Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith Argall is a historical novel by American writer William T. Vollmann, which was first published in 2001. It is the third book in a planned seven-book cycle entitled . (As of 2015, five of the seven books have been published.) "Argall" is a retelling of the founding of the Jamestown Colony and the legend of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. The novel is primarily written in flowery Elizabethan language, which was met with mixed critical reception; "The New York Times" found the language "endlessly distracting and often silly", whereas the
Nansemond the Powhatan chiefdom, which was a loose confederacy of about 30 tribes, estimated to have numbered more than 20,000 people in the coastal area of what became Virginia. They lived along the Nansemond River, an area they called "Chuckatuck". In 1607, when English people arrived to settle at Jamestown, the Nansemond were initially wary. In 1608, the English raided one of the Nansemond towns, burning houses and destroying canoes to force the people to give corn to the settlers. Captain John Smith and his men demanded 400 bushels of corn or threatened to destroy the village, remaining canoes, and houses.