The Jamestown “commemoration” missed an opportunity to explain the
“birthplace of the nation.” That was the motto on last year’s publicity
sail by the Godspeed. Somehow, the importance of Jamestown got lost as the
historic landing in 1607 became a metaphor for diversity (“Thank you
Pocahontas”?). 

In a recent forum sponsored by the Historical Society, David McCullough
lamented the lack of historical knowledge among college students. Several
years ago, Virginia had to institute “standards of learning” because
students were not getting the basic historical information which is the
foundation of our culture. 

Somewhere in the planning stages, it was decided that Jamestown was a place
where English settlers seeking gold and glory came and “inner-acted” with
the Indians that already occupied the land and with Africans that later
came as slaves. This concept will live on with the Jamestown Settlement
website and the lesson plans that are recommended for teaching about
Jamestown. 

Jamestown was not a “ meeting” of three cultures. That implies
assimilation, cooperation, a melting pot. That did not happen. And it
minimizes the sacrifice and fortitude of those early Jamestown settlers who
were the beginning of a great migration that within 50 years had peopled
the east coast of America. To be sure, there were immigrants from other
European countries, but these colonies were English, united by a common
language and governed by English law and tradition, stretching back 400
years to the Magna Carta. That tradition landed at Jamestown, and  through
the 17th and 18th centuries, the European Enlightenment continued to inform
the sense and sensibility of British America. When Parliament attempted to
tax and exert greater control over the colonies, Thomas Jefferson countered
in a “Summary View” that this violated their rights as Englishman. It was
the violation of these rights that formed the basis for the Declaration of
Independence. For decades after the Constitution, English common law was
the basis of the American judicial system. 

That is the real meaning of Jamestown and it is a shame that Virginia
missed the opportunity to say so.

Richard E. Dixon