At Jamestown celebration, Bush says US proud to spread liberty
President George W. Bush said Sunday the United States was proud to be leading the "advance of freedom" in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as he celebrated America's birth 400 years ago.
Commemorating the founding in 1607 of the New World's first permanent English settlement here, Bush nodded to the bloodshed today in those countries in acknowledging "the path to democracy is long, and it's hard."
But speaking in the town of Williamsburg after touring the Jamestown settlement, he said: "America is proud to promote the expansion of democracy, and we must continue to stand with all those struggling to claim their freedom.
"The advance of freedom is the great story of our time, and new chapters are being written every day, from Georgia and Ukraine, to Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon, to Afghanistan and Iraq."
Jamestown, on the eastern shore of Virginia, began when 104 English men and boys set up camp along what is now the James River on May 14, 1607 on a swampy, mosquito-infested island.
The ill-prepared settlers were seeking gold and a route to the Orient. Instead they found disease, drought and natives whose fate would forever be altered by the settlement, as would black Africans brought over as slaves.
"The expansion of Jamestown came at a terrible cost to the native tribes of the region, who lost their lands and their way of life," Bush said.
"For many Africans the journey to Virginia represented the beginnings of a life of hard labor and bondage."
Of the estimated 15,000 American Indians who lived in the area of Jamestown in 1607, all but about 1,500 died within a century, most from imported diseases or in battle with the settlers.
Organizers of the anniversary have toned down their wording to describe the event as a "commemoration" and are going out of their way to include blacks and Indians in the festivities.
"We are certainly proud to be Americans," Chief Bill Miles, who heads the Pamunkey Indian tribe in Virginia, said ahead of the anniversary.
"But we don't feel like it's something to celebrate or commemorate the fact that the settlers basically took our land away from us," he told AFP.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, when she visited Jamestown just over a week ago, also paid heed to the blood-soaked price paid by native and African people in the birth of America.
But like the queen, Bush underlined that Jamestown planted the seeds of democracy and free enterprise in the New World, culminating in the English colonies' Declaration of Independence from the motherland in 1776.
"From these humble beginnings, the pillars of a free society began to take hold. Private property rights encouraged ownership and free enterprise. The rule of law helped secure the rights of individuals," he said.
Bush noted that the Jamestown settlers, after nearly being wiped out by disease and famine in the earliest years, also created America's first representative assembly.
"It was said at the time that the purpose of these reforms was, 'to lay a foundation whereon a flourishing state might, in time, by the blessing of Almighty God, be raised'," he said.
"As we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown to honor the beginnings of our democracy, it is a chance to renew our commitment to help others around the world realize the great blessings of liberty."
Mike Litterst, spokesman for the Colonial National Historical Park, said: "We now tell the story of Jamestown as the place where the people of three cultures came together, not only the English.
"It is the contribution of all three that helped Jamestown survive and ultimately created the character of today's America."
AFP
