A myth is a sacred, paradigmatic story symbolizing a particular group's beliefs and values. It therefore expresses what it means to be a member of that group. A second meaning is something that just isn’t true. Both meanings apply to the commonly held belief that the Pilgrims of the Mayflower created the first permanent English-speaking colony in America. While Plymouth Colony WAS an early colony and some of our governing principles and documents are very similar to those of Plymouth Colony, the honor of being FIRST belongs to Jamestown. Indeed, as many, if not more, of our guiding principles and documents originated there.

By the time the Pilgrims and Adventurers (not all the Mayflower passengers were Pilgrims - some were investors) made landfall in November 1921, Jamestown was already 14-years old and William Claiborne had been surveying Jamestown’s New Town for a month.

That said both colonies experienced similar beginnings. More than half of the original settlers of the two colonies died in the first year from disease and, in Jamestown, by Native depredation. Plymouth had its “starving time,” but starvation did not drive its inhabitants to the extremes it did Jamestown’s in the “starving time” of 1609-1610. John Smith, loved by his men and hated by many of the colonists had done much to ensure their survival but had returned to England when injured in an explosion, leaving a vacuum in leadership. Conditions became so bad in Jamestown that the colonists ate their shoes and belts and, it appears, perhaps their dead comrades. Only 60 remained of more than 300 souls. In the grips of despair, Jamestown packed up and prepared to leave. The fortuitous arrival of Governor Sir Thomas West, 3rd or 12th Baron De Le Ware (depending on which creation date of the title you use), with new settlers, supplies, and orders to institute martial law saved the colony from abandonment like Roanoke.