An untidy history

WHO established the first permanent European settlement in what is known today as the United States of America? The answer, I am afraid, will depend on who you speak to or whose history book you read.
According to many Anglican historians, Jamestown was the first permanent European settlement on North American soil. This was the reason why in 2007, Queen Elizabeth II visited the United States to attend the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.
In the history of European colonisation of North America, Jamestown occupies an important place, not only because it was the first English colony that survived the onslaught of hunger, disease, and weather, but also because it is widely acclaimed as a bastion of Christian (Anglican version) civilisation in North America where the first European-style democratic system was introduced.
On the flip side of Jamestown's history are the facts that it started a process which led to the virtual extermination of the original inhabitants of America and that it also introduced African slavery into North America.
All this is true but in the US, where Puritanism and the Presbyterian Church are strong, many American historians tend to undermine the existence of the history of Jamestown as the first English settlement by creating the foundational myth around the Mayflower Pilgrims and Plymouth.
Plymouth was founded by Pilgrims (separatists from the Church of England) in 1620. These "separatists" who were much influenced by French Calvinism, repudiated the state church and formed voluntary congregations. The Pilgrims, who were being persecuted in England for their religious beliefs, sailed on the "Mayflower" from Plymouth, England and arrived at the New Plymouth area of the US on December 21, 1620.
December 21 is still celebrated as the Forefathers' Day in the United States. The 81-foot National Monument to the Forefathers, which was built on a hill just outside the town, commemorates that distant event. The so-called puritan way of life and the famous American work ethics symbolise the importance of Plymouth and the Pilgrims in the national history of the United States. Thanksgiving Day, which is celebrated as one of the most important national holidays in the US, was instituted by the Pilgrims of Plymouth in 1621.
This year, King Juan Carlos of Spain visited Florida to attend the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, the first permanent Spanish settlement in Florida. Actually, if Puerto Rico is considered as part of the United States of America, the oldest European settlement in the US was founded in Puerto Rico in 1513 by a Spanish explorer called Ponce de Leon. In the same year, Ponce de Leon arrived at a place very near modern St. Augustine and named the entire region as Florida because it was Easter time (Pascua Florida in Spanish) and because of the lush vegetation of the area.
He did not have an opportunity to establish a permanent settlement at St. Augustine because in 1521 he was mortally wounded by the Seminole Indian warriors. That honour went to Admiral Pedro Menendez, who was dispatched by King Philip II of Spain to Florida in 1565, with express orders to "hang and burn the Lutherans" and consolidate the power of Roman Catholicism in the New World.
Who were these Lutherans? What crimes had they committed to provoke so much royal wrath? Actually, they were not Lutherans but French Calvinists (also known as Huguenots). At that time, it was convenient for the Roman Catholics to lump different groups of Protestants together and describe them as the hated Lutherans.
Fleeing from religious persecution in their native country, these French Calvinists had crossed the Atlantic and established a settlement (Fort Caroline) in Florida in 1564. By most accounts, the settlers did well.
Realising that they needed help from the Indians for their survival, they established friendly relationship with the Indians. They built wooden houses, a mill, and even a bakery. But in 1565, following the Spanish king's orders, Fort Caroline was razed to the ground and most of its inhabitants were massacred by men under the command of Admiral Menendez.
So what is the bottom line? Who established the first permanent European settlement in the US? Were they the Anglicans of Jamestown or the Pilgrims of Plymouth or the Roman Catholics of Puerto Rico and Florida or the French Calvinists of Fort Caroline?
As Professor David Kennedy of Stanford University writes, there are "myriad ways in which history as a way of understanding the world is too often distorted, politicised and badly mishandled." This untidy history about the oldest European settlement in the US is just one more example of how history is manipulated to suit the writer's political and/ or religious inclinations.

Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam is a Daily Star columnist.