The Big Three:
- On April 29, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued a formal proclamation recognizing the 418th anniversary of the First Landing and the raising of the Cape Henry Cross — the first federal acknowledgment of this founding moment in American Christian history.
- The proclamation stays rooted in documented history: the First Charter of Virginia’s commission to honor “the Glory of His Divine Majesty,” the cross raised at Cape Henry, and the covenant the settlers made to place their trust in God.
- As VCA marks the 419th anniversary on April 29, 2026, we give thanks for federal recognition of what Christians in Virginia have long known — and we look toward the 420th anniversary in 2027 as a moment of national significance.
A Presidential Proclamation 419 Years in the Making
Four hundred and nineteen years ago, on April 29, 1607, three small English ships — the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery — completed a grueling 144-day voyage and made landfall at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The colonists aboard those ships did something that would echo across four centuries of American history: they raised a wooden cross on the shore of what they named Cape Henry, gave thanks to God for their safe passage, and dedicated the land to His glory.
Last year, on April 29, 2025, that founding moment received something it had never received before — a formal presidential proclamation. President Donald J. Trump, marking the 418th anniversary, issued a proclamation that every American Christian should read, preserve, and celebrate.
The proclamation states plainly what the record shows. The settlers sailed under a royal charter that commissioned them to further “the Glory of His Divine Majesty.” They erected a cross at Cape Henry. They consecrated the New World. They dedicated the land to God’s glory. And, as the President declared, the raising of the Cape Henry Cross “was a visible symbol of the covenant the settlers made on their first day in the New World — for themselves and their posterity — to obey God, seek His blessing, and place their trust in Him.”
For those of us who believe America was founded as a nation under God, this proclamation is not new information. It is, however, newly official.
What the First Charter Actually Says
The proclamation rests on solid historical ground. The First Charter of Virginia, issued by King James I on April 10, 1606, under the Great Seal of England, declared that the venture would “tend to the Glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God.” This was not decorative language. It was the legal and moral authority under which the colonists sailed.
When those colonists stepped ashore at Cape Henry, they were not private adventurers freelancing a religious gesture. They were acting under a royal commission that explicitly tied their venture to the spread of the Gospel. The cross they raised on the beach was the visible expression of the charter’s written purpose.
Scripture frames what happened there. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12). Here David declares that a people’s relationship to God is not merely personal — it is corporate, national, and generational. When a nation’s founding moment includes the public acknowledgment of the true God, that nation has received a blessing no legislation can grant and no court can revoke.
The Work of Faithful Witnesses
Federal proclamations do not emerge from thin air. They come because faithful people labor for years — often decades — to keep a truth alive in the public consciousness until the moment arrives when it can be officially acknowledged.
Don Blake, Chairman of the Virginia Christian Alliance and a founding voice of the First Landing 1607 Project, has labored for years to raise awareness of this consecrated moment in American history. That public witness, along with the work of many others — pastors, historians, intercessors, and citizens who refused to let this story fade from public memory — contributed to the climate in which federal recognition became possible in 2025.
This is how faithfulness works in the Kingdom. Most of the labor is invisible. Most of the prayers go unrecorded. Most of the conversations happen at small gatherings in churches, community halls, and living rooms across Virginia. And then, one day, a President signs a proclamation — and the faithful quietly give thanks that God honored their years of unseen work.
What Scripture Requires of Us Now
A proclamation is a beginning, not an ending. The covenant the settlers made — to “obey God, seek His blessing, and place their trust in Him” — was made for themselves and their posterity. That posterity is us.
Deuteronomy 8:10-11 warns: “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.” Moses is warning a generation on the verge of inheriting a blessed land that prosperity itself can be spiritually dangerous. When things go well, we forget. When we forget, we drift. When we drift, we lose what our fathers secured.
Four centuries of prosperity have made it easy for Americans to forget. The President’s proclamation calls us back. “More than four centuries after the First Landing,” the proclamation declares, “we prayerfully renew our covenant to always be one Nation under God and to always seek His blessing and protection.”
The ancient promise still applies. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). The healing of America is not a partisan project. It is a covenantal one. And it begins where it always begins — with God’s people, on their knees, remembering who they are.
Looking Toward 2027
Next year marks the 420th anniversary of the First Landing. VCA intends to mark that milestone with a significant push of content, teaching, and public witness. The federal proclamation has given us an enormous gift — a starting line that the nation’s highest office has already drawn. Our task is to build on it.
What You Can Do
On April 29, 2026, take twenty minutes to read the President’s proclamation aloud in your home. Read it to your children and grandchildren. Read it with your spouse. Then pray — thanking God for the faithfulness of the 1607 settlers, for the preservation of that founding witness across four centuries, and for the grace that has permitted our nation to receive formal recognition of its Christian heritage at the highest level.
Contact your Virginia state representatives and ask them to match the federal proclamation with a state-level recognition of April 29 as First Landing Day. Share this article with your pastor. And prepare your heart for 2027 — because the 420th anniversary will be a national moment, and VCA intends to help make it one.
The battle for America’s soul is real. So is our God. He who sits in the heavens laughs at the schemes of men (Psalm 2:4). Our calling is not to win culture wars but to be faithful witnesses — to speak truth, honor what our fathers built, and trust the One who holds all things in His hands. Four hundred and nineteen years ago, a handful of Englishmen knelt in the sand at Cape Henry and raised a cross. That cross still stands. So does the covenant. So does our God.
For Further Study
- Read the full presidential proclamation at the White House website.
- Read the First Charter of Virginia (1606) at the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
- Learn about Cape Henry Memorial at the National Park Service.
- Explore VCA’s ongoing coverage of the First Landing at our 1607 First Landing archive.
