In particular, Bond argues that concerns about England's role as an empire and its national self-image formed much of the background of the colonization of Virginia. Virginia was not merely a mercantile venture, or a religious mission to spread the Gospel, or an outpost to rival the Spaniards, or even all of these together. The first permanent colony offered proponents of expansion tangible evidence of empire and thus became a vivid assertion of the nation's imperial identity.
Throughout Bond's fascinating analysis, he shows that by the end of the seventeenth century Virginians, though viewing themselves as Anglicans, nonetheless gradually discovered that they were defending an ecclesiastical institution much different from the one they left behind in England.
