Right Wing Conservative Revisionist Historians

[pepperbear]

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55677

Bush avoids 'Christianity' at Jamestown celebration
Makes no mention of directions to 'propagate' Gospel of Jesus

President Bush commemorated America's 400th anniversary during a ceremony at the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia today, but made no specific mention of the Christian faith, the spread of which was the primary purpose for creation of the settlement.

I realize this is WND so I shouldn't be at all surprised, but this is a blatant DISTORTION of the truth and we haven't heard the last of this. This is my hometown and there was a front page article about this very site and this very thing. It got some sparks rolling, but the debate didn't last.

Anyone who knows anything about history knows that the Jamestown colony was founded in 1607 first and foremost as a BUSINESS VENTURE. It was started by what may very well be the first corporation in the new world, The Virginia Company. Investors, DEVELOPERS, if you will, came here to find all the things the Spanish and the French had found.

Of course, they also found natives and played "Missionary". Religion WAS* important in their lives. Criminy, they had a church. It's STILL THERE. But WND wants to say that this is the only reason they came here. They have a serious persecution complex.

If they want the Puritans and the witch burners, they're 13 years too early and too far south.

FANATICS.


:rant:

*edit....

[jobycom]

1. K&R, because I'm sick of fantasy history, too. nt

[magellan]

2. Quite true, the colonization of America was a business venture

Smithsonian magazine has a big write-up on Jamestown in this month's issue:

Beyond Jamestown
By Terence Smith

snip...

"Captain Smith—no relative, I'm sad to say—was among that original band of dreamers and schemers who came ashore on the banks of the James 400 years ago, in May 1607. The settlement they established at Jamestown gave the English their first enduring toehold in the New World and wrote the opening chapter of our national narrative. The 400th anniversary of that event will be celebrated May 11 to 13 as America's Anniversary Weekend, and with an expected visit this month by Queen Elizabeth II of England.

But once Jamestown had survived its first winter and was more or less stabilized, Smith, then 28, set out again, on June 2, 1608, with a crew of 14 men. They were entering the continent's largest estuary—some 195 miles long, about 35 miles at its widest, 174 feet at its deepest, draining a watershed of about 64,000 square miles spread over what is now six states. The bay's shoreline is an astonishing 11,000 miles long because of all the nooks and crannies created by the 19 major rivers and 400 creeks and tributaries that flow into it.

Smith knew none of this, of course; he was leaping into uncharted waters.

He had a mission. He and the other colonists were under instructions from their sponsors, the Virginia Company of London, to find gold and silver, as the Spanish had done in Mexico and Central America. More important, they were to find the fabled Northwest Passage, a navigable route across the American continent that 17th-century Europeans fervently believed would provide a shorter path to the riches of the Orient.

snip...

http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/may/destamer-chesapeake.php

The pilgrims arrived in 1620, more than a decade after Jamestown was established. Who founded this country? Capitalists.

[dave_p]

3. Fundie liars

Yep, "propagating of Christian religion" is mentioned as a desirable consequence of settlement, but to call it the "primary purpose" is absurd. The primary purchase was for these "Knightes, gentlemen, marchanntes and other adventurers" "to make habitacion, plantacion and to deduce a colonie".

[happyslug]

4. Puritans did NOT settle till 1630, it was the Separatists that settled Plymouth in 1620.

And The Plymouth plantation was primarily a business venture and was as ill-funded and ill-planed as Jamestown (The Separatists were used by the New England Company as a source of Free Labor for their plan to exploit New England). On the other hand the Puritans came to America with a Plan of settlement. Boston was to be a City on the Hill, a New Jerusalem. Business figured into the calculation and probably was the main concern, but so was religion.

Now the significance of the Puritans was there was no "Starving Times" as you had with the Plymouth and Jamestown settlers. The men came first, settled Salem and had a Crop in BEFORE the women arrived and the settlement of Boston. This planning came NOT only out of the need to make a Profit BUT to be a Light on the Hill. This balance between Business and Religion made it important for the Puritans to do good Planning EVEN AT INCREASED COSTS.

It is only with the Settlement of Boston do the American Colonies truly take off. Virginia survived to 1620 but only then did it start to expand (And that was the result of War with the Local Indians AND the First importation of Slaves). Virginia had a problem getting settlers all during the 1600s, and while Virginia would pass laws against importing Criminals from England, these laws seems to have been ineffective (Basically the Criminals were given a Choice, a trip to Virginia as an indentured Servants, or Trial and a possible Death sentence, most opt for Virginia with the money paid for them going to the person or family they had stole from or assaulted). Please also note Virginia did not really start to boom till the Corporation ruling it was taken over by the Crown. No Corporate Colony worked, the successful Colonies where of three kind, the Self Governing (Conneticut and Rhode Island), the Royal Colonies (Examples are Massachusetts and Virginia) and those run by single individuals (Pennsylvania, Maryland and Georgia are three Examples). The Corporation Run Colonies all failed do to their tendency to want to do things on the cheap. No long term plan for the Colony unlike the above three where the person who controlled the Colony looked 40-50 years in future.

In all of the Colonies the need to make money was important, Even the owners of Maryland were willing to stay on even as the Colonial Assembly outlawed Catholics (The Baltimore Family that owned Maryland were Catholic and Started Maryland as a Haven for Catholics, but technically that did not last long). My point Religion was important but for most of the Founders of the Colonies it was more important to make money, and that meet taking in anyone no matter their religion. Labor was always short in the Colonies, and shortest in the South (Do to the harsh condition most people worked under, especially the Slaves). Religion was actually more important in the NORTH then in the South. One of the comments of the time of the US Revolution was you could tell the difference between a Northern Settled Town and a Southern Settled Town but looking at the first thing built. In the North it was a Church which was also used as a Meeting hall for everyone in the Community. In the South it was a Tavern to make money.

[pepperbear]

5. you are very knowledgable.

thanks for all the fine information.

[happyslug]

6. I always like my History, the problem is how badly History is taught in School.

The main reason History is badly taught in School is that most Schools like to avoid anything that may cause controversy. Thus the Westward expansion of America is mentioned, but the fate of the America Indians are ignored. The Civil War is discussed along with Slavery, but the efforts to help the ex-slaves become Citizens after the Civil War is ignored for you have the issues of how the South views the "Glorious Cause" and the fact the "Cause" was based on keeping blacks Slaves. The final defeat of the Indians in th elate 1800s are mentioned, but the labor unrest of the same period is ignored (and while Custer is no longer glorified as he was after his defeat, why Red Cloud Refused to join in on the War urged on by Sitting Bull is ignored i.e. Red Cloud told his people you will lose and was attacked by his fellow Sioux, he was proved right).

Anyway, my love of History goes back to Grade School where I ran into some general History books that addressed some of the above issues. That book was interesting and a joy to read. In Collage I fran across two books, written by the same author as intended as a set, about the Settlement of the American North and South (i.e. Roughly 1775-1850). He wanted to concentrate on how each region grew. Reading it I learn a lot, for example the plan, written the the State of Connecticut Assembly that permitted the Presbyterians and Methodists to use the same church when they was NOT enough of either to support one church. The law even had a method of dissolution of the combined Church when they was enough people to support two different Churches (and one of the reason a lot of Mid-West Towns have their Protestant Churches on the Town Square (Catholic Churches tend to be away from the town Square, more to do with Catholics coming into the town decades after it was founded and when the area around the town square was already taken). Technically this law only applied to the "Connecticut Reserve" in Northeast Ohio, but was used by both churches (and other Churches that entered into such joint agreements) till what was called the American Northwest was settled.

When he wrote his book on settlement of the South you quickly seen the lack of any community action. It is the movement of individuals and the appearance of the Fundamentalist movement that characterized the Settlement of the American South. In the North the Religious leaders had to go to Collage to be able to become a Minster, in the South anyone who could read could make himself a minster. This was one of difference between the North and the South in the early 1800s (and survives to this day). The South, after the Revolution, had lead the Country in the Separating Church from State, but this was more to save money than embracing the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State (In the 1700s, the Colonies and then the States ran their welfare programs through the Churches, by "Freeing" the Churches, the State also freed themselves of supporting the poor, it was this later "Freedom" that the states wanted, freedom from paying to take care of the old, sick, liam in addition freeing the states from supporting Widows and orphans). The poor were told to go to the Frontier and grab a piece of land from the Indians that was to be the South's "Welfare" System till the Great Depression (Yes, even after there was no more land to steal).

Now the North, in many ways, is NOT better then the South when it came to Social Reforms, but the Puritan concept that YOU MUST TAKE CARE OF YOUR FELLOW MAN, had to be addressed by people settling in Northern towns. Thus the Great Reform movements that came out of the Rural North, the Anti-Slavery movement, The demands for Public Schools, the demand for regulations of the Railroads, the demand for paved roads, the demands for Public High Schools, all came out of the Rural North. The reason was the concept that each person had a DUTY to help his community as while as himself. That concept is missing in the Rural South. It is more, me, me, me (and the related, I don't support welfare for if welfare was abolished those welfare bums would have to work).

Now, please note the above is on the RURAL areas of the North and South. You have some overlap between these two movements along the Ohio River (and a huge import of Rural Southern into Michigan and other northern Cities, during the 1920s-1950s as the Automotive industry expanded and recruited from Southern Appalachia). The Rural North also had the problem that during its hay-day (Roughly 1870-1920) most Major Cities in the US was Republican (But NOT Rural Republican). These urban Republicans tend to come out of New York City which had the Greatest contact with the American south of any city not in the South.

Now, I do not want to attack the south, the North had its problems for example our entrainment industry is all Souther derived (The Puritans opposed theaters as wasteful) but the Puritans did like to enjoy life. Colors were popular among the Puritans except for a Brief period around the 1690s. The 1690s was a rough decade for New England. In 1688 King James II had revoked the Charters of all of the Colonies North of New York and merged them with New York (While Giving William Penn what is now Pennsylvania). Then later that same year King James was overthrown and King William became king. This lead to War between England and France which spread over to the American Colonies. King William had named New Governors for Massachusetts and New York, but no new charter for either. Thus New England was at War, but also had no legal basis for their Government. It is during this time period that you had the Salem Witch Trials, during a period of conflict. Before that period, while it was illegal to be anything but a Puritan in Massachusetts, the punishment tended to be banishment not Execution. After a Charter was made, Massachusetts was no longer a Puritan only Colony (Through Prejudice against Non-Puritans continued). It was only during this "Non-Charter" time period that you have the Witch Trials, a period of Political uncertainly (which is typical of most Witch Trials, including the Anti-Communist Witch hunts of the 20th Century).

We need to study history to make sure that we do NOT make the same mistakes. The problem is the history MUST SHOW THE GOOD AND BAD POINTS OF HISTORY. Most school histories avoid the bad, and a lot of people just want to read the bad, thus to understand ourselves we must understand history, but in its unvarnished form, with warts AND sunshine.