JAMESTOWN—The reproduction ship Godspeed sailed off yesterday to the accompaniment of cannon blasts, speeches and high-energy musical numbers celebrating Jamestown’s 400th anniversary.

The square-rigged sailing ship’s ceremonial departure launched “America’s 400th Anniversary,” an 18-month series of events to publicize - and attract tourists to - the commemoration next May of Jamestown’s founding as the first permanent English settlement in America.

As the 88-foot-long ship, recently built in Maine, visits six East Coast ports over the coming months, an exposition-like “Landing Party Festival” will come, too, bringing family entertainment, interactive attractions and educational exhibits about the Jamestown story.

The first stop will be in Alexandria from Saturday to June 3.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the anniversary is worth remembering. He topped a list of dignitaries making speeches before the ship left its home pier at the state-run Jamestown Settlement museum near Williamsburg.

“We begin to mark a moment that altered the path of the entire world and of human history,” Kaine said.

Virginia has noted the anniversary to some extent every 50 years, but Kaine said a new understanding of history and new attitudes enable the state to tell the story in a new way this time, focusing on the ways that three cultures - European, American Indian and African - contributed to a new society that became the United States.

Kaine said the commemoration will vary in mood “from reverent to sad to celebratory.” He and other speakers promised that the events will explore the ways Jamestown gave birth to such principles as representative government, free enterprise, exploration and cultural diversity.

Kaine said he hopes the commemoration inspires those who take part “to challenge ourselves. . . . Are we up to that legacy?”

The Godspeed sendoff provided a preview of some of the entertainment that will greet visitors to the ship’s port stops.

Before and after yesterday’s speeches, Anniversary Voices, a high-energy group of youthful singers and musicians, performed a few of the songs that the commemoration’s producers have written for the observance.

The musical styles ranged from sugary dance pop, with lyrics to match, to a couple of culturally sensitive, if sentimental, numbers about black and Indian history.

In “Remember the Many,” the lyrics focus on the Indian perspective by asking listeners to:

“Stand where I’m standing, take a look at my view

How should I feel? I was here before you

The time has arrived, recognition is due

Remember the many who’ve become the few!”

The lyrics of another song, “I Have a Name,” delivered partly in rap style, cover centuries of struggle for racial equality.

The musical numbers seemed to have at least as much effect on the gathered crowd as the speeches.

“They were quite well-done,” said Fred Blackmon of Williamsburg, who looked on from behind a rope that kept regular museum visitors from mixing with the invited guests.

Stephen Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy tribe and a member of the federal Jamestown 400th Commemoration Commission, said the commemoration’s hired producers, Prosody Creative Services Inc., got the lyrics and music right.

“I thought those songs spoke volumes about who we are - red, white, black and Latino,” Adkins said. “I think people realize we’re all part of that fabric that made Virginia what it is.”

Andrew Petkofsky is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Contact him at or (757) 229-1512.