To begin our program, please welcome the honorable donny r. Tuck, mayor of the city of hampton. Please take your seats. Good morning, and welcome to the 400th anniversary of the first african landing commemorative ceremony. Its my honor to welcome Governor Ralph Northam and first lady pamela northam, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, attorney general mark herring, senator mark warner and senator tim kaine, u. S. Representative bobby scott and representative elaine lorry of virginia. Representative karen bass of california and representative william clay of missouri. Speaker of the house of delegates, kirklin cox, first counselor for the embassy of rwanda, former Virginia Governor jared, former Virginia Governor robert mcdonald, former missouri governor eric greitens, former representatives james moran and l. F. Payne, chief judge Roger Gregory of the First Circuit court of appeals, members of the governors cabinet, members of virginia General Assembly, including Senate Majority leade
Dr. Gregory d. Smithers, an associate professor of history at virginia commonwealth university, specializes in native American History, hes the author of several books including the cherokee diaspora an indigenous history of migration, resettlement and identity, about which greg spoke here a few years ago. And his newest book on the subject of todays lecture, native southerners indigenous history from origins to remov removal. So please give a warm welcome to our friend, greg smithers. [ applause ] let me first begin by acknowledging the traditional landowners of this region. Members of the powotan chiefdom and the chicohomonie people. Thank you to Graham Dozier who organized todays lecture. Thank you very much. Its much appreciated and its lovely to be back here at the Virginia Museum of history and culture. I hope i got that right. Im going to begin today by talking just a little bit about the artwork on the cover of my new book. This is a piece by chief terry saul. Hes a was hes pas
The tomb guard badge, which is depicted on our logo and in this case here, this is the second least awarded badge in the United States military with the exception of the astronaut a astronaut badge. Today, we are giving badge number 634 to a young man and now in the brotherhood of fellowship of tomb guards. We have a society, we are 501c3 organization and part of the bylaws is is we do Community Outreach to educate the public about the tomb. I find that your generation, this, sort of a sweeping generation here, that your generation knows about the tomb. I talk to School Groups, and its appalling to me how little they know. Its not their fault. We have allowed all this teaching and teaching to the test and we have not put history on the test. And i will get off my soap box. Just think of that. I do speak to a lot of School Groups probono, this is my 81st speech this year. In 2015. I will have well over 100 by the time veterans day is over. Im speaking pretty much nonstop from the first
Important players and the struggle for justice in american history. To explore some of the surprising historical connections within it. It might be a stretch to connect Alexander Hamilton with mark twain or carnegie with booker wa, she do it all the time. Theres almost 500 indians in in virginia, not far from james helm. So ill talk about the the portrait for her life a little bit. Talk about the portrait, where it came from, why is it here. And then ill make some sense of the other two portraits that will follow in this series in february and march. I mentioned individuals that we think of. John smith in particular. John smith, in particular. Pocahontas saved his life. The history passed down from the indians is a little different than the version that captain john smith wrote about after the fact. To england. They dont always agree. Theres a language difference. A lot to work out. Another individual that we think of in relation to pocahontas is john rolf. And john rolf will be anothe
Borders bookstore hosted this event in 2008. Its about 30 minutes. Thank you for coming. This is a hometown book for you washingtonians. Writing about spies is a tricky business. The undergoing of any spy work is full of murky doings. Making matters much worse in the case of this story was the point that these were all accounts muttled by exaggeration, misdirection, and lies, official and unofficial. That made tracking the truth a very slippery business. The history of british spies working in america. Friends spying on friends is a story a lot of people wanted to forget. Both countries wanted to suppress. So its a particularly tangled mess. In working on this book i was frequently reminded of a line of one of my favorite westerns, the man who shot valense. In the movie, they asked the newspaper editor if the truth of what happened would ever come out. He said, no, sir, this is the west when the legend becomes fact print the legend. My experience with intelligence reports, theyre the s