Capitalists, Not Pilgrims, Founded America

America was founded by capitalists seeking a profit, not Pilgrims seeking religious freedom. English settlers founded Jamestown in 1607 as "a joint stock company looking for gold," says journalist and Virginia native Bob Deans.

The Pilgrims landed thirteen years later.

So why hasn't the capitalist origin of the American nation received more attention? Deans says it's because founding a nation on religious freedom sounds nobler than founding a nation on the desire to make a buck.

And there was a little regional jealousy at work after the Civil War. The victorious North didn't want to cede the creation of America to the vanquished South, and least of all, to the heart of the Confederacy, Virginia.

Watch Stephen Colbert's interview of Bob Deans here.