"We Should Probably Remember Jamestown at Least Once a Year"

"The story of Jamestown portrays the United States as a runaway business venture fueled by the greed of capitalists, the desperation of the poor, and the misery of slaves. Jamestown shows that the United States, from its very inception, has treated natural and human resources as equally inexhaustible, and equally expendable. It shows the arrogance of distant elites whose knowledge of their own incompetence is rendered painless by their indifference to human consequences. It's obvious from the historical record that many of the ordinary people involved in this enterprise did not like where it was going, but did not know how to stop it."

Brianna Rennix at Current Affairs argues that Americans should focus on 1607 more than 1620.

"The Most Myth-Encrusted Figure in Early America"

"She was born Matoaka, in the mid-1590s, the daughter of Powhatan, who ruled a native empire in what is now eastern Virginia. Powhatan had dozens of children, and power in his culture passed between males. But she did attract special notice for her beauty and liveliness; hence Pocahontas, a nickname meaning, roughly, 'playful one.' This was also the name she was known by to the English who settled near her home in 1607. John Smith, an early leader in Jamestown, described her as beautiful in  'feature, countenance, and proportion' and filled with 'wit and spirit.'

"But contrary to her depiction in films by Disney and others, Pocahontas wasn’t a busty teenager when the English encountered her. Smith called her 'A child of ten years old,' while another colonist described her as a 'young girle,' cartwheeling naked through Jamestown. There is no evidence of romance between her and Smith (a lifelong bachelor, who, to judge from his own portrait, was far from handsome). Nor is there a firm basis for the tale of Pocahontas saving the English captain from execution by flinging her body across his. The only source for this story is Smith, who exaggerated many of his exploits and didn’t mention his rescue by Pocahontas until 17 years after it allegedly occurred."

 

Tony Horwitz in Smithsonian looks at the life and legend of Pocahontas.

"Just Watch Out for Those Socialists from Jamestown"

"A member of the audience passed a question to the moderator, who read it to Armey: How can the Federalist Papers be an inspiration for the tea party, when their principal author, Alexander Hamilton, 'was widely regarded then and now as an advocate of a strong central government'?
"Historian Armey was flummoxed by this new information. 'Widely regarded by whom?' he challenged, suspiciously. 'Today's modern ill-informed political science professors? . . . I just doubt that was the case in fact about Hamilton.'
"Alas, for Armey, it was the case. Hamilton favored a national bank, presidents and senators who served for life and state governors appointed by the president."

Dana Milbank in The Washington Post listens to a history lesson from Dick Armey.

Not a Single Luxury

"In the second week of May 1610 they set sail for Virginia, and arrived about 10 days later. The survivors of the rest of the colony greeted them with amazement, having long believed them to have been lost, and for their part the castaways themselves were in for a surprise: 'When William Strachey and the other castaways came ashore at Jamestown . . . they had their first look at the settlement they had been told was a miniature England in the Virginia woodland. What they found instead was a band of skeletal people who had faced starvation while the castaways lived in ease and plenty on the Devil's Isle.'"

Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post reviews Hobson Woodward's A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Don de Dieu Feray Valoir

"It was here that New France took hold, here that the fur trade and the missionary conversion of the continent began and exploration of North America commenced in earnest. So as Quebec gets set to mark its quadricentennial today, it is as much a national celebration as a local one."

Canada's National Post notes that today is the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.

And David Hackett Fischer in The New York Times compares founding ideas of the United States and Canada.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

"But today Britons have a take on Guy Fawkes that is much at odds with the historical one. Once Fawkes was a symbol of the traitor within. The people were called to be on guard against his like. No longer. Today Guy Fawkes is increasingly viewed as the heroic figure prepared to stand against an unjust and oppressive state, as a martyr and a victim of torture."

Scott Horton in Harper's looks back to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 for contemporary lessons in counterterrorism.