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The people were able to reconstruct two ships from the wreck, which they christened Patience and Deliverance, and in 1610 they finally reached Jamestown. The ship was caught in a hurricane and shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda, yet all the passengers made it safely to shore (William Shakespeare used the accounts of the storm and shipwreck as the basis for his play, The Tempest ). In 1609, a third supply of settlers set out for Jamestown on the Sea Venture.
#Religious venture definition full#
As Caleb and Joshua encouraged Israel to go and possess the land of Canaan, so Symonds encouraged his English countrymen to go and take possession of the colony in Virginia, a fruitful land also full of "plenty of Fish and Fowl." In 1609 William Symonds preached a sermon to the Virginia Company in England comparing Virginia to the biblical land of Canaan, flowing with milk and honey. Yet there were those in England who persisted in thinking God had a purpose and plan for the English on those Virginia shores. As more colonists arrived from England, the problems multiplied, and the death count mounted. In the earliest years of the settlement, nine out of every ten colonists died.
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Disease, famine, and later, Indians, began to take their toll. The earliest colonists had no room for God in their personal lives and certainly had no concern for evangelizing the Indians. Their squabbling, pride, arrogance, and greediness almost wrecked the settlement. Hunt in a communion service, yet the lives of these earliest colonists lacked a strong Christian commitment. As the first colonists landed on Virginia soil, one of their first acts was to join Rev. A Christian witness to the native Americans was one of the reasons for establishing Jamestown, England's first permanent American colony.Īmong the first settlers to begin the Jamestown settlement in 1607 was the Reverend Robert Hunt. Numerous economic, political, and patriotic reasons for establishing the colony were given in the charter, but also stated as important was the goal of propagating the Christian religion to such people, as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of true knowledge and worship of God. When Queen Elizabeth died, her successor, King James I (who later sponsored the translation known as the King James Bible), furthered England's colonial dreams by granting a charter for colonial settlement to a group of businessmen who had organized themselves into the Virginia Company. Twice Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to sponsor the establishment of a colony in American land he had named Virginia in honor of England's virgin queen. Yet, many also saw important Christian reasons for establishing colonies in the newly found lands across the sea. England wanted some of that wealth establishing colonies in America seemed the way to get it.
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Vast amounts of gold were found, and Spain became the wealthiest nation of its day. In the century following Columbus' famous voyage, Spain had built up an empire in America.
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