JAMESTOWN, Va. – A group of modern-day John Smiths rowed away Saturday in a small, open boat from the site of the first permanent English settlement in America, which Smith helped found 400 years ago this weekend.
The replica of a boat like one Smith used to explore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries shoved off as the commemoration of Jamestown’s anniversary entered a second day filled with concerts, cultural and artistic demonstrations and military drills.
President Bush is to speak today, the closing day of the festivities and the actual anniversary of the settlers’ arrival at this swampy island on the James River on May 13, 1607.
The boat’s 121-day voyage over 1,500 miles will retrace much of Smith’s journey and inaugurate the Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, the country’s first national historic water trail.
“This is all just kind of overwhelming,” the captain, Ian Bystrom, said before the boat left. “I’m used to just sailing boats and teaching kids and the next thing you know, we’re here on the 400th anniversary.”
The boat departed from Historic Jamestowne, where the colonists built a triangular fort.
Archaeologists found the fort’s remains, long thought to have been washed away, in the mid-1990s. Since then, they’ve unearthed more than 1 million artifacts.
On Saturday, dozens of visitors ringed the fort site to watch archaeologists sift through the soil and show off some of their recent finds, including a sword that was among armor and weapons buried in a well that became a trash pit.
About 70 people demonstrated Saturday outside the visitors center at Historic Jamestowne, shouting “black power” and “red power” and “shame on Jamestown.”
Malik Shabazz, president of the group Black Lawyers for Justice, said Jamestown’s founding marked the roots of black enslavement and Indian genocide.
There is “no reason to celebrate the founding of Jamestown,” Shabazz said. “The no-good, so-called Jamestown settlers … have nothing but blood on their hands.”
Organizers have been careful to call the anniversary event a “commemoration” instead of a “celebration.”
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