Jamestown, after much painful experimentation, established the kinds of local institutions, beliefs, and practices that colonizers recognized as the prerequisites to successful settlement and that we have come to recognize as the seedbeds of the American republic. The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman (392 pages, Belknap Press, 2009) “Discovery” has been a term and [...]
Nikole Hannah-Jones is right and wrong. Although the first slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619, the year and the event carry less significance than she imagines. Although neither deceptive nor careless, she is uninterested in facts in a conventional sense. Her principal objective is not to understand the past but to rebuke the present and, [...]
In the early seventeenth century, gentlemen adventurers and common tradesmen voyaged to Jamestown and established the first permanent English settlement in North America. They were free and independent Englishmen who risked their lives and fortunes to brave the dangers of the New World for personal profit and the glory of England. […]
During her first century, America’s foreign policy closely guarded her place as a holy land, set apart from the wicked Old World. The purpose of foreign policy was to keep the corrupt outer world from shaping our nation. Who are we, we Americans? Are we champions of liberty, both civil and religious, both at home [...]