"This book presents transcriptions of the manuscript town records of Sandwich on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, during th time of Plymouth Colony, 1620-1692. Like many town records from New England, the entries in the original manuscript are not all in chronological order. Using blank books, clerks organized their writings initially with an attempt at clarity, but rarely could such intentions be maintained...To bring coherence to the material, I have provided a calendar. In this book, it precedes the transcriptions. The chronological presentation of summaries of each document, including the names of anyone mentioned, makes it possible to understand the unfolding of documented activities and processes through time. The calendar gives a summary of information about the town's development" -- Preface.
Colonial government, Pilgrims, the New England town, Native land, the background of religious toleration, and the changing memory recalling the Pilgrims – all are examined and stereotypical assumptions overturned in 15 essays by the foremost authority on the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony. Thorough research revises the story of colonists and of the people they displaced. Bangs’ book is required reading for the history of New England, Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Natives, the Mennonite contribution to religious toleration in Europe and New England, and the history of commemoration, from paintings and pageants to living history and internet memes. If Pilgrims were radical, so is this book.
An ambitious new history of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony, published for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s landing In 1620, separatists from the Church of England set sail across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Understanding themselves as spiritual pilgrims, they left to preserve their liberty to worship God in accordance with their understanding of the Bible. There exists, however, an alternative, more dispiriting version of their story. In it, the Pilgrims are religious zealots who persecuted dissenters and decimated the Native peoples through warfare and by stealing their land. The Pilgrims’ definition of liberty was, in practice, very narrow. Drawing on original research using underutilized sources, John G. Turner moves beyond these familiar narratives in his sweeping and authoritative new history of Plymouth Colony. Instead of depicting the Pilgrims as otherworldly saints or extraordinary sinners, he tells how a variety of English settlers and Native peoples engaged in a contest for the meaning of American liberty.
Ahead of the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, a new look at the Plymouth colony's founding events, told for the first time with Wampanoag people at the heart of the story. In March 1621, when Plymouth's survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth's governor, John Carver, declared their people's friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the “First Thanksgiving.” The treaty remained operative until King Philip's War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end. 400 years after that famous meal, historian David J. Silverman sheds profound new light on the events that led to the creation, and bloody dissolution, of this alliance. Focusing on the Wampanoag Indians, Silverman deepens the narrative to consider tensions that developed well before 1620 and lasted long after the devastating war-tracing the Wampanoags' ongoing struggle for self-determination up to this very day. This unsettling history reveals why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States. This Land is Their Land shows that it is time to rethink how we, as a pluralistic nation, tell the history of Thanksgiving.
The purpose of this research paper is to provide a biographical summary for the author’s 8th great-grandmother, Sarah Ewer, and to reveal new information about her life which was recently discovered by the author. Sarah Ewer was a remarkable woman for several reasons: She persevered after her father died when she was only nine years old; Sarah survived four husbands, all of “historical note”, two of whom suddenly died by drowning (along with a brother who was lost at sea); and she was a wonderful mother who raised seven children to adulthood even while mourning the tragic, accidental death of her two-year-old son. Between 1645 CE and 1692 CE, Sarah Ewer married four times: her first and last husbands were “Separatists” in Plymouth Colony; Sarah’s second spouse, the author’s ancestral grandfather, was the first “Quaker” in Barnstable, Plymouth Colony; and her third husband was among the first “Baptists” in Newport, RI. Sarah Ewer exhibited a great deal of “theological flexibility” within her lifetime, seemingly drawn to colonial men who chose to separate from the Church of England and, as a result, she had to endure Plymouth Colony governmental persecution while trying to nurture and to protect her children. When the author began researching his ancestral grandmother’s life 25 years ago, there existed three major “unsolved mysteries”: First, marriage records had not been found to prove that Sarah Ewer actually married her second husband, Nicholas Davis, in Barnstable, Plymouth Colony in 1651 CE. Second, information had not been discovered regarding Sarah’s whereabouts after the death of her third spouse, Dr. John Clarke, who died in 1676 CE Newport, RI. Third, genealogists, old and new, had been unable to confirm whether the Nicholas Davis who is listed as an “Inhabitant” of RI in 1638 was, in fact, Sarah Ewer’s future husband. This article presents evidence in an attempt to solve all three of these issues.
History of Scituate, Massachusetts, From Its First Settlement to 1831 by Samuel Deane, first published in 1831, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
