From the “Beginning”: Anglo-American Settler Colonialism in New England

In this article, I use the lens of critical family history—and the history of the Doane family—to undertake an analysis of Anglo-American settler colonialism in the New England region of the United States. My standpoint in writing this narrative is as a twelfth-generation descendant of Deacon John Doane, who arrived in Plymouth Colony circa 1630 and whose family history is intertwined with issues of settler colonial conquest and dispossession, enslavement, erasure, and the creation of myths of origin and possession. This analysis is also grounded in the larger contexts of the history of New England and the history of the United States. I conclude with a reflection upon the implications of settler colonial myths and historical erasure for current racial politics in the United States.

DNA and historical evidence indicate many colonial French Canadians were of Sephardic Jewish ancestry

The Spanish Inquisition in 1492 resulted in the deaths of thousands of Spanish Jews and the exile of around 150,000. The Huguenots and Acadians who settled in Colonial French Canada are assumed to be of Christian faith and ancestry. To support this hypothesis, the researcher uses a novel combination of methods drawn from historical records and artifacts, genealogies and DNA testing. In recent years, this combination of methods has led to the discovery that several of the Plymouth Colony settlers, Central Appalachian Colonial settlers, and Roanoke Colony settlers were of Sephardic Jewish origin. Thus, using the new methodology of ancestral DNA tracing, the researcher document that the majority of Huguenot and Acadian colonists in French Canada were of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. They are most likely descended from Sephardic Jews who fled to France from the Iberian Peninsula in the late 1300s and early 1500s. The researcher additionally propose that some members of both groups continued to practice Judaism in the new world, thus becoming secret Jews or crypto-Jews. The researcher also finds evidence of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry in both groups.

1580 Political Ordinance of the States of Holland and West Friesland

The present study deals with certain influences the 1580 Political Ordinance of the States of Holland and West Friesland had in the English-speaking world, specifically in relation to the Plymouth Colony in the present-day Commonwealth of Massachusetts and South Africa. Regarding the former, there is a survey of the introduction of the institution of civil marriage by the Pilgrims at the Plymouth Colony and the Dutch background to this particular development. In relation to South Africa, there is an analysis of the lack of intestacy inheritance between spouses in that country in the past due to the system of inheritance rooted in the 1580 Political Ordinance, and the changes that took place in connection to this with the passing of time.

Plymouth Plantation's Place in the Atlantic World

When Boston entered its pandemic lockdown in early March, it forced the cancellation of the Congregational Library's symposium “1620: New Perspectives on the Pilgrim Legacy.” With the cooperation of the director of the library, the Rev. Stephen Butler Murray, the four presenters—Carla Gardina Pestana, David Silverman, John G. Turner, and Francis Bremer—agreed to have the QUARTERLY publish revised versions of their talks with Kenneth P. Minkema as the guest editor of the papers. Far from seeing Plimoth as a minor backwater in the English settlement of Massachusetts, each of the essays situates the history of Plymouth Colony in more complex contexts: in its web of Atlantic connections, in the Indigenous identification of Anglo settlement as a cause of mourning, in its participation in the processes of enslavement, and in its larger impact upon the puritan, New England Way.

The Yoke of Bondage: Slavery in Plymouth Colony

When Boston entered its pandemic lockdown in early March, it forced the cancellation of the Congregational Library's symposium “1620: New Perspectives on the Pilgrim Legacy.” With the cooperation of the director of the library, the Rev. Stephen Butler Murray, the four presenters—Carla Gardina Pestana, David Silverman, John G. Turner, and Francis Bremer—agreed to have the QUARTERLY publish revised versions of their talks with Kenneth P. Minkema as the guest editor of the papers. Far from seeing Plimoth as a minor backwater in the English settlement of Massachusetts, each of the essays situates the history of Plymouth Colony in more complex contexts: in its web of Atlantic connections, in the Indigenous identification of Anglo settlement as a cause of mourning, in its participation in the processes of enslavement, and in its larger impact upon the puritan, New England Way.

“after Mr. Robinson's pattern”: Plymouth and the shaping of the New England Way

When Boston entered its pandemic lockdown in early March, it forced the cancellation of the Congregational Library's symposium “1620: New Perspectives on the Pilgrim Legacy.” With the cooperation of the director of the library, the Rev. Stephen Butler Murray, the four presenters—Carla Gardina Pestana, David Silverman, John G. Turner, and Francis Bremer—agreed to have the QUARTERLY publish revised versions of their talks with Kenneth P. Minkema as the guest editor of the papers. Far from seeing Plimoth as a minor backwater in the English settlement of Massachusetts, each of the essays situates the history of Plymouth Colony in more complex contexts: in its web of Atlantic connections, in the Indigenous identification of Anglo settlement as a cause of mourning, in its participation in the processes of enslavement, and in its larger impact upon the puritan, New England Way.