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