The Far East has its Beijing, the Middle East has its Jerusalem, England has its London, France its Paris and Italy has its Rome,…but America’s only origination shrines are her altars of patriotism–the first and most potent being Jamestown; the sire of Virginia, and Virginia the mother of this great Republic known today as The United States of America.
In June of 1606 King James I granted a charter to a group of London entrepreneurs who called themselves the Virginia Company. It was their intention to establish a satellite English settlement in the Chesapeake Bay region of North America. By December of that year 104 settlers sailed from London with specific instructions to settle Virginia, find gold, and seek a water route to the Orient or Far East. Some traditional scholars of early Jamestown believe that those first pioneers could not have been more ill-suited for the task assigned. The leader of the group, Captain John Smith, identified about half of the group as “gentlemen.” It was logical, indeed, for historians to assume that these gentlemen knew nothing about or thought it beneath their station in life to tame or attempt to tame any sort of a wilderness in any location on earth. However, more recent historical and archaeological research at the site of Jamestown suggests that at least some of the gentlemen, and certainly many of the artisans, craftsmen, and laborers who accompanied them, all made every effort to make the colony succeed.
On May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company of London’s explorers landed on Jamestown Island to establish the English Virginia Colony to be formally called “James Fort” on the banks of the James River, about 60 miles inland from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. By one account, they landed there because the deep water channel let their ships ride close to shore; close enough to moor them to the trees. Recent discovery of the exact location of the first settlement and its fort indicates that the actual settlement site was in a more secure place, away from the channel, where Spanish ships could not fire point blank at the fort.
The settlement was located within the territory of a political entity known as Tsenacommachah, the state of the Powhatan Confederacy, with somewhere around 14,000 native inhabitants, and specifically was in part of the subdivision known as the Paspahegh tribe. The natives initially welcomed the colonists with dancing, feasting, and tobacco ceremonies. They also provided crucial foodstuffs, provisions, and support for the survival of the colonists, who were not agriculturally inclined. Along with all the good in new found relationships,… caused mostly by ignorance or misunderstanding among the parties concerned,…things, people, and politics soured fairly early on. Almost immediately after landing, the colonists were under attack from what amounted to the on-again off-again enemy, the Algonquian natives. As a result, in a little over a month’s time, the newcomers managed to “beare and plant palisadoes” enough to build a wooden fort. Three contemporary accounts and a sketch of the fort agree that its wooden palisaded walls formed a triangle around a storehouse, church, and a number of other houses. A sad note of truth is that this see-saw warring between the colonists and the natives ended in the total annihilation of the Paspahegh tribe within three years of the landing.
While disease,famine, and continuing attacks of neighboring Algonquians took a tremendous toll on the population, there were times when the Powhatan Indian trade revived the colony with food in exchange for glass beads, copper, and iron implements. It appears that the eventual structured leadership of Captain John Smith kept the colony from dissolving.
The “Starving Time” winter followed Smith’s departure in 1609 during which only 60 of the original 214 settlers at Jamestown survived. That June, the survivors decided to bury cannon and armor and abandon the town (fort). It was only the arrival of the new governor, Lord De La Ware, and his supply ships that brought the colonists back to the fort and the colony back on its feet. The misery and suffering did not actually end at Jamestown for decades. Some years of peace and prosperity followed the wedding of the Indian maiden, Pocahontas, favored daughter of the Algonquian Chief Powhatan, to tobacco entrepreneur, John Rolfe.
The English settlement was for sure, permanently established in the New World, and it was called Jamestown. Two different major events occurred in Jamestown that would shape and form all of the happenings within the New World. (1) The first representative governmental assembly in the New World convened in the Jamestown church on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly met in response to orders from the Virginia Company “to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia” which would provide “just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting.” The other crucial event that would play a major role in the development of America was (2) the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years of labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 1680s.
The Algonquians eventually became disenchanted and, in 1622, attacked the out-plantations killing over 300 of the settlers. Even though a last minute warning spared Jamestown, the attack on the colony and mismanagement of the Virginia Colony at home convinced the King that he should revoke the Virginia Company Charter. This he did and Virginia became a crown colony two years later in 1624.
The fort seems to have existed into the middle of the 1620s, but as Jamestown grew into a “New Town” located to the east of the original fort site, all written references to the original fort strangely disappear. Jamestown remained the capital of Virginia until its major statehouse, located on the western end of Preservation Virginia property, burned in 1698. Thereafter the capital was moved to Williamsburg and Jamestown began to slowly disappear above the ground. By the 1750s the land was privately owned and thoroughly cultivated by the Travis and Ambler families.
A military post was located on the island during the American Revolution, and American and British prisoners were exchanged there. In 1861 the island was occupied by Confederate soldiers who built an earth fort near the church as part of the defense system to block the Union advance up the James River. No further attention was paid to Jamestown until preservation was undertaken in the twentieth century.
In 1893 Jamestown was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Barney. The Barneys gave 22 1/2 acres of land, including the 17th century church tower, to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now called Preservation Virginia). By this time, James River erosion had eaten away the island’s western shore; visitors began to conclude that the site of James Fort lay completely underwater. With federal assistance, a sea wall was constructed in 1900 to protect the area from further erosion. The remaining acreage on the island was acquired by the National Park Service in 1934 as part of the Colonial National Historical Park. Today, Jamestown, America’s birthplace, is jointly operated by Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service.
Like so many nations throughout the world today, each had their “birthing” take place in some pretty desolate places and under some pretty shaky and rugged situations and circumstances. How they came into being is exciting and interesting,…But…WHY they came into being and WHAT they did after being founded is what is most impacting on our world environment. What those hardy souls at James Fort did to “hang-on,” persevere, and survive,… to live and fight another day is what spawned the “grit” and “gravel” within the hearts and souls of that special group of human beings. It was that internal fortitude of these men and women that was primarily responsible for the launching and nurturing of that greatest nation in the history of the world….That Nation known today as The United States of America.
We Americans regardless of our individual race, color, or creed should be forever grateful for the price these founding adventurers paid so as to enable a foot-hold to be established on our eastern sea shore. We should always remember these pioneer’s sacrifices and what they did for us. It is these activities that have paved the way for America to exist and provide the blessings and benefits that it has to all of us as we live our lives today as free Americans.
Thank God Almighty for America. May God continue to richly bless America today and in all of the days ahead.
Now you know more of what really happened…….