to establish Protestant Christianity in the new world. Second, to ease England's problem of overpopulation and underemployment. And third, to establish trade that would be profitable both for England and for the natives of Virginia, especially because the privateering business of taking all of the Spanish treasures was put to an end by their new king, King James. They didn't have that source of income from the New World anymore. They'd have to go and get it by trade themselves. And so in 1606, a charter was given, and which first and foremost recognized that the Virginia company that was brought into existence had a desire, it says, to, by the providence of God, sorry, had accepted their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work which may by the providence of almighty God hereafter tend to the glory of his divine majesty and propagating 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 into a settled and quiet government. And so they set off 1606, they arrived in 1607, and established what would be named Jamestown after King James. Now, instead of going through a chronology through those years, as I was initially thinking I would do, I want to focus more topically on several topics that might aid us as we compare it with the other colonies that would shortly follow. First of all, what was their work ethic? Their first, at first their work ethic was quite poor. It was not like that of New England, which would become rather famous for its work ethic. Initially, they arrived, many of them adventurers looking for gold, some quick riches that they could acquire and probably return with. All of the people who came on those first boats were men, men and boys. They were not initially those who were looking for a long-term project. The investors probably were, but not all of the men. But they did improve by the harsh lessons of experience and by the leadership of people like Captain John Smith. They encountered a very deadly first summer. Pilgrims had a deadly first winter. Jamestown, it was a deadly first summer. They missed the opportunity to plant crops. They arrived in the middle of a drought. They picked a location that was unoccupied, but unoccupied for good reasons, because it was a horribly unhealthy spot to live. And through disease, bad water, a poor work ethic, they began dropping like flies. 50 of the 104 settlers died between May and September. And by the end of the year, there were 38 left. Now, other settlers would be sent the following year, but things were still quite dire. Many of the gentlemen were not ready for farm work. But when Captain John Smith became governor, he commanded, he that will not work shall not eat, except by sickness he be disabled. referencing Paul's command in 2 Thessalonians 3.10. And so you don't work, you don't get fed out of the company storehouse. You better go and work, contribute. He had them dig a well, that was useful, to fortify the fort, to explore their surroundings, to seek food from Chief Powhatan and his Indian confederacy, and to send out groups away from this unhealthy fort to find food elsewhere. And so their work ethic improved over time. But connected with that, another topic to look at is their relations with the native peoples of Virginia. They started out with great intentions and sought to do well, but they encountered a challenging situation, one more challenging than the ones the pilgrims came to. And I try not to steal everyone else's thunder, but the pilgrims came to a land that had already been decimated by illness and was relatively open, but, and had competing tribes. The Virginians, though, well, settlers of Virginia, encountered a confederacy of 30 tribes led by a very powerful chieftain, the Powhatan, comprising about 15,000 people total. Now they did, like I said, pick an uninhabited land to start with, but it was not a very good land. As one chief told them, or actually told the other Indians, why should you be offended with them as long as they hurt you not, nor take anything away by force? They take but a little waste ground, which doth you nor any of us any good. Now their encounters were often tense from the very beginning. Neither side was very naive and both saw a combination of both benefit and threat from the other. Sometimes negotiations broke down and fighting broke out. Captain John Smith was able to keep an uneasy peace for a time. As soon as he left, due to a gunpowder explosion, war was launched and war existed between the Powhatans and the Jamestown settlers from 1609 to 1614, from 1622 to 1632, and then from 1644 to 1646. In 1622, that second war, they thought they were at peace, they were taken by surprise, and a third of the colonists were wiped out, and more died after that. But in the end, the wars proved more destructive to the native peoples and ended up hastening their demise. Now there were sincere attempts at evangelization by men like Alexander Whitaker and George Thorpe. Pocahontas, who I like to say is kind of the squanto of Jamestown, she was friendly to the settlers there. And in time, she was brought to faith in Christ and baptized by Reverend Whitaker. Being a Christian then, there was no barrier to her marriage to John Rolfe, which they both desired. And their marriage in 1614 helped bring peace to the people for their time. In fact, if you ever come to our house, you notice that in the living room, there's a painting of this very scene, of this marriage between Pocahontas, named later Rebecca, and John Rolfe. That was the best time for Indian relations. Between 1614 and 1621, they were able to have communication with each other, live with one another. There was even a Christian Indian who was living with the English who was the one to raise the alarm when the Massacre of 1622 took place. But Reverend Whitaker preached concerning the native peoples. He said, one God created us. They have reasonable souls and intellectual faculties as well as we. We all have Adam for our common parent. Yea, by nature, the condition of us both is all one, the servants of sin and slaves of the devil. Oh, remember, I beseech you. What was the state of England before the gospel was preached in our country? How much better were we then concerning our soul's health than these are now? Let the word of the Lord sound out that it may be heard in these parts. Let your faith which is toward God spread itself abroad and show forth the charitable fruits of it in these barren parts of the world. Unfortunately, they did not have as much success as the Puritans in Massachusetts, mostly because of the wars, and then the treaties after the wars, which limited interaction between the two groups. The treaties were made after the Indian chief had been defeated in battle and the tribes were established as tributaries of the King of England with protected lands, strong borders, and tribute payments. In fact, two of those tribes, part of that confederacy, still live on those lands established by those treaties in the 1600s and still pay tributes in accordance with those treaties. But it would take much longer for them to be brought to faith. Now, it's easy, as we tell the story of the pilgrims year after year, to think that, since they were such devout Christians, that all those other people in England must have been just like today, just so many people that would have not believed in God at all. But England was a Protestant country. It had received the Reformation at the time. And while not everything was as the Pilgrims and Puritans wanted it to be a complete reform, yet there was a Christian church that was established and was Protestant and came to Jamestown as well. By 1624, 22 clergymen were sent over. And their first preacher, Robert Hunt, showed exemplary courage and diligence. He even lost his library due to a fire without complaining, which you know for someone who likes his books, that's a severe trial. But then he died within a year. But he had often been a peacemaker. Dealing with very contentious early settlers to bring them at peace and saved Captain John Smith's life kept him from being hung at one point. But while they weren't separatists, they were Protestants, and Jamestown was settled when Calvinism was still prevailed in the Church of England. Puritans existed within it, and it was before Archbishop Laud began to impose uniformity and ritual upon the Church. Now, in Virginia, the churches were led by rectors, which would be the pastor over the parish. A parish might have several churches, so he might have vicars who would preach in some of those local churches. And then there would be a vestry. A vestry would be like elders or deacons, a council of laymen who would help in the governance of the affairs of the parish, would oversee charity and education of the poor. Now, get this. There were no bishops in America. until after the American Revolution. So the separatists that wanted to escape bishops, they escaped bishops. The Virginians in Virginia, they also escaped bishops, whether they were trying to or not. In fact, right before the American Revolution, one of the things to get the colonists upset was that there was talk of appointing a bishop over America, and not only the Puritans in New England, but the Anglicans in Virginia also opposed such an imposition upon the church in America. Now at Jamestown, they had a sermon on Sunday morning and catechism instruction and or another sermon on Sunday afternoon, a sermon on Wednesday, and then morning and afternoon prayer services every day that they were all expected to participate in. Communion was initially offered four times a year and then once a month. And there was also a day of fasting and prayer once a year. And so these were As a settlement, perhaps not all the individuals, but as a settlement, a very religious community. In fact, Reverend Whitaker seems to have been of a Puritan persuasion. Even though he was comfortable in England, he spent five years ministering in Virginia until he died. And he wrote to his cousin, William Gouge. William Gouge was a Puritan minister in London who would later become a leading member of the Westminster Assembly that would write the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Well, his cousin was Whitaker in Virginia, and Whitaker wrote to his cousin Gouge saying, But I am much more amused that so few of our English ministers that were so hot against the surplus and subscription come hither where neither is spoken of. In other words, these Puritans are complaining about having to wear these garments and to subscribe to everything. Why don't they just come here to Virginia, where there's so much more freedom that we don't even talk about those sorts of things? So it seems there was Puritan presence and flexibility in Virginia. that drew people like that. In fact, the person to succeed Whitaker, George Keith, was a Scotsman who might have even been a Presbyterian. And I'm out of time. No, I'll try to... finish up here. If you know of a lot of people today here of Jamestown, what they might think of is the 1619 Project. The 1619 Project was something launched by New York Times in 2019 that was going to try to rewrite the way we look at American history as really the story of slavery, that slavery would be the kind of core thread of American history, defining everything else and explaining everything else. Now, slavery is an important part of the American story, but the project overstated its case. But why I bring it up is because it was the 1619 Project, because they would say that the true founding of America is when the first slaves were brought to Virginia in 1619. But 1619 is important for several reasons. I'll talk about that, but also it was when private property was particularly enshrined, it's when representative government was established, and it's when the brideships began to be sent. So let me quickly talk about these things before I wrap up. First of all, initially the land was held in common, because it was a company, and they were employees. It was common property, they were all supposed to work, but that didn't work out too well, and it took a little bit of forcefulness to get people to work. But Sir Thomas Dale, the governor, began to assign private property, and then in 1619, that was enshrined more permanently, that each new head of household would receive 50 acres, and then 50 acres for every adult in his household. And so a person could get his own land in Virginia, something difficult to do in England. Indentured servants could pay off their transport, establish themselves as landowners, and receive the freedom and rights that would come with land ownership, and really begin a new system, a new culture, society that was different in some ways than England, with broader ownership of property. Second, so they're government then, property then government. English common law and the heritage of Magna Carta came with those earliest settlers. And on the other hand, beginning in 1611 or 10, Jamestown was basically under a military government. They realized that this was necessary and it was basically under martial law. But in 1619, the Virginia Company realized it was too hard to govern this from England. They need to govern themselves in Virginia, so they set up a General Assembly composed of a governor, a six-member royal council, and a house of burgesses elected by the people to represent the people. And so a little parliament was set up in Virginia, giving them self-government, control over their taxes, and a say in their laws. And it was those liberties that were threatened then and defended by the American Revolution when they sought to take that self-government away. In 1619, there was in fact the arrival of the first Africans to Virginia. But I said the 1619 Project overstates its case. First of all, Jamestown began in 1607, not 1619. Second, the institution of slavery, as distinct from indentured servitude, didn't get established by law until decades later. It's something that gradually entered the colony without much forethought. Initially, it was thought of something that the Portuguese and Spanish did, not something that English people did. The first Africans who arrived had been taken by English privateers from a Portuguese ship in the Caribbean and then brought to Virginia and traded with settlers for food. Not that that's the way it should have happened. That's just the way it happened. But what happened to these Africans is a matter of great debate even today. By law, they were considered indentured servants. And it seems that they, for the most part, would have been treated that way. In a case in 1640, a life indenture was imposed as a penalty upon an African runaway, showing that it was not the ordinary case. On the other hand, you already had some discrimination beginning, because the white runaways received a lighter sentence. Some Africans, like Anthony and Mary Johnson, became free landowners themselves, and relatively well off. It's possible, though, that others might have been unjustly kept in bondage. But it wasn't until 1661 that slavery was established by law. Interracial marriage was not banned until 1691, a law that actually would have forbidden one of the most famous marriages in Virginian history, the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. Ironic. African slavery did not become more prominent than white indentured servitude until around 1700. By the time Virginia sought to close the slave trade in the 1760s, the British prevented them, and it would be after independence that that would be cut off. So not to get into the whole rest of the story, race-based multigenerational slavery was a gradual development that was foolishly grafted on to the American project, but which was also broken off after a long struggle. But despite the regrettable circumstances of their arrival, the Africans who came would also make their own contributions to the Jamestown settlement, to Virginia, and to the rest of American history. The last thing in 1619 was that a family, like I said, the Jamestown settlers were not like the Pilgrims, in that they initially were all men. And you're not going to get a very long-term project with a group that is only men. And that's the way a lot of people treated it. They'd go there, they'd get their money, and then go back home and start a family. Or maybe run off and join the Indians. But they realized they didn't have much permanence without families. They were just a bunch of adventurers or conquerors. And so the Virginia Company had a solution let's send women there to be their wives And so they got into the matchmaking business. They recruited women volunteers who were young, handsome, and honestly educated maids, such as were specially recommended unto the company for their good bringing up by their parents or friends of good worth, which maids are to be disposed of in marriage to the most honest and industrious planters. They were supplied with dowries and free passage. The men were expected to help defray the cost of their passage as they were able. Neither side was forced into marriage. They were left to their own choice. In fact, one person said, women were introduced to prospective husbands at gatherings sponsored by the company's men and courtship overseen publicly by the ladies of the community. And it worked. They got married. And they continued that practice for several years. And Virginia moved from being a military outpost to multi-generational families invested in the future. So in conclusion, and we could get into a lot of other ways that God's providence worked out in the history of Jamestown, at one point they abandoned it as horrible conditions, and as they were sailing out of the bay, the relief ship came in and they turned around and went back to Jamestown. They arrived just like a day later. could have been over. So many close escapes and close calls that God's hand was recognized even at the time. In fact, the first Thanksgiving was pronounced on September 16, 1619 by 35 settlers on the good ship Margaret, who ordained that day, the day of our ship's arrival at the place assigned for plantation in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving for Almighty God. So Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement. It paved the way for later settlements. They also kept out the Spanish and French from what would become the United States. And they would later make their own contributions to the American project. James Madison's ancestor, Isaac Madison, came to Jamestown in 1608. John Randolph of Roanoke and others were descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe and their son, Thomas. Unlike Plymouth and Boston, it was planted with the established church. It was to spread something from England, not to create something new. They encountered more challenging situations with health and with Indian relations. Like Plymouth and Boston, it was motivated by English Protestantism, for king and country, for God and country, to establish Protestant Christianity in the new world. And like the other colonies, it only survived the marvelous providence of God who orchestrated events no man could have designed. So let's give thanks to him and seek to do well with the heritage we have been given.