Four hundred years ago today the first English settlers arrived in the New World. They were not Pilgrims. The Mayflower would not set sail for another 13 years. They were settlers organized by a group of investors incorporated as the Virginia Company. And yes, they were out to make a profit.

"We landed all our men, which were set to worke [sic] about the fortification, and others some to watch and ward as it was convenient," George Percy wrote.

The first year was rough, full of attacks by Algonquin Indians, mismanagement and, as Percy noted, colonists who refused to pull their own weight. After the first year, Capt. John Smith was elected to lead the colony, and historians generally attribute its early survival to his discipline, includling his rule: "He who does not work, will not eat."

Smith returned to England in 1609, the same year John Rolfe set sail for the New World, arriving in Jamestown in 1610. He began experimenting with tobacco seeds he'd brought from the Caribbean.

By 1630, Virginia was exporting 1.5 million pounds of tobacco to England. Jamestown became a profitable colony shortly after Rolfe started growing tobacco, and England's foothold in the New World was secure.

To the PC crowd, Jamestown is all disease, genocide, slavery and ecological devastation. To wiser heads, it represents the American values of hard work, self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship and community. It made us who we are today.

As Rolfe's tiny tobacco seeds grew into a huge international industry, little Jamestown blossomed into the mighty United States of America. To those brave colonists, we owe a great deal of thanks.