13 May 1607 A.D. Early Christendom in JAMESTOWN, VA
13 May 1607 A.D. Early Christendom in JAMESTOWN, VA
Curtis, Ken. “Christianity in Jamestown.” Christianity.com. N.d. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/christianity-in-jamestown-11630060.html?utm_source=nextArticleBox&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=next-article-box. Accessed 12 Mar
2015.
In the century following Columbus'
famous voyage, Spain had built up an empire in America. Vast amounts of gold
were found, and Spain became the wealthiest nation of its day. England wanted
some of that wealth; establishing colonies in America seemed the way to get it.
Yet, many also saw important Christian reasons for establishing colonies in the
newly found lands across the sea.
Mixed
motives
Twice Sir Walter Raleigh attempted
to sponsor the establishment of a colony in American land he had named Virginia
in honor of England's virgin queen. Twice his colonizing venture failed. When
Queen Elizabeth died, her successor, King James I (who later sponsored the
translation known as the King James Bible), furthered England's colonial dreams
by granting a charter for colonial settlement to a group of businessmen who had
organized themselves into the Virginia Company. Numerous economic, political,
and patriotic reasons for establishing the colony were given in the charter,
but also stated as important was the goal of propagating the Christian religion to
such people, as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of true knowledge
and worship of God. A Christian witness to the native Americans was one of the
reasons for establishing Jamestown, England's first permanent American colony.
Hard
scrabble beginnings
Among the first settlers to begin
the Jamestown settlement in 1607 was the Reverend Robert Hunt. As the first
colonists landed on Virginia soil, one of their first acts was to join Rev.
Hunt in a communion service, yet the lives of these earliest colonists lacked a
strong Christian commitment. Their squabbling, pride, arrogance, and greediness
almost wrecked the settlement. The earliest colonists had no room for God in
their personal lives and certainly had no concern for evangelizing the Indians.
Disease, famine, and later, Indians, began to take their toll. In the earliest
years of the settlement, nine out of every ten colonists died. As more
colonists arrived from England, the problems multiplied, and the death count
mounted.
Divine
mandate?
Yet there were those in England
who persisted in thinking God had a purpose and plan for the English on those
Virginia shores. In 1609 William Symonds preached a sermon to the Virginia
Company in England comparing Virginia to the biblical land of Canaan, flowing
with milk and honey. As Caleb and Joshua encouraged Israel to go and possess
the land of Canaan, so Symonds encouraged his English countrymen to go and take
possession of the colony in Virginia, a fruitful land also full of "plenty
of Fish and Fowl."
Providential
provision averts defeat
In 1609, a third supply of
settlers set out for Jamestown on the Sea Venture. The ship was caught in a
hurricane and shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda, yet all the passengers made
it safely to shore (William Shakespeare used the accounts of the storm and
shipwreck as the basis for his play, The Tempest ). The people were able to
reconstruct two ships from the wreck, which they christened Patience
and Deliverance,
and in 1610 they finally reached Jamestown. The Jamestown they reached,
however, was more like the ruins of a fort than anything people lived in. There
seemed nothing to do but reboard the ships and try to sail to England along
with whatever colonists still remained. Just as they were preparing to leave,
however, Lord de La Warr arrived from England with a fresh supply of colonists
and generous provisions.
Among the passengers of the Sea Venture
who had survived hurricane and shipwreck to land in a despairing colony was
John Rolfe. Unlike the earliest settlers, Rolfe was a hardworking man whose Christian faith was
very important to him. Calvin's Institutes was one of the works he had
carefully studied. He believed there was a Christian purpose for Jamestown, and
he sought to "advance the Honor of God, and to propagate his Gospel."
He believed there was "no small hope by piety, clemency, courtesy and
civil demeanor to convert and bring to the knowledge and true worship of Jesus
Christ 1000s of poor wretched and misbelieving people: on whose faces a good
Christian cannot look, without sorrow, pity and commiseration; seeing they bear
the Image of our heavenly Creator, and we and they come from one and the same
mold. . ."
Mixed
marriage snubbed
One native who particularly
touched Rolfe's heart was Pocahontas, daughter of the Indian chief Powhatan.
Rolfe loved the young woman but was unsure whether marriage with her would be
in God's will. He wrestled with himself -- wondering if marrying a heathen
woman wouldn't be like the Israelites of old marrying the Canaanites, something
the Lord had definitely forbidden. He finally thought that as a laborer in the
Lord's vineyard, he should plant the seed of the gospel so she could become a
Christian. With her conversion, Pocahontas took the Christian name of Rebecca,
and she became John Rolfe's wife. Their marriage brought a temporary peace
between the English colonists and the Indians. Mr. and Mrs. Rolfe later went to
England where the queen received the Indian princess -- King James, however, refused
to see the Rolfes. He was angered that Rolfe would marry a person of royal
position without asking his permission!
Hardships, sufferings,
difficulties, and disappointments continued in the Virginia settlements
throughout the early years. Alexander Whitaker, minister at Henrico, Virginia
in 1612 reminded the settlers that the problems were indicative of the great
spiritual struggle in the new land.
The Lord to the rescue? De La Warr's arrival just at that moment seemed providential to the bedraggled colonists. God had come to their aid, and the colony would be preserved. One of the first things the new colonial governor Lord de La Warr did was organize a worship service as a biblical call for sacrifice and industry. |
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