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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Pharmboy and Captain Beyond. |
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Posted on 11/18/2011 11:39:32 AM PST by Pharmboy
Researchers at Jamestown, Va., may have found the site where the first Protestant church in North America was built.
Dr. William Kelso, head of the research team at Jamestown, which was founded as a settlement established by the Virginia Company of London in the 17th century, explained in an interview with The Christian Post that the group began excavating at the site where they may have found the church in the summer of 2010.
Kelso, an American archaeologist specializing in Virginia’s colonial period, believes the ruins found are the church because of a “Record of construction in Spring of 1608, burials in the east or chancel end” and that it “matches dimensions recorded in 1610.”
He discovered the site along with three field supervisors: archeologists Danny Schmidt, Dave Givens and Jamie May.
In addition to being the site of the oldest known Protestant church in the United States, the building would have also likely been the location for the wedding of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, a marriage that temporarily brought peace between settlers and Native Americans.
The church, which was 64 feet by 24 feet, also runs contrary to the common narrative on religion linked to Jamestown colony.
“[The] standard story is that Jamestown was all about secular pursuits and making money with the spread of religion far down the priority list,” said Kelso.
“The sheer size and early construction makes a dramatic statement that the establishment of the Church of England in the ‘new world’ was far more in the forefront of the colonists thinking than has previously been recognized by many historians.”
Historians at Virginia universities echo the sentiment of Kelso regarding the accuracy of the popular narrative of Jamestown.
Crandall Shifflet, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech, told CP that he believed the church ruins “could be an opportunity to re-examine the role of religion at Jamestown in particular and in seventeenth-century Virginia in general.”
“British colonists considered the spread of Christianity a central part of their mission,” said Shifflet, who oversees an online learning project called “Virtual Jamestown.”
“Popular culture tends to stereotype Jamestown as a group of adventure capitalists motivated by greed and materialistic gain without regard to the souls of colonists or Indians.”
Early American historian Dr. Jane Merritt of Old Dominion University said that the find was valuable for understanding life in the English colonies.
“The church will certainly help historians better map out the community spaces of the early settlement,” said Merritt.
“Archaeological work at Jamestown has been underway for decades and has uncovered wonderful evidence of the material life and culture of early colonists.”
Merritt explained that many misconceptions about life in Jamestown exist in modern society, noting that although often considered “a seedbed for democracy” Jamestown was a strictly structured and hierarchical society.
“Religion was an important part of this equation,” said Merritt, who added that “colonists were required to go to church (at times daily services) by threat of punishment.”
Merritt also noted the strong misconception commonly found with English settlers arriving to North America is that they were there for “religious freedom.”
“While religion was central to many of the settlements … the religious freedom they sought rarely included religious tolerance,” said Merritt.
Religion and politics were inextricably intertwined in seventeenth century England, even as a ground for war on several occasions.
The 17th Century is when the events called “The Thirty Years War” happened. At the end they all signed the “Peace of Westphalia”, a series of treaties that established the modern nation state and which ENDED the Western and Southern European practice of fighting wars over religion.
The Spanish thought what would become the Eastern U.S. was worthless and didn’t much mind the English settlements. There was no gold and the Spanish didn’t know until it was too late that it could grow tobacco.
It's along a feature called the Fall Line.
What happened toward 1570 was an intensification of the generally dry conditions that had prevailed from about 1500 to 1850.
What that meant was that the Tide Water (below the Fall Line) became fairly uniformly salt water. The only freshwater was available above the Fall Line.
Eventually as Virginia was settled the main focus was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg, and finally to Richmond. Williamsburg was "uphill" and Richmond was above the Fall Line.
It's still the same way. My closest river is the Potomac. It's below the Fall Line. There have been times it was brackish all the way to Great Falls.
The Spanish had their hands full with the Americas. King Philippe II/III opened the East Coast to various groups ~ except the Dutch. It's in the text of the Treaty of London (1604). Otherwise just about anybody in any Hapsburg realm could come here. Once the English figured out what the death rate was from malaria, et al, they did not object to Eastern and Central Europeans coming here.
I agree that the last of the religious wars were fought in the 17th Century. The great wars of the 18th Century were about politics, power and wealth.
Well, the Hapsburgs were a bit tetchy about the Dutch, since they had taken away one of their most valuable possessions by achieving independence.
We’ve been without a good religious war for so long that most of our major mouthpieces can’t imagine that the Moslems want to have one.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Pharmboy and Captain Beyond. |
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Yes, Church of England.
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