Tax dollars trashing our history

We have waited for 400 years – and now we have to put up with this?

At what should be a crowning moment of blessing, celebration and thanksgiving to God, America is being held hostage by savage philosophies reanimated from the grave and marching on Jamestown.

Last weekend during the Queen's Quadricentennial tour, American Indian and radical activists protested the 1607 Jamestown settlement in a town hall meeting followed by a public demonstration. The title for their weekend effort: "Shame on Jamestown's 400th." Their theme: "Advocates for the victims expose the true history and the community speaks out."

In an official press release titled, "Jamestown, VA 400th Anniversary of Genocide," this group – which has close ties to the New Black Panther Party – declared: "Make no mistake about it, our … rally … and demonstration … [are] designed to crash this illegitimate party and pursue the overdue case for reparations and justice for the victims of slavery, mass murder and genocide. … The ill affects of what happened at Jamestown still fester in the community today."

Featured speakers at the two-day event included "Warrior Woman," an indigenous/Indian activist of the Dakota Nation, and Bob Brown of the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party, among others.

But not to worry, right?

Isn't this "new perspective" on Jamestown merely the rantings of the local chapter of "rent a riot"– a motley group of extremists, leftover hippies and Marxist revolutionaries?

Sadly, no.

While "Warrior Woman" may not be on the VIP short list at the official Quadricentennial event, some of the very spokesmen heralded by the official Jamestown 2007 committee are trumpeting the same "fringe protester" message. They may not be carrying picket signs or shouting through a bullhorn, but their message is essentially the same: We can't "celebrate an invasion."

Perhaps it could all be bearable if only the "shame on Jamestown" dialogue were relegated to a few of the official signature events, like those featuring Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Otis Moss in which Jamestown was likened to Nazi Germany and the KKK.

But "shame on Jamestown" has been an unfortunate undercurrent of so much of the official propaganda.

Like many tens of thousands of grateful Americans traveling to Jamestown Island this year, I will have to walk my children past signs like this established by the National Park Service:

Past Jamestown anniversaries were referred to as "celebrations." Because many facets of Jamestown's history are not cause for celebration, like human bondage and the displacement of Virginia Indians, the Jamestown 400th Anniversary is referred to as the Jamestown 2007 Commemoration.

At least this statement is sanitized compared to the official curriculum of the Jamestown 400th, which asks students to compare the "ethnocentrism" of the English who settled Jamestown to the "ethnic cleansing in Rwanda" and the rise of "Nazi Germany."

This type of rhetoric appears ubiquitous.

One can go to the National Park Service website to read the perspective of Oliver "Fish Hawk" Perry who declares: "The foreign invaders forced the Indians off their ancestral homeland, confiscated their cleared fields, destroyed their longhouses and canoes, stole their corn and desecrated their temples."

Or walk inside the visitor center book store where you can purchase "The True Story of Pocahontas," a book written to coincide with the Quadricentennial that claims the princess daughter of Powhatan was raped by at least one leading member of the colony, forcibly converted to Christ and then murdered in England.

How did authors Linwood "Little Bear" Custalow and Angela "Silver Star" Daniel discover these undocumented and unsubstantiated revelations?

Simple – the authors claim to be the oracles of sacred tribal tradition. And on the basis of this claim, they have become celebrated historians.

Ladies and gentlemen, the emperor has no clothes.

My point is this: Why worry about the "Shame on Jamestown" rally of the New Black Panther protesters when taxpayer money is going to promote the same spirit of anti-Christian, anti-scholarly, anti-celebration protest in the form of signature events, speeches, displays and publicity designed to train little boys and girls to be ashamed of the founding of America?

I propose a fresh perspective, based on a historic understanding of who we are as a people and why we have been so blessed of God.

I propose we consider the wisdom of noble spokesmen of the past, like the great educator Booker T. Washington. In 1907, for his keynote address at the Jamestown Tercentenary, Washington offered his own perspective on the propriety of black Americans celebrating the triumph of Christian culture through Jamestown:

There are special reasons why we [the Negro people] should have a part in the Jamestown Exposition. It was near this spot, nearly 300 years ago, that the first representatives of our race were brought into America. It is especially fitting, therefore, that since here we entered slavery that on the same spot we should show results both in slavery and in freedom. When our first representatives landed here, we were only 20 in number, now there are nearly 10 million; when our first representatives landed here we had no uniform language, now we speak the English tongue. For the most part, we were pagan, now, we profess Christianity.

I propose that we acknowledge and thank God that the Jamestown settlers brought the Bible to America to liberate pagans from a culture of cannibalism, ritual torture and demon worship. I propose that we give thanks for the arrival of the biblically based common law and the advent of republican representative government. I propose that we thank God for the unquenchable and persevering spirit of John Smith, Pocahontas, John Rolfe and the many other notable figures of our early history.

And I propose that we remember that it was at Jamestown that America built her first houses of worship, enjoyed her first conversions and consecrated the land to Jesus Christ.

This brings me to my principle point: It doesn't matter whether the protests are coming from academics, politicians or weekend warriors in face paint – the mantra of "shame on Jamestown" is a national disgrace.

We have a moral duty to celebrate the mercies of God. If we don't stop and take inventory of His providence in the history of our people through the Jamestown forefathers, this generation will have something for which they should be truly ashamed – the sin of ingratitude.

Related special offer:

"To Have and to Hold: A Tale of Providence and Perseverance in Colonial Jamestown"