On this day in 1608, Poles arrived at Jamestown, Virginia - just a year after the colony itself had been founded. Think about how remarkable that is. More than four centuries ago, at the very beginning of permanent English settlement in North America, Polish craftsmen were already there. They had been recruited for their specialized skills and helped produce glass, pitch, tar, soap ash, and other valuable materials needed to make the struggling colony economically viable. Captain John Smith himself specifically praised the work ethic of the Polish and other continental craftsmen. They were not simply passengers or bystanders in the story of early America. They were skilled workers helping build it. Historical records even describe Polish settlers coming to John Smith’s aid during a violent encounter, and later protesting when they were denied the same political rights enjoyed by English colonists. Their protest succeeded: colonial authorities recognized their rights, and the Poles returned to work and agreed to teach their crafts to others. It is extraordinary to realize that the Polish-American story reaches back to 1608. Long before the great migrations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, long before Pulaski and Kościuszko became names associated with American independence, Poles were already crossing the Atlantic and contributing their knowledge, labor, and courage to a new society. (Encyclopedia Virginia⁠) Polish history in America did not begin yesterday. It began almost at the beginning of America itself.