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Die verhaal van Stephen Hopkins, wat 'n skipbreuk in Bermuda, 'n paar jaar in Jamestown, oorleef het en op die Mayflower na Amerika teruggekeer het.
A Tale of Two Cities: Jamestown, Plymouth en die American Way
Aanvang van die pelgrims
Teen die tyd dat dit alles gesê en gedoen is, was baie min jare so belangrik soos 2020. Tussen pandemies, onluste, verkiesings en meer, is dit maklik om die pad te vergeet wat Amerika gelei het tot die posisie waarin sy haar vandag bevind. Namate ons historiese geheue verdamp in 'n wêreld van onmiddellike inligting, sal baie dit 'n verrassing vind dat 2020 ons ook een van die beste redes is om as Amerikaners te vier. Hierdie jaar is die 400ste herdenking van die pelgrims wat op ons oewers geland het.
Hierdie klein groepie godsdienstige dissidente tref ons kwalik as die helde van 'n groot historiese epos wat oor vier eeue, duisende kilometers en miljoene mense strek, maar dit is geen oordrywing om te sê dat hul moedige reis die rigting van die wêreld fundamenteel verander het nie. Die klein begin by Plymouth Rock verteenwoordig die spreekwoordelike mosterdsaad wat uiteindelik tot 'n magtige boom van vryheid sou groei.
Die pelgrimsverhaal handel oor geloof deur swaarkry en volharding deur vervolging. Hulle was die eerste om hul risiko te waag "Lewens, fortuine en heilige eer" vir die vestiging van vryheid aan Amerikaanse oewers. [i] Vanweë hul godsdienstige oortuigings wat verskil van die staatsopdragte wat deur die koning gestel is, is hulle vervolg en onderdruk. William Bradford, die toekomstige goewerneur van Plymouth, het verduidelik hoe, 'Sommige is geneem en in die gevangenis opgeklap, ander het hul huise omring en nag en dag dopgehou en skaars aan hul hande ontsnap.'[ii]
Na jare van teistering, is hierdie gemeente van vrome andersdenkendes uiteindelik in 1607 deur die outoritêre King James uit Engeland verjaag en twaalf jaar lank na die stad Leiden, Holland, gevlug. Alhoewel hulle nie meer in Engeland gewoon het nie, het hulle steeds geroepe gevoel om hul landgenote te bedien, en die pelgrimleier William Brewster het op godsdienstige wyse godsdienstige boeke begin druk wat dan na Engeland teruggesmokkel sou word. Nodeloos om te sê dat hulle smokkelkuns en 'onwettige' toespraak die koning en amptenare in die Church of England woedend gemaak het. Alhoewel hulle in die heel ander land Holland nog steeds nie vry was van die bereik van die koning van Engeland nie, stuur hy agente om te ontdek wie vir hierdie 'gevaarlike' menings verantwoordelik is. [Iii]
By die ontdekking van die pers van William Brewster in Leiden, het King James begin druk op die regerende owerhede om die Pilgrim -enklawe in te val. Die pelgrims het 'n afvaardiging na Engeland gestuur om die gevaarlikheid van hul situasie te sien, om 'n kompromis te bereik waarin hulle na Amerika sou reis in ruil vir hul godsdiensvryheid. Wonderbaarlik het hulle 'n ooreenkoms bekom wat hulle die geleentheid gebied het om hul oortuigings uit te oefen sonder inmenging van die Koning, hoewel hulle in ruil daarvoor vyftig persent van hul verdienste aan die kroon moes gee. [Iv]
Met hierdie plan moes die pelgrims 'n nuwe koers deur gevaarlike waters bepaal. Sommige het besluit om agter te bly en ander kon nie kom nie. Toe kon een van hul bote nie die rit onderneem nie - moontlik as gevolg van sabotasie - sodat nog meer van die pelgrimstog gehou word. Teen die tyd dat die Mayflower, alleen alleen, die versameling Pilgrims and Strangers (die naam wat aan die ander koloniste gegee is wat nie deel was van die andersdenkendes nie), het slegs 104 siele van die oewer van die Ou Wêreld af gekom. [v] Soos Alexis de Tocqueville so beskryf het goed in sy monumentale werk, Demokrasie in Amerika, het die pelgrims gesoek, '' 'N land so barbaars en so verlate deur die wêreld dat hulle nog steeds toegelaat kan word om daar te woon op hul manier en in vryheid tot God te bid.'[vi]
Gedurende die volgende jaar, van die reis na die eerste danksegging, het die pelgrims gely onder ontelbare ontberings wat baie van die mans, vroue en kinders geleidelik doodgemaak het. Hulle omstandighede was so erg en so verwoestend dat die resultate dat hulle uiteindelik die eerste suksesvolle oes saam met hul inheemse bondgenote gevier het, amper 50 pelgrims oorleef het. binne die konteks van die Nuwe Wêreld word dit onteenseglik wonderbaarlik.
Voor die ontdekking van die Nuwe Wêreld deur Christopher Columbus, het die Indiane grotendeels in 'n toestand van byna voortdurende en bloedige konflik geleef. Stam teen stam, nasie teen nasie, die Indiërs het oorlog gevoer oor hulpbronne, grond en eer. Kannibalisme, slawerny en menslike opoffering was ongelukkig algemeen. [Viii] Landbouleer was nog in die vroeë ontwikkelingsfase en tegnologies was dit eeue agter Europa toe die twee beskawings mekaar ontmoet het. Die inboorlinge het inderdaad items soos buskruit, vaartuie vir seevaart of selfs vervoer op wiele ontbreek. Daar bestaan nie iets soos die vreedsame en rustige “edele woeste” nie. Die inheemse Amerikaners was baie mense - onteenseglik gebrekkig en het in alle opsigte die verlossende offer van Christus net soveel nodig as almal.
Ondertekening van die Mayflower Compact
Op hierdie land het die geharde pelgrims - uitgeworpenes uit hul vaderland en vlugtelinge uit tiranne - hul hoop gevestig. Hulle visie was tweeledig. Aan die een kant het hulle gehoop om 'n huis vir hulself en hul kinders op te rig waar hulle God op hul eie manier kon aanbid in plaas daarvan dat hulle deur die Koning hul godsdienstige oortuigings moes voorskryf. Aan die ander kant wou die pelgrims opreg die hoop van die Christendom aan die inheemse mense bring. [Ix] Die Mayflower Compact het verduidelik dat alles wat hulle opgeoffer het, alles wat hulle gely het en alles wat hulle gewaag het, vir "Die heerlikheid van God en die vooruitgang van die Christelike geloof."[x]
Hierdie doelwitte het veroorsaak dat die pelgrims baie ontwikkelings en vooruitgang gemaak het op die gebied van regering, onderwys, godsdiensvryheid, menseregte en politieke vryheid. Wat die betrekkinge met die omliggende inheemse Amerikaanse stamme betref, het die Christelike fondament van die Pelgrim hulle in staat gestel om die langdurigste vredesverdrag in die vroeë Amerikaanse geskiedenis te sluit en suksesvol met evangelisasie te begin. [Xi] Deur die Bybel as gids te neem vir elke belangrike aspek van lewe - 'n kaart vir die skepping wat deur die Skepper geskryf is - het die Pelgrims die vrye mark ingestel, die institusionele onafhanklikheid van die kerk van die regering se voorskrifte, sterker beskerming vir privaat eiendom en openbare onderwys. [xii] In 1641 het hulle ook moontlik geslaag die eerste anti-slawernywet op die vasteland wat 'mens-steel' 'n groot oortreding maak. [xiii]
Trouens, toe 'n slaweskip in 1646 na hulle kom, vervolg die Pelgrims die slawe en bevry hulle van die slawe. [Xiv] Alhoewel dit ver van perfek was - want almal het tekortgeskiet en gesondig (sien Romeine 3:23) - die vroeë begin van sentiment teen slawerny het uiteindelik daartoe gelei dat die New England-gebied die eerste plekke in die moderne wêreld was om slawerny af te skaf, met Massachusetts wat die instelling spesifiek in 1783 beëindig het-'n volle 50 jaar voor Engeland, wat die eerste onafhanklike nasie was wat slawerny afgeskaf het. [ xv]
Die pelgrims was egter nie die enigste mense wat die Nuwe Wêreld gekoloniseer het nie. Soos Tocqueville opgemerk het, bevat Amerika, "Twee belangrikste uitlopers wat tot op hede gegroei het sonder om heeltemal verward te wees - een in die suide, die ander in die noorde."[xvi] In 1607 het 'n groep handelaars en handelaars grond beset wat hulle in die nuwe wêreld gegee is deur die koning van Engeland wat die kolonie Jamestown, Virginia, gestig het. Met verskillende motiverings, begeertes en hoop, het die koloniste van Jamestown dramaties anders opgetree as die latere pelgrims.
In plaas daarvan om godsdiensvry te wees, het die Jamestown -koloniste grootliks as agente van die koning gekom met die oog op ekonomiese wins en handel. Slawerny is dus vroeg in Jamestown ingebring en beskerm deur hul wetlike kodes. Hulle verhouding met die inheemse stamme was aansienlik meer omstrede, tragies en oorlogsugtig. Die gebrek aan 'n Bybelse struktuur en geestelike motiverings het 'n heel ander omgewing geskep.
Uit hierdie twee sade het twee mededingende bome ontstaan wat albei probeer het om die vrugbare land wat uiteindelik die Verenigde State geword het, te oorheers. Van Jamestown af begin die krom en perverse Boom van Slawerny oor die jong land kruip. Uit Plymouth het 'n ander soort plant egter wortelgeskiet. Op grond van hul toewyding aan die Bybel, bot die Vryheidsboom eers op die veld wat deur die pelgrims geploeg is. Soos die Skrif sê, "'N boom word geken aan sy vrugte," (Matteus 12:33), en die produk van Jamestown en Plymouth verskil drasties van mekaar.
Hierdie kaart uit 1888 illustreer hierdie tweeledigheid in die Amerikaanse identiteit perfek - 'n verhaal van twee stede. Die kaart is slegs 'n generasie na die burgeroorlog geskep, wat self maar die rampspoedige stryd was tussen die erfgename van die verskillende filosofieë van Jamestown en Plymouth. Dit is ontwerp om hul kinders te leer oor die geskiedenis agter die oorlog, en vind die erfenis van die suide terug na Jamestown en die noorde na Plymouth. Om verder te gaan, beklemtoon die kaart die fundamentele verskil tussen die doel om elke kolonie te stig. Terwyl Jamestown gestig is vir mammon [wêreldse rykdom], is Plymouth op die Bybel geplant.
Uit hierdie twee baie verskillende plekke het twee bome oor die land gespruit en gestrek. Uit Jamestown het die boom van slawerny gegroei, waarvan die vergiftigde takke pyn, lyding en boosheid veroorsaak. Die vrug van slawerny sluit in: gierigheid, wellus, onkunde, bygeloof, sedisie, afstigting, verraad en rebellie. Almal wat onberouvol van hierdie boom eet, word gewaarsku dat hul eindbestemming beslis die hel sal wees.
Die ander saad, die een wat in Plymouth geplant is, lei tot 'n heel ander soort banket. The Tree of Liberty produseer: vryskole, intelligensie, kennis, gehoorsaamheid aan die wet, vrye spraak, gelyke regte, tevredenheid, liefde vir die land, die industrie, filantropie, nugterheid, welwillendheid, moraliteit, geluk, geregtigheid, geduld, deug, liefdadigheid, waarheid , geloof, eer, hoop, vrede, vreugde en lig. Uiteindelik neem diegene wat aan hierdie boom deelneem ten minste die smaak van onsterflikheid, want sulke dinge spruit alles uit die fontein van Christus.
Vandag bevind Amerikaners hulle op 'n skip wat aan alle kante omring en beleër is deur onstuimige storms en golwe wat neerstort. Diegene wat hierdie boot gebou het, die Founding Fathers, het dit stewig en met groot wysheid gemaak, maar dit is aan ons om te besluit waar ons aan wal gaan - en in watter stad sal ons vertrek. Sal dit Jamestown of Plymouth wees? Van watter boom sal ons die vrugte neem?
Daar is baie mense wat vandag die boom van slawerny as sekuriteit beskou. Daar is slange wat rondkruip en baie mense bedrieg met 'n klinkende onsin. “Jy sal beslis nie sterf nie!” (Genesis 3: 4). Maar die dood sal die minste van ons kommer wees as ons die pad kies. Die hartseer en tragiese geskiedenis van Duitsland, Rusland, Venezuela en nog baie meer getuig van wat gebeur as nasies eet van die vrug van slawerny en onderdrukking. Ons moet ook nie mislei word nie.
Ons moet weer 'n koers inslaan na die Boom van Vryheid. Dit is ongetwyfeld die moeiliker van die twee paaie. Die reis na hierdie New Plymouth kan gevaarlik wees, ons kan deur ontelbare ontberings gepla word, en daar is geen waarborg dat ons almal die eerste gevaarlike winter sal haal nie - maar vryheid is onvervangbaar. Dit is slegs in 'n staat van vryheid dat die mensdom die bewering dat "Alle mense is gelyk geskape en deur hul Skepper toegerus met sekere onvervreembare regte."[xvii]
Laat ons op die 400ste herdenking van ons pelgrimvoorvaders hierdie klein saadjie van vryheid plant in 'n wêreld van tirannie en onderdrukking "Kombineer en sluit ons saam"[xviii] weereens om hul boom in 'n boord te verander sodat almal aan hierdie fees van vryheid kan deelneem. As ons ywerig werk, sal die oes ons toelaat om uiteindelik 'n nuwe dag van opregte en opregte danksegging saam te voeg, net soos daardie vrome helde ongeveer vier eeue gelede.
[i] "'n Verklaring deur die verteenwoordigers van die Verenigde State van Amerika," 1776, Die Grondwette van die Verskeie State van Amerika Die Onafhanklikheidsverklaring (Philadelphia: J. Stockdale, 1782), 5, hier.
[ii] William Bradford, Die geskiedenis van Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), 10.
[iii] Ashbel Steele, Hoof van die pelgrims: Of die lewe en tyd van William Brewster (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott en Co., 1857), 171-180, hier.
[iv] William Bradford, Die geskiedenis van Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), 46.
[v] 'Lys van Mayflower -passasiers', Society of Mayflower -afstammelinge in die staat New York: Vierde rekordboek (Oktober 1912): 167-178, hier.
[vi] Alexis de Tocqueville, vert. Harvey Mansfield, Demokrasie in Amerika (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 32.
[vii] Walter Wheeler, 'N Geïllustreerde gids vir die historiese Plymouth Massachusetts (Boston: The Union News Company, 1921), 57-58, hier.
[viii] Sien byvoorbeeld Jonathan Richie, "Before the West was Won: Pre-Columbian Morality," Muurbouers (12 Oktober 2019), besoek op 1 Desember 2020: hier Fernando Santos-Granero, Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 226-227.
[ix] Joseph Banvard, Plymouth en die pelgrims (Boston: Gould en Lincoln, 1851), 25.
[x] Henry Dexter, redakteur, Mourt's Relation of Journal of the Pilgrims in Plymouth (Boston: John Kimball Wiggin, 1865), 6.
[xi] David Bushnell, "Die behandeling van die Indiane in Plymouth -kolonie," Die New England Quarterly 26, nee. 2 (1953): 193-194, 207, hier.
[xii] Vgl. David Barton en Tim Barton, Die Amerikaanse verhaal: die begin (Aledo: WallBuilders Press, 2020), 79-80.
[xiii] Francis Bowen, redakteur, Dokumente van die Grondwet van Engeland en Amerika, van Magna Charta tot die Federale Grondwet van 1789, (Cambridge: John Bartlett, 1854), 72 sien ook, Jonathan Richie, "America's Exceptional History of Anti-Slavery", Muurbouers (6 April 2020), besoek op 1 Desember 2020: hier.
[xiv] Nathaniel Shurtleff, Rekords van die goewerneur en geselskap van die Massachusettsbaai in New England (Boston: William Whites, 1853), 1.168, 176.
[xv] Vir meer inligting, sien Jonathan Richie, 'America's Exceptional History of Anti-Slavery', Muurbouers (6 April 2020), besoek op 1 Desember 2020: hier.
[xvi] Alexis de Tocqueville, vert. Harvey Mansfield, Demokrasie in Amerika (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 30.
[xvii] "'n Verklaring deur die verteenwoordigers van die Verenigde State van Amerika," 1776, Die Grondwette van die Verskeie State van Amerika Die Onafhanklikheidsverklaring (Philadelphia: J. Stockdale, 1782), 1, hier.
[xviii] Henry Dexter, redakteur, Mourt's Relation of Journal of the Pilgrims in Plymouth (Boston: John Kimball Wiggin, 1865), 5-7.
'Jamestown en Plymouth soortgelyke' opstelle en navorsingsartikels
Die kolonies van Jamestown en Plymouth was een van die eerstes wat in die Nuwe Wêreld ontwikkel het. Die oorspronklike setlaars van Jamestown het die Chesapeake -baai ingevaar en teen 'n rivier, wat hulle die James genoem het. Die setlaars van Plymouth was oorspronklik na die Hudson -gebied in New York, maar weens die komende winter moes hulle in 'n gebied rondom Cape Cod bly. Hierdie twee nedersettings het deur baie jare en baie probleme tot suksesvolle samelewings ontwikkel, hoewel dit op baie verskillende maniere ontwikkel het.
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Plymouth Plantation teen Jamestown
In hierdie twee verhale, The General history of Virginia deur John Smith en Of Plymouth Plantation deur William Bradford, het gegaan oor die oprigting van twee verskillende kolonies, Jamestown en Plymouth, en die redes waarom hulle na die Nuwe Wêreld gekom het. Beide verhale word in verskillende standpunte geskryf, Jon Smith het in die derde persoon se standpunt geskryf, terwyl William Bradford in die eerste persoon se standpunt geskryf het. Baie het gekom om baie verskillende redes, miskien as gevolg van godsdiens, omdat ander 'n nuwe lewe in die Nuwe begin.
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Vergelyk en kontrasteer Jamestown en Plymouth Plantation
Jamestown en Plymouth Plantasie is twee kolonies, maar verskil baie van mekaar. John Smith en William Bradford het uit Engeland gekom om die Amerikas te verken, maar elkeen met sy eie bedoelings. Hulle het albei probleme ondervind om hier hul nuwe kolonies te vestig omdat dit moeilik was om te oorleef. John Smith het skaars dit wat hy deurgemaak het, oorleef en gesê: "Sulke optrede is sedert die begin van die wêreld aan sulke ongelukke onderworpe, en alles wat waardevol is, word moeilik gevind ..." (Smith).
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Jamestown vs Plymouth
Amerika gedurende die vroeë 1600's is gestig deur verskillende mense groepe met verskillende motiewe en op verskillende beginsels, dit het baie ooreenkomste. bykomend tot hul kontraste. Jamestown, Virginia, is in 1607 gestig deur 'n groep mans en jong seuns as 'n kommersiële projek terwyl die nedersettings van Plymouth en Massachusetts sou toevlugsoord wees vir vervolgde Separatiste en Puriteine. Die doelwitte, omgewings en agtergronde van die mense wat hierdie gebiede gevestig het, geraak? die sukses en mislukkings.
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Jamestown vs Plymouth Plantation Essay
kultuur en tradisie. Daar is soveel maniere waarop die verhale, "History of Virginia" en "Of Plymouth Plantation ”maak vandag wat ons is en wat die wêreld se gemeenskap is. Tussen hierdie twee verhale is daar soveel verskille en ooreenkomste. In hierdie opstel sal ek beide verhale vergelyk en kontrasteer en praat oor wat gebeur het. Hierdie twee verhale speel albei af in twee verskillende kolonies Jamestown en Plymouth. In die verhaal, "History of Virginia", bevat die verhaal baie verskillende dele. Die storie.
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Ooreenkomste tussen Jamestown en Plymouth
kolonies van Jamestown en Plymouth het verskeie ooreenkomste sowel as verskille gehad. Die koloniste van albei kolonies het 'n uiters moeilike eerste winter beleef, verdrae gehad en met die inboorlinge 'n goeie verhouding met hulle gehad en beide hulle konings onthoof. Die ooreenkomste het mettertyd voortgeduur, soos die bou van hul eie huise, elke kolonis wat nodig was om te werk, en nie gegewe wat hulle beloof het om na die Nuwe Wêreld te gaan nie. Hoewel die kolonies van Plymouth en Jamestown het baie.
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Vergelyk en kontrasteer die kolonisering van Jamestown, Plymouth en Massachusettsbaai
kolonisasie van Jamestown, Plymouth, en Massachusettsbaai. Bespreek die betrokke setlaars, die doel van die kolonies, die sukses of mislukking van die kolonie, belangrike ontwikkelings wat verband hou met kolonisasie en die rol van godsdiens in die kolonie. HIST-1301-009-Amerikaanse GESKIEDENIS TOT 1865 Opstelopdrag #1 Jamestown, Plymouth, en Massachusettsbaai behoort almal tot die Engelse kolonisasie. Daar is 'n paar ooreenkomste en verskille tussen hierdie drie plekke. Jamestown het geen setlaar nie.
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Opstel oor die verskil tussen Plymouth en Jamestown
Engelse setlaars gestig Plymouth en Jamestown langs die ooskus van Noord -Amerika. Puriteine gestig Plymouth om aan die Katolieke Kerk van Engeland te ontsnap. Aristokrate gestig Jamestown op soek na wins. Beide nedersettings het te doen gehad met onvermydelike kontak met die inboorlinge. Alhoewel beide Plymouth en Jamestown se interaksies met inheemse Amerikaners het vroeë ontmoetings, diplomatieke tussengangers en vredesverdragte ingesluit, maar Plymouth se benadering verskil van Jamestown deur minder aggressie te toon.
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Jamestown vs Plymouth Colony Vergelyk en kontrasteer
So Jamestown en Plymouth is twee kolonies wat omstreeks 1600 deur Europeërs gestig is, maar toe hulle gestig is, het hulle albei verskillende redes gehad om hul kolonies te stig. As u hierdie twee verhale lees, kan u reeds sien dat hierdie twee kolonies 'n geweldige verskil het, maar u kan ook die ooreenkomste van hierdie twee kolonies identifiseer. Jamestown 'n kolonie in Virginia, wat na my mening 'n geweldige ramp was. Ongeveer 300 setlaars het gemigreer na Jamestown en arriveer op 14 Mei 1607 en.
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Jamestown vs Plymouth Vergelyk en kontrasteer opstel
In hierdie opstel Jamestown en Plymouth vergelyk en gekontrasteer. Jamestown was nader aan die Engelse kultuurgebruike en het 'n kragtiger ekonomiese struktuur as gevolg van die verkoop van tabakwins na Engeland. Plymouth was hul bestaan in hout, visvang en handel as gevolg van die koue klimaat en dun klipperige grond. Albei was die eerste permanente nedersettings in Noord -Amerika en vorm vandag die belangrikste erfenis van ons kultuur. Jamestown en Plymouth Die eerste permanente Engelse nedersetting.
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Jamestown - waar die Amerikaanse verhaal begin het
Vratte en al, Jamestown bly die argetipiese Amerikaanse terugkeerverhaal.
Vra enige agtsteman om die eerste Europeërs te noem wat hulle in hierdie land gevestig het, en die antwoord is waarskynlik Christopher Columbus of die pelgrims.
Columbus het in 1492 die eerste keer in die Karibiese Eilande geland, en hy het nooit die Verenigde State bereik nie. Die pelgrims het in 1620 by Plymouth in Massachusetts aangekom. Maar toe was Jamestown, 'n kolonie aan die rivier in Virginia, reeds 13 jaar oud. Nog voordat die pelgrims geland het, het Jamestown die middelpunt geword van die eerste volgehoue botsing tussen Engelse en inheemse Amerikaners, setel van die eerste verteenwoordigende regering in die Westelike Halfrond, en die bestemming van die eerste Afrikaners wat in kettings in Engels Amerika aangekom het.
Alhoewel die Jamestown -verhaal nie heeltemal 'n viering is nie, is die geskiedenis duidelik: die diverse en demokratiese land wat ons ken as die Verenigde State, het begin in Jamestown, die eerste permanente Engelse nedersetting in Amerika. Vir die herdenking van die stad se stigting 400 jaar gelede hierdie maand, bied Virginia 'n reeks spesiale geleenthede aan wat in Januarie begin het en die hele jaar sal voortduur. Koningin Elizabeth II het verlede Vrydag besoek afgelê, president Bush gaan hierdie Sondag besoek. Daar is teorieë oor hoe en waarom die pelgrims van Plymouth die avonturiers van Jamestown in Amerikaanse historiese geheue en mite verduister het.
Volgens sommige mense is die verhaal van pelgrims wat na Amerika kom op soek na godsdiensvryheid, 'n baie meer smaaklike weergawe van die begin van die land as die verhaal van Jamestown, waar ten minste 100 Engelse mans en seuns op 14 Mei 1607 die eerste keer gebreek het. in enkelvoudige strewe na wins. Na die Burgeroorlog, sê ander, was historici aan invloedryke noordoostelike universiteite nie bereid om die nasionale skeppingsverhaal in die suide af te staan nie - veral nie aan Virginia nie, wat 20 persent van die Konfederale bevolking uitmaak en die hoofstad van die Konfederasie in Richmond.
Selfs vandag beweer sommige historici dat Jamestown nie heeltemal tel nie omdat dit misluk het. Die beleggers van Jamestown het weliswaar geld verloor op die voorstel - in plaas van silwer, goud en 'n kortpad na China, het die avonturiers honger, marteling en ernstige opoffering gevind. En 3 uit 4 setlaars het ten minste in die beginjare hul lewens verloor weens hongersnood, siektes of konflik met die Indiane. Die mislukkingsargument hou egter nie vol nie: Jamestown het volhard en die hoofstad van Virginia gebly totdat die regeringsetel in 1699 na Williamsburg verskuif is.
Virginiërs is ook deel van die rede waarom Jamestown nog nie sy historiese waarde gekry het nie. In die naam van winste het ontwikkelaars en nyweraars lankal die historiese betekenis van die Jamesrivier gespeel - die modderige naelstring wat die Nuwe Wêreld eers aan Engeland vasgemaak het. Teen die sewentigerjare het misbruik van hierdie nasionale skat stroomaf van Richmond om die lewe gebring. En 'n vroeë gaping in argeologiese kennis het geslagte historici verkeerdelik tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat die oorspronklike plek Jamestown lankal deur die rivier oorstroom is. Slegs die afgelope jare is die fout verkeerd bewys, aangesien voortgesette argeologiese werk elke dag vars stukke van die Jamestown -legkaart opduik.
Die Jamestown -verhaal is vol ongelukkige eerstes. Vir inheemse Amerikaners is hierdie plek die begin van eeue van terugtog en verlies, vernietiging van antieke beskawings en die onteiening van gesinsgrond. Vir Afro-Amerikaners is Jamestown die beginpunt vir die lang nasionale tragedie van menslike slawerny en die geslagte van segregasie, nietigheid en diskriminasie wat gevolg het. Selfs vir sommige Wes -Europeërs dink Jamestown aan verhale van lyding, marteling, kannibalisme en ander gebare wat so afskuwelik is, dat dit soms 'n wonder is dat die hele plek nie verlate was nie.
Maar Jamestown het nie weggespoel nie. Dit het voortbestaan as die argetipiese Amerikaanse terugkeerverhaal, 'n verhaal van swaarkry wat die menslike wil om te oorwin, oorkom.
Geen enkele plek in die VSA kan met reg die enigste geboorteplek van die land genoem word nie. Amerikaanse begin kan gevind word in Boston San Diego Philadelphia New York Charleston, SC St. Augustine, Florida New Orleans en tientalle ander plekke. 'N Demokrasie is in elk geval ooit besig om 'n burger op 'n slag te ontplooi in elke stad en gehuggie in die hele land en in elke uithoek van die wêreld wat deur Amerikaanse ondernemings, dwaasheid, hulp of oorlog aangeraak word. En tog het ons hier, in Jamestown, die eerste keer as een - rooi, wit en swart - in die wervelende waters van die Amerikaanse identiteit gewaai. In hierdie sin begin ons nasionale verhaal. En dit is iets wat Amerikaners oral kan onderbreek om vier eeue later te herdenk.
• Die nasionale korrespondent van Cox Newspapers, Bob Deans, is die skrywer van "The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James."
Amerika se sosialistiese oorsprong
Was Amerika eens sosialisties? Verrassend, ja. Die vroeë intrekkers wat in die vroeë 1600's by Plymouth en Jamestown aangekom het, het met sosialistiese kommunes geëksperimenteer. Het dit gewerk? Geskiedenisprofessor Larry Schweikart van die Universiteit van Dayton deel die fassinerende verhaal.
Amerikaners het nie vryemarkkapitalisme uitgevind nie. Maar jy kan sê dat hulle dit vervolmaak het.
Sodoende het hulle meer rykdom vir meer mense geskep as enige samelewing in die geskiedenis van die wêreld. Om hierdie fassinerende en komplekse verhaal te begin verstaan, moet ons terug in die tyd reis na die heel eerste setlaars van Amerika.
Maar voordat ek by die geskiedenis kom, laat ek definieer wat ek bedoel met kapitalisme. Dit is nie 'n maklike term om vas te stel nie, want dit het ontwikkel oor duisende jare van menslike interaksie. Adam Smith, die groot Engelse denker, eerstens het dit beskryf in sy beroemde verhandeling uit 1776, The Wealth of Nations, maar hy het dit nie uitgevind nie.
Vir ons doeleindes definieer ek kapitalisme as 'n ekonomiese stelsel waarin individue vryelik besluit wat hulle sal produseer en wie hulle sal dien. Aangesien beide partye toestemming moet gee, is dit 'n stelsel waarin sukses vereis dat u in die behoeftes van ander moet voorsien voordat u beloon word vir u werk.
Toe die eerste intrekkers aankom - in 1607 by Jamestown en daarna Plymouth in 1620 - werk hulle onder 'n ekonomiese stelsel wat destyds vir alle Europese nasies algemeen was. merkantilisme. Onder merkantilisme is besighede, veral in kolonies, bedryf tot voordeel van die staat. Hoewel regerings die ondernemings toegelaat het om wins te maak, was hul hoofdoel om die nasionale belang van Engeland of Spanje of Frankryk te bevorder. Die vroeë Amerikaanse nedersettings is opgestel om selfonderhoudend te wees, sodat die Engelse regering dit nie hoef te ondersteun nie. En hulle moes gebied uitgee. Dit was die sleutel tot die koloniale spel: as Engeland die gebied sou besit, het Spanje en Frankryk dit nie gedoen nie.
Die vroeë koloniste het hul avontuur begin met 'n pragtige idee wat hulle gedink het. Hulle het 'n gemeenskaplike graanopslagplek opgerig waaruit mense veronderstel was om te neem wat hulle nodig gehad het en terug te sit wat hulle kon. Lande is ook gemeen en is in gemeen gewerk. Die setlaars het geen eie grond besit nie. Alhoewel daar geen naam vir hierdie stelsel was nie, was dit 'n ideale sosialistiese gemeente. En jy kan waarskynlik raai wat gebeur het. Dit begin byna onmiddellik uitmekaar val. Soos die koloniste geleer het, is niemand vir alles verantwoordelik as almal op alles geregtig is nie. 'N Kolonis wat vroeg met sy werksdag begin of laat gebly het, het dieselfde kos gekry as 'n kolonis wat laat opgedaag het, vroeg huis toe gegaan het of glad nie gewerk het nie.
Na ongeveer twee jaar is die nedersetting beperk tot die eet van skoenveters en rotte. Die helfte van hulle is dood van hongersnood. Kaptein John Smith (van Pocahontas -bekendheid) het beheer oor die kolonie geneem en die sosialistiese model geskrap. Elke kolonis het sy eie stuk grond gekry. Privaat eiendom het na die Nuwe Wêreld gekom. "Wie nie werk nie, eet nie!" Smith het hulle vertel en die Bybelse vermaning aangehaal. Wel, hulle het gewerk. En hulle het geëet. En die kolonie is gered.
Dieselfde verhaal het tien jaar later verder noord in die Plymouth -kolonie ontvou. Alhoewel dit 'n Puriteinse kolonie was met godsdienstige doelwitte, was die plan dieselfde as die van Jamestown. En dit het ook misluk. Soos sy jong goewerneur, William Bradford, opgemerk het deur die gemeenskaplike stelsel te aanvaar "Ons het gedink dat ons wyser as God was." Dus het hulle die gemeente vinnig verlaat vir privaatbesit. Binnekort het hulle 'n oorvloed gehad wat hulle gevier het met die vakansie wat ons nou ken as 'Thanksgiving'. In die volgende 150 jaar het hierdie hard geleerde les, dat mans verantwoordelik moet wees vir hul eie ekonomiese lot, konvensionele wysheid in die kolonies geword.
Die Amerikaanse rewolusie is grootliks beveg oor die las wat die Britse mercantilisme op die kolonies geplaas het. Twee ongewilde belasting - die seëlwet en die teewet - is bekende voorbeelde. Die Amerikaners het gesien hoe die Britse regering byna al hul ekonomiese aktiwiteite reguleer en beheer - en het nie daarvan gehou nie.
Nou, dit is waar dat selfs nadat hulle onafhanklikheid verkry het, nie een van die stigters kapitaliste genoem kon word nie. Die idee van kapitalisme as 'n beskrywing van 'n ekonomiese stelsel het eers in Amerika begin bespreek. Tog het baie van die invloedrykste stigters intuïtief na die vryemarkbeginsels gegaan. Thomas Jefferson se idees oor private grondbesit het die beroemde grondverordening van 1785 gevorm wat openbare grond aan private burgers beskikbaar gestel het, terwyl die konsepte van Alexander Hamilton oor individuele verantwoordelikheid en heiligheid van kontrakte in die paniek van 1791-92 gesien kon word, waarin hy standvastig geweier het to allow the US government to bail out bankers who had triggered the panic. Benjamin Franklin, of course, had practiced capitalism all his life with his printing business and with his maxims in Poor Richard’s Almanac.
The Constitution itself is awash in core concepts of a free market: sanctity of contracts, freedom of expression powerful limits on the government’s ability to regulate or tax an emphasis on paying debts and so on.
In short, it was the wisdom of experience, not academic ideology, that created America’s free-market principles. The result has been the most prosperous and free nation in the history of the world.
Why Jamestown matters
JAMESTOWN — It seems weird to promote the anniversary of a settlement that doesn't exist anymore.
Jamestown? Why not party at Santa Fe, N.M., which has been occupied for almost 400 years? Why not vacation in world-class Quebec, which the French started in Canada in 1608? St. Augustine, Fla., was home to Spanish and French warriors in 1565 and remains a thriving beachfront city today.
On Jamestown Island now there are a lot of trees and archaeologists.
Should Englishmen planting a flag at Jamestown in 1607 matter to us in the 21st century, or is this just a field day for the marketing and tourism people?
Are all the events with people in costume any more important than the Blackbeard Festival or Bay Days or any other family weekend festival? ("Sail Virginia 2007, featuring Horse Carriage Rides! Antique Car Exhibits! Souza Bands!")
A lot of people are spending a lot of money to sell the message that the 400th anniversary of Jamestown is "America's 400th Anniversary."
But there were a lot of Europeans planting flags in a lot of remote, wooded places 400 years ago. And they looked pretty silly to the Native Americans already thriving on the continent - putting an outpost on the coast of Florida to claim control of it would be like claiming the Apollo 11 lunar module gave the United States control of the entire moon.
These were all fragile operations. Why should we remember Jamestown, which lasted only 92 years and then quickly reverted to farmland?
"Jamestown is a success story because it survived. It's the first successful English colony in North America," said James Horn, Colonial Williamsburg vice president for research and author of "A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America."
If survival is the standard, we could just as easily have been commemorating the story of England's Roanoke, "The Lost Colony." The difference is that Jamestown got supply help when it needed it and Roanoke didn't - a question of lucky timing.
Roanoke might have been wiped out by Native Americans. But Jamestown got help from the Powhatans and so did not starve to death. (Instead of "Jamestown 2007" we might as well have "Powhatan Day," an annual celebration when we all bow to the native peoples for giving Europeans a seat at their table - before the Europeans took the whole table by force.)
Roanoke's supply ship from England got delayed by the Spanish Armada. By the time it arrived, the colony had disappeared into the unending woods. Jamestown's supply ship showed up just in the nick of time.
On a day in June 1610, settlers abandoned James Fort but were met in the James River by a ship carrying the new colonial governor, who ordered the settlers to turn around and keep the colony going.
Let's go beyond survival. Jamestown matters because in its 92 years it incubated the free enterprise, race relations, democratic government and Protestant religion that dominate American culture today.
"When I tried to argue that we were important because we were first, I would get challenged. But when I do a discussion of the legacies of Jamestown, that works," said Joe Gutierrez, senior director of museum operations and education at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.
In the late 1500s, Spain had the largest empire the world had ever seen, stretching across Europe and much of the Americas. Spain had reaped the wealth of gold from Central America and the Caribbean. Its aim was to unite people under a Catholic monarchy, "one monarch, one empire, and one sword."
The northern end of the Americas was stalked by the French, another Catholic power. They were building strong alliances with the Native Americans through fur trading.
The English wanted to squeak in between those two regions. Roanoke failed. Jamestown tottered on the edge of failure for decades.
"Protestantism, the English language, English legal traditions - we trace the base of our culture back to England. If those things are important to you, then Jamestown is important to you," Gutierrez said.
Given the rise of that culture to world dominance in the 1800s and 1900s, it's easy to forget Jamestown was the fragile outpost of a fragile nation.
The interesting thing about Gutierrez' 2007 message is it incorporates the failures into the pitch of Jamestown's significance:
Jamestown wasn't the flight for freedom that we hear about in the Pilgrims' story in Massachusetts. It wasn't about the joy of exploration. It was about getting rich. There aren't many impulses more "American" than that.
Imagine that Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey paid for an effort to colonize Mars next year and to split whatever profits resulted. That was the aim of the Virginia Company of London in 1607.
And as a colony run by businessmen, Jamestown failed. After years of glassmaking and silk growing and other false starts, the settlers found a money-making strain of tobacco. But the London businessmen still couldn't manage the colony efficiently or keep its settlers from dying. England's king took control of Virginia in 1625.
The natural resources North America provided and the trade routes it promoted fueled the English economy. The economic success of Virginia and New York and the Carolinas gave England the wealth it needed to compete with France and Spain, tipping the balance of world power. Jamestown's story is the birth of an economic empire.
And trade routes aren't a one-way affair. England didn't commit to military control over its colonies and didn't manage the Virginia economy to the degree the Spanish crown controlled its American colonial economies. Private enterprise and private land ownership had its toehold and would drive immigration and race relations for centuries to come - and would eventually cause a split between colony and crown known as the American Revolution.
The economics led to a pattern of race relations that is still traceable in American society today.
The English settlers liked to say they weren't as harsh on the natives as the Spanish were, and the English Americans didn't commit to a formal system of slavery of Africans until two centuries after the Spanish did.
But the English also didn't treat the Native Americans as well as the French did. Once it was clear the natives weren't going to convert to Christianity in droves, the English proceeded to push them off the valuable land.
And once it was clear the Virginia colony needed tobacco to survive, English Americans grabbed all the labor they could to pick that crop - even if those laborers converted to Christianity in large numbers.
The first Africans to live and work in a British North American settlement came to Jamestown in 1619. Those first "20 and odd" people may have won their freedom and owned land. But there is no mistaking they were brought here against their will. Millions more would follow them over the next two centuries.
The economics drove the English American colonial society into an ordering where race and class were almost the same thing. It took a vicious civil war to end the system on paper. The social practices of the ordering lasted until late in the 20th century.
"All colonial societies are always more diverse than they were before they began the colonization," Horn said.
That's the nice way to say it. The planners of Jamestown 2007 have worked hard to bring in the Native Americans' story and the West Africans' story to this year's commemoration.
And that is worth the hype and the effort - to correct past omissions. This is Virginia's window of opportunity. Now is when we get the cover of National Geographic and Smithsonian Magazine and have 10 minutes on the news channels.
Because Santa Fe's 400th anniversary happens in three years and St. Augustine's 450th is in a few more, Jamestown's hype could easily be washed away by the rising tide of Hispanic influence in the culture of the United States.
The big selling point to Jamestown's significance is the start of representative democratic government.
The Virginia gentlemen formed a House of Burgesses to make local laws by majority vote in 1619, a year before the Mayflower Compact and the same year the first Africans were brought to the colony for work. (Historians have loved that symbolism because there's no mistaking that slave labor gave American gentlemen such as Thomas Jefferson the time to work out a free and democratic society for themselves).
Again, that idea almost didn't survive. England's King James I wanted to end the House of Burgesses at the same time he erased the Virginia Company of London's control of Virginia, but he died just after he tore up the company's charter. His son, Charles I, appointed a royal governor to supervise the colony but let the House of Burgesses remain to advise the governor.
And from that practice grew the idea that all people should govern themselves. It took until 1920 to get women the vote across the United States and until 1964 to remove major barriers to voting by blacks and the poor. But that first gulp of air at Jamestown has become the longest living democracy in the past 2,000 years.
Modern, secular Americans don't realize how big a role religion played in the thinking of Europeans four centuries ago. The first Jamestown settlers wanted to make money, but they also put on their to-do list converting the Native Americans to Christianity and establishing a base to counteract the New World successes of Catholic powers France and Spain.
Few Native Americans were converted.
But the official religion of many English colonies, the Church of England, did eventually give way to a broader religious freedom that included Baptists and Quakers and Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans and.
Every president of the United States of America has been Protestant except one. Voters who claim Christianity as their guiding principle continue to hold great political power in our elections.
If Jamestown can claim all this, why do most Americans think the British colonies started at Plymouth Plantation in New England?
Jamestown has the dates and facts on its side. And Virginia was the richest and most powerful of the British colonies before the American Revolution. But the New Englanders were the loudest patriots at the time of the break from Britain. Once freedom was secured, they then rushed to put their own stamp on the national founding story.
The Civil War only cemented that claim. The victors write the history, and when the Northern states won the war, they made few allowances for the South's role in the founding of the United States. It's no mistake the Thanksgiving holiday in November that is New England's greatest advertiser was first declared by President Abraham Lincoln as the Civil War raged.
Actually, the idea that the Puritans were the model for all of European development through British North America is a bigger myth than the myth of Manifest Destiny (Europeans marching across the continent given them by God), said Jim Whittenburg, a history professor at the College of William and Mary.
All this marketing for the 400th anniversary helps, but it still may take another 50 years for the story to sink in and Jamestown to get free of the New England story, but, he said, "I don't see that disappearing any time soon."
Jamestown is the story of a seed planted. It didn't flower right away. It didn't seem very useful at first. But it turns out the seed was kudzu. It has spread across the land, even after the original seed has died and the modern tendrils hide where the original seed was planted.
Many of us are familiar with the story of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and that they celebrated the first Thanksgiving. An important lesson on socialism is often missed in that early settlement. Originally all colonists were to place their production in the common warehouse and receive back only what was necessary for himself and family, attempting to live “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The Pilgrims suffered starvation about half the colonists died.
“The colony’s governor, William Bradford, wrote that its socialist philosophy greatly hindered its growth: Young men resented working for the benefit of other men’s wives and children without compensation healthy men who worked thought it unjust that they received no more food than weak men who could not wives resented doing household chores for other men, considering it a kind of slavery.” (Op-ed: Dr. Judd Patton)
Governor Bradford and other leaders set up a new system wherein each individual or family was assigned a parcel of land and each was responsible to grow his own food in other words, “who will not work will not eat.” The colonists became very industrious, and three times the corn was planted under the new system. The seeds of Capitalism were planted in America!
What is socialism? Socialism is a system basically denying our Bill of Rights, creating a loss of personal freedom with accompanying restrictions on guns, religion, speech, etc. Second, government leaders redistribute wealth and re-define goods and services as rights—the right to healthcare, for example. None of our God-given, natural rights require someone else to provide them. These new “rights” do require others’ efforts. In short, Socialism equals CONTROL.
Many members of my family are fans of Atlas Shrugged, a philosophical novel featuring John Galt, a great inventor who left a motor company because the owners decided to pay everyone the same in effect, dooming the company to failure because the incentive to excel was gone. Galt’s credo was: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” Ayn Rand predicted many of the current challenges we are facing as she penned this classic novel. (It’s a great movie trilogy too—I recommend it!)
Another example was recounted by a consultant many years ago in Bulgaria. He noted that there was little motivation to be productive because the ethic was that everyone had a right to a job, so they couldn’t really be fired. The joke was: “They pretended to pay us and we pretended to work.” A similar scenario played out in China a few years later: the consultant saw a group of eight people getting in each other’s way working in a supply depot. He remarked that it seemed they could accomplish the same results with three people, to which the manager replied, “Yes, but then what would happen to the others?” (Why We Do What We Do, Edward Deci)
Flash forward to recent news:
According to TheHill.com, “Food riots, accelerating emigration and outright starvation plague what was once the brightest economic light in South America. The 2013 death of Chávez brought Nicolás Maduro to power, who has doubled down on both the redistributive and repressive policies of the Chávez regime.” With oil wealth pouring into the nation, leaders abandoned opposition to government intrusion into their economy and extensively expanded government programs. Increased global competition diminished the return on oil and the citizens are reaping the ‘harvest’ of decades of corruption. (Edward Lynch, Failing Democracy in Venezuela Demonstrates Failure of Socialism)
In our own state, Idaho voters overwhelmingly approved Medicaid expansion, which when implemented will lead to cost overruns and the inevitability of higher taxes, and the possibility of cuts in other services, including school funding. Is this “just a little bit of socialism?” Former U. S. Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson wondered if “just a little bit of theft or a little bit of cancer is all right, too!” He knew that the growth of the welfare state is difficult to check. His solution in reversing socialistic trends is first to freeze all welfare-state programs and not add any new ones! (Proper Role of Government)
Each of us needs to seriously study the Constitution and the words of our Founding Fathers to better understand why the power of government was limited in the founding of our republic. Let us remember the lessons learned by our Pilgrim forefathers as they chose capitalism and a strong work ethic over depending on someone else to provide for their wants and needs!
Why the legacy of American slavery endures after more than 400 years
A year before the Pilgrims made their famed journey to New England, signing the “Mayflower Compact” and thus inaugurating so many of the myths that we believe about our democratic origins, a very different ship disembarked in that older English colony to the south, Jamestown. Aug. 20, 1619, marked the arrival of 20 enslaved Africans in English North America, “bought for victuale … at the best and easyest rate they could” as recorded by the tobacco planter John Rolfe (Pocahontas’s husband), some 15 months before the Mayflower supposedly landed near Plymouth Rock.
This anniversary affords us an opportunity to think about American origins both what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. Every schoolchild has heard of the Mayflower, but not of the White Lion and the Treasurer, ships that kidnapped Africans. We glorify the Pilgrims as models of liberty, and the Virginians as captains of industriousness, but as always, the reality was more complicated. The histories of these two regions were intertwined with the dark underbelly of human exploitation and bondage, which Jamestown established a year before the Pilgrims arrived.
Too often, America’s history of slavery, which is deeply entangled with the economics of the nation, is taught and remembered as something antique, forgotten and regional. But so enduring has the legacy of slavery been and so scant has been our actual reckoning concerning this evil that we are obligated to look more closely at what Jamestown and Plymouth mean, and why we should remember them together.
The story of the enslaved Africans and their arrival in Jamestown has long been recounted as a counterpoint to the story of the landing of Pilgrims in Plymouth. Historian Jill Lepore compares the relationship between the two colonies in subsequent American imaginings as being a sort of “Cain-and-Abel, founding moment.” An American abolitionist writing in 1857 quoted by Lepore exclaimed that as regards the colonies, “Here are two ideas, Liberty and Slavery — planted at about the same time, in the virgin soil of the new continent the one in the North, the other in the South. They are deadly foes.”
Southern apologists interpreted those two landing dates in a different way. George Fitzhugh would compare Massachusetts and Virginia in 1860, declaring that the coming war was “between those who believe in the past, in history, in human experience, in the Bible, in human nature, and those who … foolishly, rashly, and profanely attempt to ‘expel human nature,’ to bring about a millennium.” For southerners such as Fitzhugh, New England Puritanism had strayed far from its Protestant roots, embracing what critics saw as the moralizing liberalism of denominations such as Unitarianism and cultural movements such as Transcendentalism. For Fitzhugh and those like him, these “heretical” children of Puritanism now threatened what he saw as both his economic livelihood and his “right” to hold other humans in bondage.
But the kidnapped people who were sold in Virginia 400 years ago weren’t symbols, they were women and men. They were real people who’d previously lived their lives as inhabitants of the African kingdom of Ndongo and were forcibly brought to labor in Jamestown. A 1624 census in Jamestown shows the otherwise anonymous Antoney and Isabella as the parents of William Tucker, the first African American to be born on these shores. Any memory of the early origins of America must center the experiences of people such as Tucker. And remembering the bondage of actual individuals reveals the shared similarities between Virginia and New England that bound the two parts of Colonial America together.
6 Fascinating Things You Never Knew About Jamestown
Steeped in legend and shrouded by time, Jamestown has long intrigued modern-day Americans. As the first permanent English colony in North America, Jamestown represented, then and now, a new beginning, a chance to conquer a continent, and a foothold for expansion of English law, customs, and traditions. Add to that a tale of love between a Native American princess and a dashing English explorer, and it’s no wonder so many people regard Jamestown with romance and adventure.
If Jamestown fires your imagination about your own past, Ancestry offers the tools and easily searchable historical records to help find the explorers and settlers in your past.
In actuality, Pocahontas probably never saved Captain Smith, but these six true facts about Jamestown may be even more fascinating than the myth of Jamestown.
1. Jamestown colonists resorted to cannibalism.
Although we now celebrate Jamestown as the first lasting English settlement in the Americas, for a few grim winter months in the colony’s earliest years, permanence was far from certain. Plagued by a lack of farming know-how, hostile native peoples, and a harsh winter, Jamestown dwindled from 300 colonists in November 1609 to just 60 the following spring. Colonists who lived through the winter called it the “starving time” and admitted they made it through by eating dogs, snakes, and, occasionally, people.
Early reports of cannibalism from the winter’s survivors were met with skepticism back in England—no one wanted to believe that Englishmen would dig up corpses for food. But writing in 1625, George Percy, the youngest son of the eighth Earl of Northumberland, recalled that as Jamestown’s interim president in 1609, he had sentenced another man to death for killing his own pregnant wife and consuming her salted flesh. In 2012, archaeologists at Jamestown found the bones of a girl, estimated to be about 14, that bore the telltale knife marks of cannibalism.
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2. Pocahontas probably never saved Captain John Smith’s life.
Thanks to centuries of exaggerated storytelling, most recently in Disney’s 1995 feature film, the story of Pocahontas has become an American myth: Plucky native princess saves the life of a dashing English gentleman adventurer by throwing her body between him and the stone about to bash his brains in. Together, they bring peace, at least temporarily, to Jamestown.
But many historians now doubt Captain John Smith’s life was ever truly in danger when Pocahontas stepped in front of him. By binding Smith and threatening him with large stones, the Powhatan Indians were more likely conducting a ceremony to honor Smith as another chief. Some believe that as the daughter of the chief, Pocahontas would not even have been present at the ceremony to see Smith bound and later released.
Assuming Pocahontas was around when Smith believed his life was at risk, he was not the last Jamestown colonist to affect her life. In 1613, Pocahontas—whose real name was Matoaka (Pocahontas was just a nickname meaning “playful one”)—was tricked into visiting Jamestown and kidnapped. She remained a captive until 1614, when she agreed to marry widower John Rolfe. That union did result in peace, for a time, between the Powhatan and the colonists.
Pocahontas and Rolfe had a son, and in 1616, all three traveled to England, where Pocahontas met King James I. On their return to Jamestown in 1617, however, Pocahontas became ill and died soon after returning home.
3. Tobacco grown from smuggled seeds saved Jamestown.
John Rolfe brought more than peace to Jamestown. He also brought the seeds of its salvation—literally. For Jamestown’s first several years, the colony’s leaders placed little emphasis on farming, directing the colonists’ energies to various trades such as silk making, glassmaking, and forestry, believing that they could trade with the Native Americans for food. Unfortunately, when hostilities broke out with the Powhatan Indians in 1609, the entire colony nearly starved to death.
Jamestown’s economic focus shifted when John Rolfe arrived in Jamestown in 1610 bearing South American tobacco seeds. That tobacco strain quickly became Virginia’s major cash crop and fueled the colony’s growth in numbers and wealth. Tobacco became Virginia’s number-one export from the early 17th century until the end of the 20th century.
Native North American peoples had been smoking tobacco for thousands of years before the English colonists arrived, but Rolfe brought seeds from a better-smoking South American species to Jamestown. To this day, no one is sure where Rolfe got those seeds. Spain, which controlled Central and South America in 1610, had outlawed the sale of such seeds to non-Spaniards on penalty of death. Rolfe may have acquired them while shipwrecked on Bermuda for 10 months—where his wife and daughter died—before arriving in Jamestown in 1610.
4. Tobacco brought the first Africans to Jamestown.
The rise of labor-intensive tobacco farming in Jamestown created the need for more laborers than ever in the colony, a need met early on by indentured Africans who first arrived in 1619. John Rolfe, who had introduced tobacco farming to Jamestown, noted that in late August 1619, “20 and odd” Africans came from a Dutch warship. The Dutch ship had captured the Africans from a Portuguese ship heading south to the Spanish colonies. Some of the Africans became the property of the colonial governor while others likely became indentured servants working in the tobacco fields.
While Virginia did not institute slave laws until 1662, the first de facto slave in the English colonies lost his freedom near Jamestown decades earlier. In 1640, James Punch, an indentured servant from Africa, tried unsuccessfully to escape his servitude in what is now York County, adjacent to Jamestown. He was captured, and as punishment, Punch’s indenture servitude was extended to his entire life, effectively enslaving him (the two white indentured servants who escaped with him merely had their servitude extended when recaptured). Recent research by Ancestry genealogists discovered that Punch is an ancestor of President Barack Obama, through his mother’s family.
5. Jamestown colonists executed a Catholic spy.
During Jamestown’s first years, Spain was concerned about more than just smuggled tobacco seeds. Spain was worried about any English presence in the Americas, since Spain was, at the time, the dominant colonial power in the Western Hemisphere. To get information about England’s plans for settling North America, Catholic Spain relied on spies planted in England’s Protestant colonies. And Jamestown possibly had just such a spy—or at least, Jamestown colonists executed someone they accused of being a Spanish Catholic informant.
In 1609, councilman Captain George Kendall fell under suspicion after another man (himself facing execution for threatening to strike the new Jamestown council president) accused Kendall of being a Catholic spy. The council tried and executed Kendall in 1609, the first capital trial and execution in English Colonial America.
The Spanish conspiracy may have extended beyond Kendall. In July 2015, archaeologists announced they had found a silver box containing bone fragments in the grave of Captain Gabriel Archer, a lawyer and one of the colony’s early leaders. Scientists believe the box was a reliquary, a common Catholic object of religious devotion. The fact that Archer was buried with the reliquary suggests that he, too, may have harbored Catholic sympathies.
6. The oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere first met in Jamestown.
Of course, we celebrate Jamestown today not because of its early struggles, but because of the English heritage and traditions it began on this continent. One of those traditions includes the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the Virginia General Assembly.
First meeting on July 30, 1619, at the Jamestown church, the General Assembly succeeded a counsel of quarreling elites followed by several years of harsh martial law codified as the “Laws Divine, Moral and Martial.” But with growing prosperity from tobacco and peace from the union of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, the colonial governor, George Yeardley, arrived at Jamestown in 1619 and announced the creation of a colonial legislative assembly, which included Gov. Yeardley, his council, and 22 representatives, known as burgesses, from the settlements that had grown around Jamestown.
During their first session, which lasted six days, the General Assembly adopted measures against drunkenness, idleness, and gambling passed laws relating to both the protection from and baptism of Native Americans and imposed a tax on every man and servant of “one pound of the best Tobacco.” The General Assembly continued to meet at Jamestown until 1699, when Middle Plantation, later Williamsburg, became the capital of the colony. Today, of course, Virginia’s General Assembly meets in the Commonwealth’s capital of Richmond.
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