I wanted to beat the crowds to Jamestown for its 400th anniversary, so I got my trip in early. I visited both Historic Jamestowne, the archaeological site of the colony with its new museum, and the older Jamestown Settlement with a museum, recreated fort and, the most fun exhibit of all, reproductions of the three ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery. One little piece of information keeps coming back to me.

Jamestown was basically an effort of a corporation to make money. People were sent to figure out a way to make money for the stockholders of the Virginia Company. When Virginia tries to make a case that it is a business-friendly environment, it has history on its side; it was founded by a corporation. I already knew that, so that wasn’t the piece of information that struck me. It was the instructions given to the colonists not to try to grow food; just buy it from the Indians. They were to spend their time finding a way to make money for the stockholders. They were instructed to outsource the production of the one thing they absolutely had to have to survive.

The Indians, however, were not entrepreneurs in the grocery store business. They were not ConAgra or Kroger. They did take a liking to some tools and clothing and other products the English had, and they were willing to trade, but they were not normally in the business of food production for profit. They were willing to trade until they got angry with the English and weren’t willing to trade. What the colonists had to offer was not essential to the Indians in the short run, but what the Indians had, food, was essential to the colonists. So the colonists simply starved to death. They stockholders were undaunted. They just sent more people.

I don’t know what those other people visiting Jamestown were thinking, but I was thinking we are very slow learners. I may have learned all the wrong things from Jamestown, but a few thoughts did occur to me:

Lesson 1. It is a bad idea to be completely dependent on possibly hostile people for things you have to have to survive. Like food. Or, today, energy.

Lesson 2. It is a good idea to get along with other people. The Indians and the colonists needed each other. The history of both groups could have been something to be proud of and fewer people would have died if the two groups had treated each other with respect and dignity and had taken a keen interest in the welfare of the other group. For the first colonists, Jamestown was a disaster. For the Indians it was the end of their culture, their way of life. The loss of life was horrendous. Misery piled upon misery for both groups.

Lesson 3. Corporations are not designed to care about individuals. They can do very nicely, thank you, while individuals do poorly. There is overlap between the well being of “The Economy” and corporations and that of individuals, but their interests are not identical. If we want people and families to thrive, we have to figure out how to do that. We cannot simply turn the whole thing over to business interests and expect to get the results we want.

Lesson 4. Whatever the shortcomings of the English, their tradition of political and civil rights going back to the Magna Charta was their best great gift to the world. They never produced a Hitler, and they kept many a people from producing their own. We compromise those rights at our peril.

As I stood looking at the ships and imagining the first encounter of those colonists and the Indians, I was overwhelmed with the wonder and hope of that day and tragedy that was to follow. No one, English or Indian, had any idea what was ahead of them. Nor do we.

Patricia Hunt is a Mary Baldwin College chaplain and Staunton resident.