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Posted on 03/08/2007 5:24:52 AM PST by SJackson
'Celebration' banned for Jamestown's 400th
Events marking settlement's anniversary condemn its 'holocaust'
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
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This year is the 400th anniversary of the arrival of settlers in Jamestown, 13 years before the Plymouth Pilgrims appeared on America's shores. And there will be discussions on the environmental impact of the settlement and its impact on African-Americans and Native Americans. But there will be no celebration.
"You can't celebrate an invasion," Mary Wade, a member of Jamestown 2007 organizing committee, has stated. After all, Indian tribes "were pushed back off of their land, even killed. Whole tribes were annihilated. A lot of people carry that oral history with them, and that's why they use the word 'invasion,' because it truly was an invasion, and I'm sure some of the Indian people will probably want to tell that as a part of the story of 400 years."
And that has some experts in history upset, since the advent of Jamestown provided what later became the United States with important introductions to Christian common law, a republican representative government, the first Protestant Christian worship service, and its first interracial marriage.
Wade's comments came in an interview with Voice of America, and highlighted the revisions that are going on regarding the history of Jamestown – and America. It also left a message about how important are the disputes over the political perspective now being applied retroactively to America's history.
"I believe this is one of the most significant battles of our day," said Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries and the founder of the Jamestown Quadricentennial: A Celebration of America's Providential History, Vision Forum's own series of events to celebrate the quadracentennial. "It is the battle for our history."
He cited the fact that the Jamestown settlers arrived with not only an economic commission from England, but orders to spread the Good News of Jesus, noting one of the founders of Jamestown, Richard Hakluyt, wrote, "Wee shall by plantinge there inlarge the glory of the gospel, and from England plante sincere religion, and provide a safe and a sure place to receave people from all partes of the worlds that are forced to flee for the truthe of Gods worde."
And he said the Bible, in Psalm 78, tells readers, "If we don't tell the great deeds of God, our children will lose hope." But he said the secular perspectives that are the focal point of the contemporary events miss that Christian perspective, and that will end up being costly.
"We are destroying our children's generation by robbing them of history. They don't know who they are or where they came from," he told WND in an interview.
Phillips said America is known world-wide for its celebration, from the millions of dollars worth of fireworks ignited each 4th of July to the major festivities launched for other events, such as the 1976 Bicentennial.
But now, for the first time ever, the nation is ashamed of itself, so ashamed, he noted, Jamestown 2007 officials have banned the use of the word "celebration" in their materials.
On the other hand, they still are interested in attracting paying visitors to the region to fund their various activities, so they have turned this year's acknowledgment of the history into a bashfest.
"For America's 400th birthday, what should be a celebration of gratitude to the Lord is fast becoming an homage to revisionist historiography and political correctness," Phillips said.
For example, an event called, "State of the Black Union 2007: America's 400th Anniversary: The African American Imprint on America," already has been held. Its goal was a conversation about "how African Americans have made this nation great and how we must continue to fight to make the state of Black America a more perfect union."
Two other discussion headlines have included: "A Concentrated Diversity: The Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, 1619 to 1860," and "The Ecology of Jamestown – Origin of Environmental Injustice in America."
Said one commentary by Ken Adams, a tribal leader: "The British government finally sent enough people to take over all the land, which the Indians owned, and in the process of the wars that followed, 90 percent of an entire human race of people died."
"Yet, by God's grace, grateful Christians have an opportunity to officially celebrate America's great heritage on her 400th birthday," Phillips said.
His Vision Forum Ministries will be rallying Americans "from shore to shore to Jamestown" to the "Jamestown Quadricentennial: A Celebration of America's Providential History."
Those events will be June 11-16, and will highlight the significant role Jamestown played in creating the United States and its freedoms. There is a fourfold vision for Vision Forum's plans: to leave a witness for future generations that America did not forget the providential hand of God and Americans are a thankful people willing to honor the faith of their fathers, to create an exciting event that gives families an unforgettable experience, to leave a record of poetry and literature for following generations, and to leave "rocks of remembrance and Ebenezers of hope" that will provide vision for children of today.
A featured guest will be Harrison Tyler, the man whose father called for the Tercentenary 100 years ago and whose grandfather, the nation's 10th president, John Tyler, Jr., keynoted the 250th celebration.
Kevin Crossett, a spokesman for the formal Jamestown 2007 organization, said the historians decided to highlight free enterprise, representative government and cultural diversity in this year's "commemoration."
"That's not to say that other legacies are not important. These are the three that … are the most well-known," he told WND. Besides, other organizations are marking the Christian legacy, he said. "It's not being promoted as such from our office."
He said the use of the "commemoration" was changed from "celebration," as the events have been known for the last 200 years, because of objections from blacks and Native Americans.
"When we started planning the culturally diverse aspects of the Jamestown story, the African-American and Indian communities said, 'This isn't necessary a celebration for us,'" he said. "Those words struck home."
While that may have happened, Phillips notes that the actions resulting from those words actually is changing the history, since the settlers in Jamestown were commissioned to carry the message of Christianity, and did that in many ways.
"America's first published author was Captain John Smith, who described the arrival of the Jamestown settlers in 1607 as an act of providential goodness. America's spiritual 'first family,' the Mathers of New England, authored numerous works on Providence. America's first charter as an independent nation, the Declaration of Independence, announced that our ability to persevere as a nation rested in our 'firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.' Just weeks before the Declaration was signed, America's first great political mentor, the Rev. John Witherspoon (himself a signer of the Declaration and the tutor to one sixth of the members of our Constitutional Convention) authored 'The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men.' Even America's first president regularly invoked the God of providence in his writings," he said.
"Thus, gratitude to the sovereign God for His many providential blessings is not only biblical, it is richly American," Phillips said.
"In 1807 for the two hundredth, 1957 for the 250th, 1907 for the three hundredth, and then again in 1957 for the 350th anniversary celebration of America's birthday at Jamestown, our nation was enthusiastically reminded of these glorious acts of Divine Providence," Phillips noted.
For example, in 1857, former President John Tyler, Jr. gave a three-hour keynote oration tracing 250 years of providence, perseverance, and blessing.
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.
Phillips said the more liberal members of the media have joined the secularization and diminution of Jamestown's contributions. "A town which disappeared into the mud," is from the New York Times while the Virginia Gazette said Jamestown was "not worth it."
"For a whole year or more we shall celebrate the fact that a bunch of British buffoons who knew nothing of what they were doing colonized a swamp for the sake of Christianizing Indians," the paper said.
If such efforts are successful, "ours will be the first generation in the history of America at the time of a landmark historical celebration to officially and publicly despise our birthright and the providential hand of God in the life of our people," Phillips noted.
The event planning has been going on for years, and it was in 2000 when Congress passed the Jamestown 400th Commemoration Commission Act, setting up the organizing structure for the events now going on.
The official propaganda from that group carries it even further. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine told an early event that those previous celebrations "did not tell the whole story," and he introduced a panel including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Otis Moss. Moss said this nation should be required to fix "the propaganda of history," and those Jamestown settlers were guilty of mass "holocaust" and "lynchings."
The reality is that the Jamestown settlers were people, Phillips said. "The true record includes warts, bumps, and bruises … What makes this story so compelling is that God worked through remarkable but flawed men to advance a mission that was based on a prime directive of New Testament Christianity. The result – a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."
Thanks for pointing out that it's not a reliable source.
They did not.
The American Government did perform acts, such as providing blankets contaminated with small pox,
They did not.
One of the great things about FR is learning when you don't expect it. The question was related to racial/cultural invasions, which I limited to the last couple thousand years. I'd ignore political changes. I was under the impression the Saami were essentially the same as Norwegans, Swedes, I probably should have referred to the Scandanavian nations in general. They simply followed a different cultural pattern. If not, where did the non-Saami Scandanavians come from.
This comes up occasionally on threads pertaining to genocide, only a few a year but I'd be glad to ping you. In my mind there were political/military considerations in the west. The Indian school system was clearly genocidal. But the most obvious examples were in east, particularly the Southeast. The uprooting of entire cultures, as the Cherokee, existing under the laws of the US, based solely on race.
I think we've no liability, but kudus to President Reagan for signing the genocide treaty despite the unknown risks.
I don't know much about the southeast, but there are some fascinating histories of the western and northwestern tribes which indicate that their stewardship of the land, to be maintained in it's natural, pristine state, included extensive burning of the "old growth", thats the ones they didn't get to, forests. Nothing like burns and edges to attract protein on the hoof.
The little ice age probably ended in Europe because of burns in North America discharging carbon into the air.
Don't tell Al Gore, he might make a movie.
Who is Mary Wade?
And as a history-minded person, I've seen plenty of worthwhile exhibits which include the negative parts of our history, stated well, & informatively in a balanced way.
Scandanavians are from Germanic tribes & they "invaded" Scandanavian countries in the same way the earliest Europeans "invaded" America. Saami tribal territories cross the national borders of Norway, Sweden, Finnland & Russia.
There were never "millions" of Indians to relocate. The Trail of Tears involved some 17,000 and was done contrary to the Supreme Court decision. Total relocation by force or agreement was probably well under 100,000. Movements as a body were restricted to defined areas, usually in or near traditional lands and specifically reserved for them (reservations). Some accepted this, other nomadic tribes rebelled.
The Indian schools were not genocidal. I'm going to retain the traditional meaning of "the mass killing of a people." They were not even genocidal in the U.N. definition as the destruction of a culture. The schools were designed to enable a primative people to coexist in a modern society. Some schools did go overboard but there was no concerted effort to deconstruct the tribes. It was envisioned that they would live as a cohesive people (like the Pennsylvania Dutch or the Scots-Irish in the peidmont) but acquire the skills to exist and support themselves in an agricultural economy.
Movies and Chruchill aside, I’m not convinced. There’s an element there that I just don’t want to believe it. But I don’t think the evidence is there. As to smallpox blankets.
There were never "millions" of Indians to relocate. The Trail of Tears involved some 17,000 and was done contrary to the Supreme Court decision. Total relocation by force or agreement was probably well under 100,000. Movements as a body were restricted to defined areas, usually in or near traditional lands and specifically reserved for them (reservations). Some accepted this, other nomadic tribes rebelled.
I shouldn’t have said probably millions, I don’t know the literature that well, but the little I’ve read of population levels, transferring millions, no, that didn’t happen. Continued below.
The Indian schools were not genocidal. I'm going to retain the traditional meaning of "the mass killing of a people." They were not even genocidal in the U.N. definition as the destruction of a culture. The schools were designed to enable a primative people to coexist in a modern society. Some schools did go overboard but there was no concerted effort to deconstruct the tribes. It was envisioned that they would live as a cohesive people (like the Pennsylvania Dutch or the Scots-Irish in the peidmont) but acquire the skills to exist and support themselves in an agricultural economy.
If you’re interested I’ll be glad to provide a few link, or you can do a search for Raphael Lemkin who coined the term. I think genocide.com has a few of his articles posted.
The “traditional”, actually Lemkin invented the term, meaning of genocide is not mass killing. In fact it has no relation to killing. It relates to the destruction of a culture, religious, ethnic, economic. He thought of it as an early warning system, since while genocide is often accompanied by mass murder, it often precedes it. Slaughter is not a necessary component.
Taking Indian children from their homes and families, in order to solve the Indian problem by making them little brown skinned Christians is genocide.
Uprooting the Cherokee, whether 17,000 or 170,000, from their homes, destroying their culture in the southeast, is genocide.
America didn’t ratify the genocide treaty for nearly thirty years, till Reagan , because of our concerns about our past genocidal actions.
I admit that today, when slaughter over religion is prevalent, the distinction is probably lost. So is the warning.
White men immune to smallpox? Not by a long shot.
"Less susceptible", perhaps, but by no means immune.
Smallpox vaccination was not developed until 1796, by Edward Jenner.
The very term genocide is from geno (people or tribe) and cide (to kill). It was in response to the massacre of Armenians. The definition was expanded somewhat after WWII as the world and the newly constituted U.N. wrestled with what had happened to the Jews and other ethnicities. Lemkin himself wrote in his draft resolution:
Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.
I take that to mean removing the groups from existance. More recently the U.N. and leftist groups have attempted to expand the meaning even further to include anything which disturbs the cultural values of a people, no matter how benevolent or well intentioned. No sale.
The Indian schools (and most of them were on the reservations) grew out of the "Peace Policy" started by Grant. Quakers and Lutherans and other religious groups were given contracts to administer the reservations, educate the inhabitants and convert them to Christianity. Most of what the schools did was good. You can see the legacy even today if you visit some of the elders on the reservation. They write in beautiful script and in clear concise language, something most of our college graduates cannot do. Some of the stories from the schools are heartbreaking but the same could be said for orphanages of the period. The schools produced most of the leaders who have contributed to whatever progress has been made. They advanced the cultures by centuries in just a few years.
The U.S. government has been, at least in intention, paternalistic to the Indians.
And they were gathered into a military empire by Powhatan, the "Weroance of Weroances" (Chief of Chiefs), who wielded absolute authority over most of the tribes in Virginia. In fact, when a tribe disputed him, he had them wiped out (the Chesapeake, for example).
Powhatan also collected heavy tribute and brides from the tribes under his Paramount Chiefdom, and ensured that his children were seeded from women throughout the region to cement his grip.
He simply encountered a more resourceful tribe.
Didn't any Indians ever take land from other Indians??
I'm not sure about Jamestown, but I know the land the pilgrims landed on did not belong to anyone. The closest tribe was 50 miles away.
The Cherokees were an extremely violent and aggressive tribe who constantly made war on their neighbors, whether Shawanese, Creeks, Chickasaws, Catawbas or the colonists and were responsible for a great deal of death and suffering until their enemies finally managed to get the upper hand.
The enforced removal of the Cherokees to new territory was not “genocide” and this is either a silly, frivolous use of the term or dishonest demagoguery. While we can’t know for certain, because the Indians were illiterates and left no written records before the coming of Europeans, there does exist tradition indicating that the Cherokees were not even originally from the southern Appalachian area, but had ended up there after losing a war (what a surprise - the Cherokees involved in a war!) against other tribes in a more northwestern region.
Nevertheless, it is true that during the forced removal there were deaths due mainly to disease, estimated by the US government at a few hundred and by Indian advocates at a few thousand. And the reputation of the Indians, well-earned in previous generations, for cruelty and savagery unfortunately left them in short supply of sympathy by Americans for their sufferings at the time of the removal, but we see now that as time has passed this perception has turned completely around.
To speak of “millions” or even 170,000 is absurd. During all of the 1700s it is doubtful if the ENTIRE Cherokee population ever reached 25,000. However, the death and suffering doled out by this one tribe was remarkable. In the American Revolution, the Cherokees sided with the British and took the opportunity to conduct savage raids along the frontier, cruelly murdering many people in frontier communities and sowing destruction along a wide area. This prompted a retaliation by the Carolina and Virginia militias that proved decisive.
Even with my Scotch-Irish heritage, I am a “Native” American - I was born and raised in the USA.
We are not far behind.
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