What is so special about Jamestown, Va (settled in 1607) when St. Augustine was settled in 1565? All these years, they’ve had us brainwashed to believe Jamestown was the first thriving settlement - second ever only to Raleigh’s attempt which failed.
Have we been taught to be English-history biased, or what?
Why would the Queen dien to visit a Spanish settlement?
Think about it.
The English, Spanish and Portuguese where running around all over the shop in the middle ages.
America was a colony.
Your thread title is “Oldest European Settlement in New World?”
If you mean oldest continuously-occupied settlement in the New World, that would be Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), established 1498.
Your US bias is showing. 
[QUOTE=spoke-]
Your thread title is “Oldest European Settlement in New World?”
Yeah…as I said, I am well-brainwashed! 
I am actually a direct decedent of colonists from the 1st Colony at Jamestown. I have the whole genealogy and last name and everything. I was always pissed that the Plymouth Colony got all the press and I started a thread on it a while ago.
National Geographic has a special issue this month on Jamestown. What many will find surprising is that there were lots of attempted colonies even before Jamestown and they all failed usually in death but new people kept coming. Jamestown wasn’t that great in this regard either. Most colonists died there too because the location was poor and the Indians loved to kill them.
I think Jamestown’s claim to fame is that some English settlers survived and spread so the colony has continuity to this day.
Shag, we are probably related. One of my ancestors was on the relief ship that ran aground in Bermuda, before finally making it to Jamestown.
My folks were at J-town too. Let’s have a reunion.
There probably is some degree of pro-English bias involved. But there’s also the objective fact that St Augustine was not part of the original United States.
Exactly. The US as a nation is descended from those colonies founded by the English. We don’t exactly learn a lot about the other colonies founded within what is now US territory by the Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedes, and Russians, because the colonies founded by the English eventually took them over.
Actually, given the behavior of the colonists, it is more surprising that the indigenous inhabitants did not expend a lot more effort to kill off the invaders.
The National Geographic article specualtes that Powhatan did not bother trying to kill them (except when the English specifically transgressed Indian mores) because they kept dying so fast he figured they would die out on their own.
Says whom? I’ve been taught since I was a little kid that St. Augustine was the oldest continuing settlement in the continental North American continent. What were you taught, and by whom? :eek:
Ok, you set me up for the one thing I can be proud of my ancestors for. They weren’t wealthy and nobody really knows why they were there at all. However, they might have saved Jamestown because of their Indian foster son.
“However, Jamestown was spared from destruction due to a Native American boy named Chanco who, after learning of the planned attacks from his brother, gave warning to colonist Richard Pace with whom he lived. Pace, after securing himself and his neighbors on the south side of the James River, took a canoe across river to warn Jamestown which narrowly escaped destruction, although there was no time to warn the other settlements. Apparently, Opechancanough subsequently was unaware of Chanco’s actions, as the young man continued to serve as his courier for some time after.”
I believe that about 30% of the colony was killed and destroyed anyway but that raid was supposed to be a nuclear strike on the colony and it didn’t succeed.
St. Augustine is mentioned but it is usually mentioned in passing and it is still firmly in 3rd place or below in the significance hierarchy. Most people can’t put it in context very well. As noted, it wasn’t English that is a huge strike against it in American history. Jamestown was mostly English but the Mayflower and Pilgrims still get the most press even though the first Thanksgiving was in Jamestown.
I will see if I can find the thread on this I started a while ago. The conclusion was that the Plymouth Colony was a true breakaway colony while Jamestown was a profit-seeking settlement that had no intention of breaking away from England. My direct ancestors from that line were British Loyalists until after the war of 1812 about 200 years later (then they became firm Southerners after that so choosing a winning side didn’t seem to be one of their talents).
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [/Inigo Montoya]
Of the present 50 state capitals, do you know which one was first founded (as a settlement, not necessarily as a capital)? Highlight the post to see the answer. Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1608 (but abandoned) and permanently from 1610 – 20 years before Boston, the 2nd-place contender.
One day it will be so. I blame the Firefox spell checker.
This is what I learned in school also. I think it’s just that Jamestown, with it’s awful weather, death, destruction, cannibalism, etc., made a better story–thus it’s popularity.
I had always heard Jamestown cited as the first EnglishSettlement (that’s a great album, by the way…). Maybe I was lucky enough to have better than average history teachers growing up.
I am positive that with the growing number of Hispanics living in the country, future history books will emphasize the Spanish heritage of the country in far greater measure than today. And maybe even talk about the French as well, since their trappers and traders had a positive and mutally respectful relationship with the northern Indians long before the British did. Not only is it much better history, but it’s long overdue. And it’s utterly fascinating, more so than the early British efforts in what is now America.
Even so, there is a small point to the stories of Jamestown and Plymouth Rock being given first status. Both the French and Spanish treated the resources of this country as something to be plundered and returned to the home countries rather than as places to bring families for a real settlement. The British were trying to replicate Britain in foreign lands and make them into fully fledged communities. It’s a very different mindset that needed to be make distinct and discussed even in school history courses. Because it’s that very distinction that caused the long-term success of British colonies over the French and Spanish ones, not just in America but all over the world. You really can’t understand how the world progressed from the 16th to the 19th century without getting this.
I too was taught that St. Augustine was the oldest continuous settlement. This might be because I went to Catholic schools in California, with no particular attachment to British-founded settlements on the east coast.
St. Augustine was founded by Spanish Catholics, and according to Wiki, the first Christian worship service held in a permanent settlement in the current United States was a Catholic Mass celebrated in St. Augustine. I think the nuns were
emphasizing our Catholic heritage and in this case were not incorrect in stating that St. Augustine is the oldest continuous settlement.
It may be self-evident to some but I just thought about something in regards to my Jamestown lineage. If you look back 200 years, the date would be 1807. Some of the families that started at Jamestown were loyal to the British longer than that after they colonised. That had to have a big effect. Here in Boston, people still talk about Mayflower descendants in serious ways. Colonial history tends to get lumped together in my mind and probably that of many others but it was quite long.