Captain John Smith and the ARIES Project
Welcome to the UK Website of the ARIES (American Roots in English Soil) Project, set up to celebrate Captain John Smith's contribution to the first permanent English Speaking Colony on Jamestown Island, Virginia, in 1607. The people of the United States of America commemorated their 400th Birthday in May, 2007. This project is our contribution to that commemoration and to the events which followed. The project is based in Louth, where Smith went to school, in the English County of Lincolnshire.
The site gives a brief history of the span of John Smith's life, from 1580 to 1631, covering all the early English settlements, from Jamestown to the Pilgrim Fathers and the establishment of Boston, Massachusetts. The ARIES Project has also published short illustrated accounts of the lives of John Smith, Pocahontas, John Rolfe, Christopher Newport, Bartholomew Gosnold, William Brewster of the Pilgrim Fathers and William Wilberforce. These books, written and illustrated with the help of schools, tell the stories of the brave men and women, from Lincolnshire and the East of England, who crossed the Atlantic to contribute to the settlement of America, or who made a significant contribution to world history in other ways. To buy the books, click on the books page. There are also links to the services which the Project can offer to schools and to the support which the project is giving to the development of heritage tourism in the region.. A central aim of the project is to make the rich heritage of Lincolnshire and Eastern England better known through speakers willing to give talks to community groups.
The statue of Captain John Smith on Jamestown Island today
The site is sponsored by Julian Bower Associates Ltd, Julian Bower House, Louth, Lincolnshire LN11 9QN, an educational and historical consultancy company. Last updated
2 February 2008