This headline on BBC News caught my attention:
Birth of a nation
Why many Americans don’t know about their other founding fathers
The story:
Nineteenth century historians had little respect for the settlers whom they described as lazy and incompetent. In short, Jamestown was a fiasco.
Virginia was also on the wrong side in the civil war. Sitting on top of Jamestown fort are the remains of a confederate gun emplacement.
“Historians in the 19th century were looking for a more noble beginning and opted for The Pilgrim Fathers,” Beverly Straube explained.
“They landed in Plymouth in 1620. They had their women and children, and were determined to forge a new life with religious freedom in a new England.”
That read much better than the story of the commercially driven Virginia company with its slaves and tobacco in the background, and reports of violence and cannibalism.
Hmmm…. Add your own commentary in the comments if you will… gotta run.
… or for that matter, the horror that the first European colony was Catholic and Spanish-speaking.The three old east-coast settlements all are symbolic of current trends in America, be they faith, commerce, or globalization.