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Okay, this is not Civil War-related. Hence The Sinks.
Still, I would argue it's about American history. And American history (especially the beginning) is always important.
If the mods feel it should be removed, fine. This is a reminder to me why I got the Virginia Jamestown Commemoration license plate.
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Honoring Jamestown's Intrepid (WP)
By Fredrick Kunkle
The Washington Post, January 11, 2007
JAMESTOWN, Va., Jan. 10 -- Danny Schmidt stood in the big hole and talked fast, peeling away the centuries with words just as he and other archaeologists have been doing with shovels and wheelbarrows for the past few years.
Around the rim of the hole stood some of the most powerful people in Virginia, peering down at the curious scars gouged into the hard-packed earth some 400 years ago, uncharacteristically quiet for an assembly of legislators.
This was the place where it all began, the site of the first permanent English-speaking settlement in North America, the point of contact between African, European and Native American cultures.
Wednesday was the highest-profile event so far in a series that began last year to commemorate the settlement of Jamestown. To mark the 400th anniversary, Vice President Cheney addressed members of the General Assembly inside the cramped Memorial Church that was built in 1907, and legislators toured the grounds of the settlement where representative democracy would take hold. The festivities will culminate in a three-day celebration this May and a visit by Queen Elizabeth II.
Inside the hole, Schmidt explained, was one of the shallow pits -- not much bigger than a foxhole and cut like a square -- that probably served as an English colonist's original shelter after the settlers made landfall in May 1607.
And over there were the cobblestone remains of the foundation of the governor's house and the shaft of a well that ran dry.
And way over there, where the James River offered the closest thing to silver that any of the adventurers would ever find in that malarial swamp, were the excavated graves of the first 22 Europeans to die.
One had been a boy, maybe 14, who had been struck in the thigh by an Indian's arrow, said Schmidt, a staff archaeologist with the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, a nonprofit organization digging at the site of the original fort since 1994.
"Oh my God," Del. Albert C. Eisenberg (D-Arlington) blurted out as Schmidt talked of the death toll. "Remember, they all came here to get rich."
A major theme of yesterday's event was that Virginia's key role in the creation of American democracy has sometimes been overshadowed by New England's. A whoop went up when Cheney noted that the Jamestown colonists had already convened a representative assembly by the time the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower.
Another theme, also touched on by Cheney, was that the Europeans' many glowing achievements had been accompanied by more unpleasant realities, such as the enslavement of African Americans and the destruction of Native Americans.
Delegates tramped the grounds on a brisk and gusty day under a bright blue sky, more than a few embarrassed that they had never visited before. And many, like Del. William H. Fralin Jr. (R-Roanoke), felt uplifted and somewhat diminished at the same time by their predecessors' achievements.
"I'd like to think we'd be as hardy and faithful and trusting to fate as these settlers were," Fralin said. "But the reality is, they were a separate breed."
Fralin paused to send a squirt of tobacco juice downwind, mindful that the pinch of Skoal in his lip could be traced, in a way, to the cash crop that rescued the struggling colony. Then he continued, thinking about what it must have been like for the voyagers to leave their homes in England to cross the Atlantic to the New World.
"For most of these guys -- and women -- when they stepped on that ship and saw the land of civilization pass away, they most likely knew they were not going to see that civilization again. That takes a lot of faith and courage," he said.
That was also on the minds of a few tourists who strolled the museum and living history reenactments at the nearby Jamestown Settlement before the security cordons and delegates took over.
"We're so used to our conveniences now," said Lonnie Spielman, 50, an electrician who lives in Hagerstown, Md., and was spending a week in a timeshare with his wife, Debra, 50, an office manager.
"If the electricity goes out for three hours, or we don't have a hot shower for a day, we're inconvenienced," he said.
Still, I would argue it's about American history. And American history (especially the beginning) is always important.
If the mods feel it should be removed, fine. This is a reminder to me why I got the Virginia Jamestown Commemoration license plate.
---------------------------------------------------
Honoring Jamestown's Intrepid (WP)
By Fredrick Kunkle
The Washington Post, January 11, 2007
JAMESTOWN, Va., Jan. 10 -- Danny Schmidt stood in the big hole and talked fast, peeling away the centuries with words just as he and other archaeologists have been doing with shovels and wheelbarrows for the past few years.
Around the rim of the hole stood some of the most powerful people in Virginia, peering down at the curious scars gouged into the hard-packed earth some 400 years ago, uncharacteristically quiet for an assembly of legislators.
This was the place where it all began, the site of the first permanent English-speaking settlement in North America, the point of contact between African, European and Native American cultures.
Wednesday was the highest-profile event so far in a series that began last year to commemorate the settlement of Jamestown. To mark the 400th anniversary, Vice President Cheney addressed members of the General Assembly inside the cramped Memorial Church that was built in 1907, and legislators toured the grounds of the settlement where representative democracy would take hold. The festivities will culminate in a three-day celebration this May and a visit by Queen Elizabeth II.
Inside the hole, Schmidt explained, was one of the shallow pits -- not much bigger than a foxhole and cut like a square -- that probably served as an English colonist's original shelter after the settlers made landfall in May 1607.
And over there were the cobblestone remains of the foundation of the governor's house and the shaft of a well that ran dry.
And way over there, where the James River offered the closest thing to silver that any of the adventurers would ever find in that malarial swamp, were the excavated graves of the first 22 Europeans to die.
One had been a boy, maybe 14, who had been struck in the thigh by an Indian's arrow, said Schmidt, a staff archaeologist with the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, a nonprofit organization digging at the site of the original fort since 1994.
"Oh my God," Del. Albert C. Eisenberg (D-Arlington) blurted out as Schmidt talked of the death toll. "Remember, they all came here to get rich."
A major theme of yesterday's event was that Virginia's key role in the creation of American democracy has sometimes been overshadowed by New England's. A whoop went up when Cheney noted that the Jamestown colonists had already convened a representative assembly by the time the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower.
Another theme, also touched on by Cheney, was that the Europeans' many glowing achievements had been accompanied by more unpleasant realities, such as the enslavement of African Americans and the destruction of Native Americans.
Delegates tramped the grounds on a brisk and gusty day under a bright blue sky, more than a few embarrassed that they had never visited before. And many, like Del. William H. Fralin Jr. (R-Roanoke), felt uplifted and somewhat diminished at the same time by their predecessors' achievements.
"I'd like to think we'd be as hardy and faithful and trusting to fate as these settlers were," Fralin said. "But the reality is, they were a separate breed."
Fralin paused to send a squirt of tobacco juice downwind, mindful that the pinch of Skoal in his lip could be traced, in a way, to the cash crop that rescued the struggling colony. Then he continued, thinking about what it must have been like for the voyagers to leave their homes in England to cross the Atlantic to the New World.
"For most of these guys -- and women -- when they stepped on that ship and saw the land of civilization pass away, they most likely knew they were not going to see that civilization again. That takes a lot of faith and courage," he said.
That was also on the minds of a few tourists who strolled the museum and living history reenactments at the nearby Jamestown Settlement before the security cordons and delegates took over.
"We're so used to our conveniences now," said Lonnie Spielman, 50, an electrician who lives in Hagerstown, Md., and was spending a week in a timeshare with his wife, Debra, 50, an office manager.
"If the electricity goes out for three hours, or we don't have a hot shower for a day, we're inconvenienced," he said.
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