Someone forgot

[fpb]

I just realized this. 1609 is the date of the first permanent, enduring, never-ceased-till-the-present-day English settlement in North America: the permanent settlement of Virginia. This predates the so-called Pilgrim Fathers by eleven years, let alone that without the example of its (comparative) success the Pilgrims would never have left Europe. It was the first European colony in the New World to import the ancient European concepts of an elected Parliament of law-making representatives, and, on the bad side, the first to embody the dark side of the American experience - black slavery and Indian wars of extermination. Altogether, it legitimately represents the beginning of the American nation.

So why did nobody, all through 2009, celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of this world-changing event?

EDITED IN: Someone forgot, and so did I. The date was 1607. Thanks to wemyss for pointing it out.

Comments

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

Because they can't separate out the good from the bad, and they dare not allow themselves to celebrate a system which allowed the bad to happen or a past which included it? Or perhaps because they're so obsessed with the imperfections in the system that they can't see just how horrific the alternatives are?

(Icon not directed at you.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

No, I think it's simpler - I think that most Americans really don't realize that the Pilgrims weren't the first. The myth of the Pilgrims badly needs debunking, and I for one can't quite see why it got the hold it has in the first place.

1865.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

The Pilgrim mythos was regional only before then.

Also, Virginians at least did mark the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown founding - in 2007, the quadricentennial, 1607 being the year you were looking for, I think.

Re: 1865.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

There was a huge to-do in 2007 on the Atlantic Coast, if not in the rest of the country. The standard Virginia car license plates were in fact resdesigned to commemorate the quadricentennial.

Incidentally, I doubt that 1620 will see that much fuss.

Re: 1865.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I hope not. But it should have been a celebration like that which - for instance - the French performed in 1989 for the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. It is rare, except for legends, that the precise start of something as enormous as the USA, and you may add Canada, can be exactly dated; and if you think as I think that it is on the whole a good thing that the USA should exist, then the world as a whole, not just the south-eastern states, should celebrate.

Re: 1865.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Culturally, most in the US tend to regard 1776 as the important year; we saw a somewhat similar celebration to the French on our own bicentennial in 1976.

Re: 1865.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Quite right, will edit.