The first permanent settlement in America was dedicated to God and to the expansion of the Christian faith.  When a company of English settlers reached what is now called Jamestown, Virginia, one of their first acts was to plant a cross in the sand and claim this new land, not for England, but for God.  That cross was planted on April 29, 1607, exactly 400 years ago this month. 

The original Jamestown colony.

The first English attempt at colonizing America failed miserably.  In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh’s ships had reached the outer banks of what is now North Carolina.  Raleigh’s colony on Roanoke Island collapsed and vanished two years later before provisions and reinforcements could be brought from the mother country.

Then in 1606, King James I (of King James Bible fame) granted a royal charter for another attempt to colonize Virginia.  A band of nearly 150 men left England for America in December, 1606.  Their royal charter establishing Virginia emphasized the Christian character of the expedition's purpose:

We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, 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, in propagating of the 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 and to a settled and quiet government, do, by these our letters patent, graciously accept of, and agree to, their humble and well-intended desires.

After a rough Atlantic crossing, on April 26th 1607, the colonists landed at Virginia Beach.  The London Company intended that every new colony would become its own church community with its own minister.  That man was Robert Hunt, who became the first pastor at Jamestown.

Upon landing on the Tidewater beach, Pastor Hunt called for three days of prayer and fasting in repentance for sins and in preparation for dedicating this new land to God.  On April 29th, crew members took timbers from their ship and constructed a makeshift cross.  Dragging it ashore, they planted the cross firmly in the sand.  Kneeling in humility, Pastor Hunt prayed and dedicated this New World to God.  He prayed that the Gospel would be preached from these shores to the uttermost parts of the earth.  This colony, beset as it was with ongoing difficulties, nevertheless established a monumental covenant with God there in the sands of Virginia, one that laid the foundation for the birth of a new nation founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

The growing settlement at Jamestown.

John Smith, Pocahontas, and John Rolfe

Captain John Smith, one of the first and most famous inhabitants of Jamestown, kept a diary and described the open-air worship services conducted under the shade of an old ship sail until a proper chapel could be constructed.  He depicts a block of wood connected between two trees used for a pulpit with the colonists kneeling on the ground. 

Everyone in the colony respected Pastor Robert Hunt’s character and leadership.  Captain Smith wrote: “Many were the mischiefs that daily sprung from their (the colonists) ignorant spirits; but the good doctrines and exhortations of our Preacher Minister Hunt reconciled them. . . .  It is impossible to rate too highly the character and work of the aforesaid Robert Hunt, Chaplain of the Colony.”

Captain Smith also described an accidental fire which struck their fort in January, 1608.  He said, “Good master Hunt lost all his library, and all that he had but the clothes on his back, yet none ever did see him repine at his loss. . . . Yet we had daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons and every three months the Holy Communion till our Minister died”—probably in the Spring of 1608.

Despite this obvious piety, many of those who had come to Jamestown expected to become instantly wealthy overnight with little or no effort.  They were not prepared to work and many died of starvation.  Captain Smith was convinced the settlement could not be sustained without implementing Biblical principles.  He put into practice what would later become known as the Puritan work ethic.  His famous quote states: “You must obey this now for a Law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled:) for the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain an hundred and fifty idle loiterers.”  While Smith lamented the poor quality of many of the colonists at Jamestown, he set about to establish good “Christian relations” with the native tribes, always treating them with great respect.  The Indians brought many provisions to the settlers and greatly aided in their survival.

Fairytale descriptions of life in early Jamestown have been highly fictionalized.  It is true that one of the local natives was a young girl named Pocahontas.  However, Pocahontas did not convert Captain Smith into a good and noble savage.  In fact, it was Pocahontas who changed her religion and became the first convert to Christianity in the new world.  The Powhatan Indians, led by Pocahontas’ father, practiced a polytheistic religion which included child sacrifice.  Unlike today’s idealized portrayal of Native Americans, the early Jamestown settlers believed that turning the hearts of these native peoples toward Christ was an act of great compassion which would raise their standard of living and their civility.  
John Rolfe was the Englishman who married Pocahontas on April 5, 1614.  It had been his great desire to see her become a Christian.  He wrote: “I will never cease until I have accomplished and brought to perfection so holy a work, in which I will daily pray God to bless me, to mine, and her eternal happiness.”  When Pocahontas was baptized she took the Christian name, Rebecca, and eventually became the talk of England when she traveled there with her husband in 1616.

Early Commemorations of Jamestown

Early Americans recognized and appreciated the spiritual importance of the Jamestown settlement.  In 1807, thirty years after the American Constitution was adopted, a Jamestown Jubilee was held to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first American settlement.  The program featured revolutionary war hero John Tyler and his seventeen-year-old son, John, Jr., who was then a student at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. 

Fifty years later, when the 250th anniversary of Jamestown was celebrated, young John, the keynote speaker for the event, was no longer known as Jr., but as “Mr. President”—by then a former President of the United States of America.  President Tyler reminded those in attendance at this 250th Jubilee of Jamestown that they must honor their fathers, give thanks to almighty God, and never forget the many kindnesses which God had bestowed upon our land.

The Baptism of Pocahontas

Chapman, the artist, actually documented in writing his intentions for the painting and also detailed the research that had accompanied its composition.  According to his pamphlet, published in 1840, Pocahontas was a most appropriate subject for a mural designed to commemorate the history and actions of America’s ancestors.  Said the artist: 

She [Pocahontas] stands foremost in the train of those wandering children of the forest who have at different times - few, indeed, and far between - been snatched from the fangs of a barbarous idolatry, to become lambs in the fold of the Divine Shepherd.  She therefore appeals to our religious as well as our patriotic sympathies and is equally associated with the rise and progress of the Christian Church as with the political destinies of the United States.

One can assume that such a painting would never survive the scrutiny of any selecting committee for the Capitol Rotunda in these politically correct times with the current antipathy towards the Christian faith.  But our forefathers had no such hesitation about recognizing the symbiosis between Christianity and America’s freedom and representative government.

In 1907, the key event for the 300th anniversary of Jamestown was the unveiling of a great 103-foot-tall Jamestown Tercentenary Monument , erected by the United States government in 1907.  The inscription on this monument includes the following words, with no apologies for their mix of government and religion.

Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the giver of all goodness, for every plantation which our heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted out.
—Advice of London Council for Virginia to the Colony 1606

Imagine the howling that would arise from America’s current legal detractors of Christianity were such a monument with those words to be erected today in honor of our Jamestown forefathers!

2007 Jamestown Commemoration

Since appreciation for both religion and patriotism has reached a low ebb in 2007, no official government ceremonies commemorating the dedication of our nation to God in 2007 are planned for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown.  However, we can all set aside that day to pray that America will not forever forget the providential hand of God in the life of this great nation.  We can, as individuals and as churches, remain a thankful people who are still willing to honor the faith and perseverance of our forefathers who suffered such hardships to establish a Christian nation.

Let individuals and churches vow to show our children the legacy of the Lord, just as Americans did at Jamestown in 1807, in 1857, and in 1907, so that “the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:6-7).

The very foundational Christian heritage of America is under attack even as the 400th anniversary of the dedication of this land to God on April 29, 1607, is upon us.  Consider what steps you might take to rededicate yourself and whatever property you control in America today back to God.  Let us as Christians continue to thank our God, to teach our children about America’s Godly heritage, and to do all that we can to turn the heart of our nation back to its true Creator.