People seeking out a sanctuary city is not a new phenomenon. What I am about to describe may sound like what’s currently unfolding for undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and migrants today in the USA, but this blog is about the plight of a small group of English people in the late 1500s and early 1600s. The Separatists’ political and religious beliefs clashed with the dominate culture of their era. The clash escalated until government officials started […]
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Myles Standish – Mayflower Military Leader
Myles Standish met the English religious refugees when they emigrated to the Netherlands. Their Pastor John Robinson befriended the young soldier when the group settled in Leiden, Holland. Standish enlisted in Queen Elizabeth’s army as a young boy and was stationed in Leiden when these Northern England Separatists settled there in 1609. In 1623 Pastor Robinson sent Plymouth Plantation Governor William Bradford a letter referring to Standish as, “whom I love.” Thirty years later Standish […]
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Edward Winslow – Pilgrim Diplomat
Edward Winslow, born in England on October 18,1595, was the first born of five sons in a fairly well-to-do family. His father, Edward, worked in salt production. In 1613, at age seventeen, Winslow began an apprenticeship in a Stationers Company in London. However, before completing the apprenticeship, he moved to Holland – in 1617. Known as a printer from London, he joined the community of religious refugees living in Leiden. There he helped William Brewster […]
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What’s in a Name?
What’s in a name? Does it really matter all that much what name or label we use to identify groups of people? The bard William Shakespeare famously had Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, say, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” If by that he meant the name of the flower isn’t what matters; but rather the fragrance of it, well then, sure what difference does it make? But what if the alternate […]
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Pilgrim and Native Peace Talks
The passengers on the Mayflower knew the New World was populated with people; people they referred to as savages primarily because they dressed and worshiped differently than folks back in England. Some of these Natives belonged to the Wampanoag Nation of communities, numbering an estimated 30,000 in the early 1600’s. At the time the English Pilgrim and Adventurer settlers began exploring Cape Cod the Wampanoags were ruled by Sachem Massasoit (also known as Ousamequin) who lived […]
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