"A waterway that runs through Virginia also runs through - and nourishes - our identity as a nation. This book is the work of a superb journalist and also a masterful storyteller. In Bob Deans' unsparing and riveting narrative, we really get to know characters like Captain John Smith and Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, and understand why we wouldn't be who we are if they hadn't been who they were."
Karen Tumulty
Time Magazine
On the eve of the four hundredth anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America - at Jamestown in May 1607 - this book tells the story of the country's birth along a river that was home to Native Americans for fifteen thousand years before the Europeans arrived.
It was along this river the first democratic body in the Western Hemisphere met in 1619, just weeks before the first stolen Africans arrived in chains. It was here, too, the voice of the Revolution emerged, the basics of nation-building unfolded and civil war was fought to free the slaves, affirm our national purpose and redefine forever what it means to be an American.
The story is ugly in places. Seldom is it fully just or fair. It is, though, a fully American story, the story of the river where America began.
March 2007
336 pages
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Headwaters
2 Yeokanta
3 Lords of Navigation
4 Virginia
5 Democracy in America
6 Wade in the Water
7 Liberty or Death
8 River of Dreams
9 A New Birth of Freedom
Epilogue: Undimmed by Human Tears
Bibliography
Index
They called it yeokanta, sacred water, giver of life, the beating heart of ancient ways and native rhythms they thought would last forever.
They followed the wind in wooden ships to the far side of the world, a place where they might build anew between verdant shores and towering clouds, so near to heaven and so far from home.
They came in chains tied as slaves and cried out with one voice, keeping faith through the long nightmare of human bondage with their unfathomable will to be free.
Epic conflict. Audacious dreams. Revolution. Independence. Civil war.
The story of a nation of believers. The story of who we are.
One country. One people. One stream.
"A beautifully written, brilliant book, The River Where America Began is history the way it should be told. An inspiring story of America and its unique struggle to become a great nation."
Helen Thomas
Hearst Newspapers
