Captain John Smith
Sometime Governour of Virginia
and Admiral of New England
who departed this life the 21st of June 1631
Here lyes one conquered, that hath conquered Kings,
Subdu’d large Territories, and done Things
Which to the world impossible would seem
But that the Truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done
In honour of his God and Christendom?
How that he did divide from Pagans three
Their heads and lives, Types of his Chivalry?
Or shall I talk of his Adventures Since,
Done in Virginia, that large Continent:
How that he subdu’d Kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathen flee, as wind doth smoke:
And made their land, being of so large a Station
An habitation for our Christian Nation
Our god is glorify’d, their Want supply’d
Which else for Necessaries must have dy’d.
But what avils his Conquests, now he lyes
Interr’d in earth, a Prey to Worms and Flyes?
O may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,
Until the Keeper that all Souls doth keep,
Return to Judgement, and that after thence,
With angels he may his Recompense

From the marker in the Church of St. Sepulchre without Newgate, London, England

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400th Anniversary of Jamestown A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Four centuries ago, after a long journey, a small group of colonists stepped boldly onto the shores of the New World and established the first permanent English settlement in North America. During the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, America honors the early pioneers whose epic of endurance and courage started the story of our Nation.

The ideals that distinguish and guide the United States today trace back to the Virginia settlement where free enterprise, the rule of law, and the spirit of discovery took hold in the hearts and practices of the American people. Noble institutions and grand traditions were established in Jamestown. Amid tremendous difficulties, a determined few worked the land and expanded into the wilderness. Without knowing it, the colonists who built communities at Jamestown laid the foundation for a Nation that would become the ultimate symbol and force for freedom throughout the entire world.

Much has changed in the 400 years since that three-sided fort was raised on the banks of the James River. Today, we are a strong and growing Nation of more than 300 million, and we are blessed to live in a land of plenty during a time of great prosperity. The long struggle that started at Jamestown has inspired generations of Americans. Advancing the right to live, work, and worship in liberty is the mission that created our country, the honorable achievement of our ancestors, and the calling of our time.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim 2007 as the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown. I encourage all Americans to commemorate this milestone by honoring the courage of those who came before us, participating in appropriate programs and celebrations, and visiting this historic site with family and friends.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

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“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.” President John Adams

B.F.Morris, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864, P.109.

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Vision Forum Ministries received the following letter from a young man who wanted to be part of the Jamestown Children’s Monument project:

Dear Mr. Phillips:

A few days ago, I visited your website and read about your project to erect a monument in Jamestown during the 400th anniversary celebrations this summer. What a great idea this is! It is encouraging to know that your ministry has taken the initiative to encourage children to invest in this significant landmark.

As a young man, I do not yet have children of my own, but I believe that someday the Lord will bless me with the opportunity to start a family and raise up children to love and follow Him. Therefore, I would like to donate the enclosed funds to the Jamestown Children’s Memorial Fund on behalf of the children of the next generation of the Johnson family, who—God willing—will also be recipients of the great freedoms with which the Lord has blessed our country.

I also want to express my appreciation for the work you and your organization do to inspire a godly vision in families across the United States. You certainly have encouraged me in many ways, and I am truly grateful. May God bless you in the work you are doing for His kingdom.

In Christ,

Matthew D. Johnson

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The chief counsel of the authorities behind the Jamestown settlement focused on serving and fearing God. John Smith gives us the following account of their instructions:

Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind of the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.

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Jamestown’s contribution to the American legacy of Christianity is significant.

The vision for settlement at Jamestown was first communicated in the 16th century by a British cartographer and preacher named Richard Hakluyt who hoped the Virginia settlement would be a beacon for religious liberty. Hakluyt is the man primarily responsible for persuading the monarchy and a generation of explorers that Virginia was the most optimistic place for the spreading of the Gospel through exploration and settlement on pagan soil not occupied by a Christians monarch. Years later, Hakluyt’s Great Commission vision was enshrined in the Virginia Charter of 1606. This charter, both empowering and governing the Jamestown settlement, was expressly rooted in the Great Commission of Holy Scripture. In addition to the Charter, the very legal system on which the colony was governed incorporated a millennia long Christian common law tradition. Most notably, the Jamestown settlers brought with them the Holy Scriptures.

Before the arrival of these Protestant Christians and the successful planting of the first permanent English settlement, North America was dominated by tribes engaged in demonic spiritism, paganism, cannibalism, and ritual torture. The coming of Christianity and the Holy Scriptures would change the make-up of North America, and would provide the free grace offer of the Gospel to men and women immersed in soul-destroying demonic activity.

The Jamestown settlers gave the Holy Scriptures a permanent home in America. This is perhaps the most enduring legacy of Jamestown. The coming of the Bible to America fundamentally changed the history of the North American continent. It was the Bible which communicated the hope of personal redemption and the basis for stable civilization. This is one reason why Jamestown would become the first settlement to establish the enduring legacy of Christian Common Law. The Christian common law was predicated on the transcendent principles of justice outlined in the moral law and the case laws of Scripture, but applied to local custom.

Jamestown gave America her first Protestant house of worship, first Christian conversions and baptisms and first “inter-racial” marriages based on the Christian Faith. Jamestown also gave us a vision of republican representative government, a form of government later enshrined in the United States Constitution which finds its origins in the Hebrew Republic of the Old Testament of Holy Scripture.

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The following was posted on crosswalk.com.

NY Times Highlights Jamestown ‘Celebration’ Problem; Vision Forum Responds with Christian Celebration

As America turns 400 this year with the founding of Jamestown in 1607, officials leading America’s 400th birthday commemoration have banned the term “celebration” in conjunction with their efforts and sought to discredit the Christian influence of the Jamestown Colony, a Vision Forum release says. Mary Wade of the Virginia Council of Indians said in a Voice of America interview, “You can’t celebrate an invasion.” In a March 2 article in the New York Times entitled,”Captain Smith, ‘The Tides Are Shifting on the James,’” Edward Rothstein wrote the following of PC shift Wade’s statement represents: “The [National Park Service] has just added a modest historical exhibition in its visitors’ center [at Historic Jamestowne]... [with a] panel [which] emphasizes the point: ‘Past Jamestown anniversaries were referred to as ‘celebrations.’ Because many facets of Jamestown’s history are not cause for celebration, like human bondage and the displacement of Virginia Indians, the Jamestown 400th Anniversary is referred to as the Jamestown 2007 Commemoration.” As an alternative, Vision Forum Ministries is hosting an alternative event on June 11-16 in Virginia’s historic triangle that will celebrate God’s providential hand in the founding of America four centuries ago. To learn more, visit: www.jamestown400th.org.

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In 1928, the grateful daughters of one generation, honored their Jametsown fathers with this monument.

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We greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherence of so noble a Work, which may, by the Provience of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, propogating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet Government... 1606 Charter

Much has been said about the motivation for settlement at Jamestown. Herb Titus, fomer Dean of Regent Law School, explains that the express purpose for colonization was to fulfil the Great Commission. According to Titus: “So, the express purpose and the only one written in the Charter, was to establish colonies in the new world as a Christian evangelical witness to the native peoples.” The First Charter of Virginia: Seedbed for the Nation, The Forecast, Volume I, No. 14. April 15, 1994

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Captain John Smith To the most high and virtuous princess, Queen Anne of Great Britain

Most admired Queen,

The love I bear my God, my King and country, hath so oft emboldened me in the worst of extreme dangers, that now honesty doth constrain me to presume thus far beyond myself, to present your Majesty this short discourse: if ingratitude be a deadly poison to all honest virtues, I must be guilty of that crime if I should omit any means to be thankful.

So it is, that some ten years ago being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan their chief King, I received from this great Salvage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit, I ever saw in a Salvage, and his sister Pocahontas, the Kings most dear and well-beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compassionate pitiful heart, of my desperate estate, gave me much cause to respect her: I being the first Christian this proud King and his grim attendants ever saw: and thus enthralled in their barbarous power, I cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in the power of those my mortal foes to prevent, notwithstanding all their threats. After some six weeks fatting amongst those Salvage courtiers, at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown: where I found about eight and thirty miserable poor and sick creatures, to keep possession of all those large territories of Virginia; such was the weakness of this poor commonwealth, as had the salvages not fed us, we directly had starved. And this relief, most gracious Queen, was commonly brought us by this Lady Pocahontas.

Notwithstanding all these passages, when inconstant fortune turned our peace to war, this tender virgin would still not spare to dare to visit us, and by her our jars have been oft appeased, and our wants still supplied; were it the policy of her father thus to employ her, or the ordinance of God thus to make her his instrument, or her extraordinary affection to our nation, I know not: but of this I am sure; when her father with the utmost of his policy and power, sought to surprise me, having but eighteen with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with watered eyes gave me intelligence, with her best advice to escape his fury; which had he known, he had surely slain her.

Jamestown with her wild train she as freely frequented, as her fathers habitation; and during the time of two or three years, she next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine and utter confusion; which if in those times, had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day.

Since then, this business having been turned and varied by many accidents from that I left it at: it is most certain, after a long and troublesome war after my departure, betwixt her father and our colony; all which time she was not heard of.

About two years after she herself was taken prisoner, being so detained near two years longer, the colony by that means was relieved, peace concluded; and at last rejecting her barbarous condition, she was married to an English Gentleman, with whom at this present she is in England; the first Christian ever of that Nation, the first Virginian ever spoke English, or had a child in marriage by an Englishman: a matter surely, if my meaning be truly considered and well understood, worthy a Princes understanding.

Thus, most gracious Lady, I have related to your Majesty, what at your best leisure our approved Histories will account you at large, and done in the time of your Majesty’s life; and however this might be presented you from a more worthy pen, it cannot from a more honest heart, as yet I never begged anything of the state, or any: and it is my want of ability and her exceeding desert; your birth, means, and authority; her birth, virtue, want and simplicity, doth make me thus bold, humbly to beseech your Majesty to take this knowledge of her, though it be from one so unworthy to be the reporter, as myself, her husbands estate not being able to make her fit to attend your Majesty. The most and least I can do, is to tell you this, because none so oft hath tried it as myself, and the rather being of so great a spirit, however her stature: if she should not be well received, seeing this Kingdom may rightly have a Kingdom by her means; her present love to us and Christianity might turn to such scorn and fury, as to divert all this good to the worst of evil; whereas finding so great a Queen should do her some honor more than she can imagine, for being so kind to your servants and subjects, would so ravish her with content, as endear her dearest blood to effect that, your Majesty and all the Kings honest subjects most earnestly desire.

And so I humbly kiss your gracious hands,
Captain John Smith, 1616

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At the opening of the Jamestown 250th, Rev. George T. Wilmer offered this dedication prayer just prior to the formal introduction of the former 10th President of the United States, John Tyler.

“Almighty God, Creator and Governor of all things visible and invisible, we beseech Thee graciously to hear us who are now assembled in Thy name and presence. May Thy spirit preside over the celebration of this day—impress all who are present with a due sense of their obligations unto Thee.

Thou has wonderfully preserved and prospered this people when they were strangers in the land, and but few in numbers, Thou didst help them, and dids’t show, that the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Now, that they have become a powerful nation, grant them magnanimity equal to the fortitude which they displayed in the days of their weakness. May we ever remember that our forefathers brought here their holy religion, with their political institutions, and planted the vine of the Lord by the side of the pillars of the State. These both have grown together, to remain, as we trust, forever united. Teach us to worship and to serve Thee, not only as the Lord of hosts, but also as the God of our eternal salvation; which we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christm to whom. With Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.”

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For the 250th anniversary of America’s birthday at Jamestown, the following letter was read as an introduction to former United States President John Tyler. The letter was composed by then Governor (Virginia’s 33rd) Henry Wise. The last peacetime governor of Virginia before the Civil War, Wise was the man who signed the death warrant on John Brown. He served as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army and was with Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, where he counseled Lee to surrender. As with so many of the leaders on both sides of the Civil War, Wise found himself at war with his own extended family, including his brother-in-law, federal General George Meade. But before the winds of war had become a reality for the Old Dominion, the last peacetime governor urged the people of their state to remember their fathers.

Washington City, April 20th, 1857

Dear Sir:

I beg you to present my acknowledgements to the Jamestown Society of Washington City, for their invitation to attend their Celebration on the 13th May next. I should be most happy to participate in the ceremonies intended to revive and perpetuate the memories of our early history; but I doubt whether I shall be able to attend, owing to the state of the health of both Mrs. Wise and myself. I cannot venture to touch upon my estimate of the event you propose to commemorate. Virginia, the American Revolution, the United States of North America, Arose from its foundation, and whether one brick remaineth upon another at Jamestown or not, the place can never be forgotten; and though the James River shall wash away the site into its waters, the monuments of history, the moral and mental beacons shall be preserved for the honour of our beloved Commonwealth and heroic fathers and founders. I have the most lively interest in the Society which would save from the ravages of Time the testimonials of the Past, to reanimate the present and secure the future of Virginia. To all this sacred theme full justice will be done by your honoured and illustrious orator, Ex-President Tyler. He is one of the proudest personages left, linking us to the Fathers, and I can well say: “Hear ye him.”

To you, individually, sir, I am grateful for the manner in which you have expressed the invitation of the Society, and far more for being a most worthy example of a true son of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Be pleased to accept my kindest regards, and believe me,

Yours truly,

Henry A. Wise
To Phillip R. Fendall, Esq., President, &c, &c.

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Here amid the graves of our ancestors, we renew our pledges to those principles of self-government, which have been consecrated by their examples through two-hundred and fifty years; and implore that great Being who so often and signally preserved them through trials and difficulties, to continue to our country His protecting guardianship and care. (President John Tyler, 1857 Jamestown Jubilee Speech)

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June 7, 1906 Hon. Harry St. George Tucker President of the Jamestown Exposition Comapny, Norfolk, Virginia.

Dear Mr. Tucker:

I am very anxious to see the subject of Aeronautics well handled at the Jamestown Exposition and regret exceedingly that I have found it impossible, with the numerous duties devolving upon me to accept the position of Honorary Director of Aeronautics offered me by the Board of Governors.

If this branch of the Exposition is to be made a success it will require the expenditure of several thousand dollars on the part of the Exposition for the housing of flying machines, and dirigible balloons, and for the plant required to make gas light enough for the use of the Balloonists. And it would require the whole time of a competent man familiar with the needs of Aeronauts etc., to attend to this work properly.

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There are specials reason why we [the Negro people] should have a part in the Jamestown Exposition. It was near this spot, nearly three hundred years ago, that the first representatives of our race were brought into America. It is especially fitting, therefore, that since here we entered slavery that on the same spot we should show results both in slavery and in freedom. When our first representatives landed here, we were only 20 in number, now there are nearly ten millions; when our first representatives landed here we had no uniform language, now we speak the English tongue. For the most part, we were pagan, now, we profess Christianity.

Excerpted from “Booker T. Washington, Jamestown Tercentennial Speech, August 3, 1907,” as recorded in The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 9 (Champaign, IL: The University of Illinois Press, 1980), pp. 321-322.

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