The Alpha of America: Jamestown and the Beginning of Our Story

The Alpha of America: Jamestown and the Beginning of Our Story
Young visitors enjoy the Powhatan Indian Village, which is based on archaeological findings, at the Jamestown Settlement. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
Jeff Minick
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JAMESTOWN, Virginia—“Jamestown,” says Dave Givens, director of archaeology at this historic site, “is the alpha of American history, and Yorktown is the omega.”

Givens, whom I interviewed on a recent visit to America’s first English colony, meant that Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the New World, and that nearby Yorktown, where American and French forces defeated the army of Lord Cornwallis, was the battle that established our republic.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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