Smith was renamed "Venture" by Robinson Mumford, who was his first white enslaver. Mumford decided to call him "Venture" because he considered purchasing him to be a business venture. Mumford bought Venture with four gallons of rum and a piece of calico. After regaining his freedom, Smith adopted his last name from Oliver Smith (the last person to enslave him). In his narrative, Smith describes his people in his native country as having been generally of great bodily stature, stout and tall. And he reports that he personally was well over tall, weighed , and carried an axe for felling trees. This is confirmed by the archaeological project in 2007 and the runaway ad from 1754.