The hero began as the classic definition. Strong. Bold. Powerful. The one who sacrifices himself to save others, and looks good while doing it. The hero was the colonizer of America, the creator of the first settlements, and the advocate of religion.
The hero was John Smith, who assisted in establishing the first permanent colony in Jamestown, Virginia and who used his writing to encourage others to do the same. His hero status was immortalized through stories, which often tended to ignore the harsh realities of colonial life (Belasco 93). However, it did not seem to matter that John Smith’s escapades were looked at through rose-colored glasses. The world needed a hero, and with a little tweaking, John Smith fit role.
Cotton Mather, while not a really a true hero, did try to emulate the heroic qualities of saving others and upholding religion in his involvement with the Salem witch trials. He sympathized with the unsaved and defended the trials as being the only way to save the people of Salem (Belasco 201). Mather did not lead like a hero; he was not powerful like a hero, but his written accounts of the witch trials were a way for Puritans to “take the Truth just as it was” and find it “may serve to illustrate the way of Dealing, wherein Witchcrafts use to be concerned…” (Mather 204) It seems, in heroic fashion, that Mather hoped his writing would save those who were good.
