Trading Thomas – Review of the Young Adult Novel by Ora Smith

Trading Thomas, Jamestown’s Boy Interpreter is a book of recent vintage by novelist Ora Smith. Like the title implies, it’s the story of a young teen named Thomas Savage. Thomas arrives in England’s Jamestown colony early in its history. Soon, he becomes an interpreter, a go-between for the colonists of Jamestown and the Native Americans […]

The First Slaves in Virginia – 1619 as a Tragic Year in America

While it’s never fun to look at the unfortunate truths of a nation’s past, unfortunate events are often important ones. The first slaves in Virginia are a great example of this. When they arrived at Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619, life in colonial Virginia changed. Some of the changes took time, as we’ll see, but […]

Prince Edward County & School Desegregation

In my eyes, one of the most tragic and ridiculous events of the entire civil rights movement in the United States took place in Prince Edward County, Virginia, between 1959 and 1964. Probably you’ve not heard this story unless you’re familiar with the civil rights movement. But it says so much about racial hatred and […]

Robert Carter – A US Founding Father?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, penned in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, still resonate today. Yet Jefferson, and […]