forth from hero-worship to hatred for the man who manages, by hook or by crook, to hold the colony together, Captain John Smith.

John Smith was an enigmatic character: was he a born leader or a blustering liar? Or both? Many of the stories that he wrote down about his own life seem a little too big and heroic to be true, but some of those seemingly inflated stories turn out to have been very little, if at all, embellished. As a young man, John Smith was a mercenary, captured by the Ottoman Turks, sold into slavery, and somehow escaped. He became a leader among the Jamestown settlers who trusted him enough to elect him “president” of the colony in 1608. Smith did require all of the settlers, even the gentlemen, to work, saying “He that will not work, shall not eat.”

This work of historical fiction by Newbery award winning author Jean Latham takes a charitable and admiring view of Captain John Smith and a mostly disparaging view of the other leaders of the Jamestown colony. Davy learns to be a man who can be depended upon. And the Jamestown colony itself survives in spite of sword, sickness, and famine. It’s a heroic, violent, tragic, and inspiring story, and this fictionalized version of true events is well worth reading for adults and for children ages ten and up.

“We called it a free land, didn’t we? It was not free. It was dear-bought. But we have paid the price.” ~Captain John Smith, This Dear-Bought Land.

Oh, by the way, this book is selling for $40.00 or $50.00, used, on Amazon and other used book selling sites. I am told that BJU Press is currently working to obtain the rights to reprint the book, so the price may go down. In the meantime, it is well worth the time and effort to at least borrow the book from your local library, if they have a copy, or via interlibrary loan. You can also borrow a digital copy at Internet Archive.