July 11, 2007
by Clay Barham

This is the 400th year of the Jamestown settlement.  Many today are saying it is the foundation of America. Did America, in the past four centuries reflect the character of Jamestown?   Soldiers came to Jamestown to prevent Spain from expanding its control Northward from Florida.  Profiteers came to find and send gold and other riches back to England.  Soon after, African Slaves came, not by their own choice, to work the soil and do the heavy lifting.  These people characterized Jamestown.  It was an extension of the Old World rule of King James in the New World.  It was life as experienced in the Old World.  It had its caste system, where the few elite managed the many. 

None of this fit the character of what became America.  None of what started in Jamestown carried the seeds of what established the freedoms and resulting prosperity defining America years later.  America has never been a reflection of the Jamestown settlement.  Jamestown may have been the mirror where people could see only themselves, their needs and their reflection and what they wanted to take from the land and time, but never a vision for a better world.

The real founding of America was yet to happen.  What grew from the New England settlement in 1620 truly shaped the American character.  The King's agents did not directly rule in New England as they did Jamestown.  There was less conflict with Indians and greater respect shown each other in their classless society. Profiteers did not scrounge for riches to send to Britain, as they did in Jamestown. 

New England was simply a Christian church resettlement, a group of very religious people escaping the Old World church despotism. To the New Englanders, theirs was not a mirror, but a window through which they saw a brighter future for each person, as they sought redemption in work and life on their way to the Promised Land.

Once relieved of the yoke of their originally self-imposed theocratic rule, the people of New England were free to set their own course and make their own way.  It was no less a new and threatening land than Jamestown, and possibly worse in many instances. The American dream was born in New England.  Ordinary people could finally own land. They could also own what they produced. They could follow their own interests, talents, skills and aspirations, not limited by parental occupations or class.  Each agreed that religious education and skill training was essential for everyone. They could think out of the bubble and live out of the box, something not possible anywhere else in the world. Slavery was unacceptable in New England, even though accepted in Jamestown.

America differs from the rest of the world because of its Judeo-Christian foundation rising from New England.  America is based upon individual freedom.  Jesus recognized people as individuals who make their own decisions.  Redemption and a path to Heaven are for individuals, not groups, communities or nations. This was a whole-hearted agreement for the founders of the New England settlements.  It was not the case for the Jamestown settlement.  The New England roots accepted that prosperous individuals made prosperous communities.  They improved their communities from within, and there was no need of charities or entitlements from without.

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America's historical battle with the rest of the world is its view that an individual's legitimate self-interests are more important than how someone defines community interests.  The rest of the world believes community interests are more important, as their many forms of coercive governance demonstrate.  Since communities have no mind, soul or interests on their own, only the interests of the sovereign or the few who rule the many are important.  America is characterized by its rejection of the primacy of community interests.  Political campaigns waged today reflect these two differences.  It is a battle between those who believe it "Takes a Village" and the rule of the few over the many, against those who believe in individual liberty and prosperity through freedom.

Those Christian concepts were American concepts growing out of the Massachusetts settlements.  The original settlement was a relocation of a church from England to Holland to America.  Aside from church elders, there were no differences in caste or circumstance.  Every man, woman and child had great value as a person.  Each person, trained and expected to stand on their own two feet, made their own way.  If truly unable, members of the community assisted with necessary charitable care and nurturing.  Here was the source of America's great departure from the way people were ruled from the beginning of time.  New England gave America its ideals and shaped its destiny.

As settlers began to move across the land, southward and westward, they took their Christian ideals and moral behavior with them. Honor, courage and commitment to faith and family traveled with them.  They each sought a better life, new roots and growth of their communities of like-minded neighbors.  Christian missionaries and circuit riders moved with them, carrying their great message with the pioneers as they moved across the plains and crossed the mountains to the Pacific. 

New Englanders planted the seeds of morality and freedom across this land, not the profiteers, soldiers and slavers that started Jamestown.  New England started America, not Jamestown.  Plymouth became the rock felt ?round the world.  The shot heard ?round the world also came from New England. The accomplishments of the New England Americans forced Old World traditions to disappear.  New England Americans led the fight against African slavery, which was introduced in Jamestown.  The 400th anniversary of the founding of America is still 13 years away.  Jamestown should not be looked upon as the source of our freedoms and our character.  Jamestown was the Old World in stark contrast to New England. Americans ultimately threw the traditions established in Jamestown out of their New World.

Today, we are faced with a new decision about how we are to be governed.  Are we to dismiss the teachings and experiences rising from New England and a prosperous America?  Do we really want to elect men and women to public office whose sole intent is to take us back to the Old World and its ways?  The Democrats and some Republicans seem to believe our destiny is back into the Old World community, another nation whose citizens live under the rules of the few who want to dictate to the many.  Is it really safer under rulers?  Are the Mullahs more caring about our needs than we are?  Is individual freedom so bad because it brings with it prosperity for the majority?  We have a decision to make in 2008.

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Clay Barham [send him email] has been a candidate for the California legislature and a stand-in talk show host for ABC.  He was educated in physical and behavioral sciences, with a Ph.D. in sociology.  He is the author of five books, with his latest being Foundations of Modern American Conservatism and Liberalism: The Roots of Freedom and Tyranny.  Visit his website at http://www.claysamerica.com.