Myles Standish
Myles Standish was an English military officer and colonist. He was hired as military adviser for Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, United States by the Pilgrims. Standish accompanied the Pilgrims on the ship Mayflower and played a leading role in the administration and defense of Plymouth Colony from its foundation in 1620. On February 17, 1621, the Plymouth Colony militia elected him as its first commander and continued to re-elect him to that position for the remainder of his life. Standish served at various times as an agent of Plymouth Colony on a return trip to England, as assistant governor of the colony, and as its treasurer.
A defining characteristic of Standish's military leadership was his proclivity for preemptive action. He led at least two attacks or small skirmishes against Native Americans in a raid on the village of Nemasket and a conflict at Wessagusset Colony. During these actions, Standish exhibited skill as a soldier, but disturbed more moderate members of the colony due to his brutality toward Natives.
Standish led a botched expedition against French troops at Penobscot in 1635, one of his last military actions. By the 1640s, he relinquished his role as an active soldier and became a farmer in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where he was one of the first settlers. He remained nominal commander of the Pilgrim military forces in the growing colony, but acted in an advisory capacity. He died in his home in Duxbury in 1656 at age 72. Standish supported and defended the Pilgrims' colony for much of his life, though there is no evidence to suggest that he ever joined their church.
Several towns and military installations have been named after Standish, and monuments have been built in his memory. He appears as lead character in the 1858 poem The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a highly fictionalized account which presents him as a timid romantic. The poem was popular in the 19th century and played a role in cementing the Pilgrim story in American culture.
Birthplace and early military service
Little is known of Standish's origin and early life: his place of birth has been debated by historians. Standish's will, drafted in Plymouth Colony in 1656, claims rights of inheritance to property in several locations:I give unto my son & heire apparent Alexander Standish all my lands as heire apparent by lawfull decent in Ormskirke Borscouge Wrightington Maudsley Newburrow Crowston and in the Isle of man and given to mee as Right heire by lawfull decent but Surruptuously detained from mee My great Grandfather being a 2cond or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish.
All but one of the places named in Standish's will are in Lancashire, England, with the exception being the Isle of Man. Some historians have concluded that he was therefore born in Lancashire – possibly in the vicinity of Chorley, where a family named Standish owned a manor called Duxbury Hall. However, there is no conclusive evidence linking Myles Standish to that family. A competing interpretation is that he belonged to a Manx branch of the Standish family. No definitive documentation of his birth exists in either Lancashire or the Isle of Man. However, in recent times, the Isle of Man could be referencing a farm near Croston.
The next earliest source on Standish's family and early life is a short passage recorded by Nathaniel Morton, secretary of Plymouth Colony, who wrote in his New England's Memorial that Standish:
was a gentleman, born in Lancashire, and was heir apparent unto a great estate of lands and livings, surreptitiously detained from him; his great grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish. In his younger time he went over into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at Leyden, and came over into New England, with such of them as at the first set out for the planting of the plantation of New Plymouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, and was always very faithful to their interest.
File:Sir Horace Vere - Horatius Veer.jpg|right|thumb|alt=Head and shoulders portrait of a man in 17th century military attire. He wears a breastplate and a thick fur collar. He has a short brown beard and mustache and a very slight smile.|Sir Horatio Vere was the commander of English troops in the Netherlands during the siege of Sluis in 1604, under whom Standish likely served.
Standish's early military career in the Low Countries is unclear. At the time, the Dutch Republic was embroiled in the Eighty Years' War with Spain. Queen Elizabeth I of England supported the Protestant Dutch Republic and sent troops to fight the Spanish in the Netherlands, as part of the Anglo-Spanish War. Historians are divided on Standish's role in the English military. Nathaniel Philbrick refers to him as a "mercenary", suggesting that he was a hired soldier of fortune seeking employment in the war, but Justin Winsor claims that Standish received a commission as a lieutenant in the English army and was later promoted to captain while in Holland. Historian Jeremy Bangs argued that Standish likely served under Sir Horatio Vere, the general who led the English troops in the Netherlands at this time. Vere is known to have recruited soldiers for the expedition in both Lancashire and the Isle of Man, among other places. According to historian Tudor Jenks, Standish came to the Netherlands around 1603 and may have seen service during the siege of Sluis in 1604, which involved Vere's English troops. The subsequent Treaty of London ended English involvement in the war; if Standish was a mercenary he might have continued to serve with the Dutch until the Twelve Years' Truce brought fighting in the region to a halt in 1609.
Standish's activities and whereabouts are unrecorded until 1620, at which point he was living with his wife Rose in Leiden, Holland and using the title of "Captain". There he was hired by a group of refugee Puritan dissenters from England who intended to form a colony in North America. Standish was employed as their military adviser. The Puritans had previously hoped the position would be taken by Captain John Smith, who had been one of the founders of the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and had experience exploring and mapping the American coast. The Pilgrims approached Smith and he expressed interest, but his price was too high and the Pilgrims feared that his fame and bold character might lead him to become a dictator. They appointed Standish instead; he was apparently already known to the Pilgrims.
Voyage to New Plymouth
On July 22, 1620, the initial group of English Dissenters living in Leiden boarded the Speedwell, which was meant to accompany another ship to be hired in England. This initial group included the mostly Brownist congregation. Myles and Rose Standish were aboard, along with the Bradfords, Winslows, Carvers, and others. The small, 60-ton pinnace sailed to Southampton with about 30 passengers, to be provisioned and join a much larger vessel for the voyage to the New World. Another 90 passengers would board the 180-ton Mayflower. The Speedwell had some significant leaks while in port that caused delays, but both vessels departed Southampton on August 5.The leaders of the colony decided to leave the smaller Speedwell behind after numerous delays caused by leaking, which had caused them to return to port twice. The Standishes and most of the Speedwell passengers crowded into the Mayflower, and the Speedwell went on to London to be resold, now with only a few passengers. The Mayflower passengers, meanwhile, sold some valuable supplies such as butter to pay the mounting port fees, and finally departed Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620, bound for the northern part of the Virginia Colony.
File:The Mayflower Compact 1620 cph.3g07155.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.5|The Mayflower Compact, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
On November 9, 1620, lookouts spotted land, but they discovered that they were near Cape Cod and about east-northeast of their planned destination of northern Virginia. They tried briefly to sail south, but strong seas forced them to retreat to Cape Cod to harbor near the hook of Provincetown Harbor. It became apparent that the weather would not permit the passage south, so they decided to settle near Cape Cod. Shortage of supplies and the roaring Atlantic made it too dangerous to press on for a Virginia landing. They anchored at the hook on November 11, and the leaders of the colony wrote the Mayflower Compact to ensure a degree of law and order in this place where they had not been granted a patent to settle. Myles Standish was one of the 41 men who signed it.
Establishment of Plymouth Colony
The Mayflower was anchored off Cape Cod when Standish urged the colony's leaders to allow him to take a party ashore to find a suitable place for settlement. On November 15, 1620, he led 16 men on foot in exploration of the northern portion of the Cape. On December 11, he led a group of 18 and made an extended exploration of the shore of Cape Cod by boat, spending their nights ashore surrounded by makeshift barricades of tree branches. They were attacked one night by a group of about 30 Indians. They panicked, but Standish calmed them, urging them not to fire their matchlock muskets unnecessarily. The incident took place in Eastham, Massachusetts, and came to be known as the First Encounter.After further exploration, the Pilgrims chose a location in Plymouth Bay in late December 1620 as the site for their settlement. Standish provided important counsel on the placement of a small fort in which cannon were mounted, and on the layout of the first houses for maximum defensibility. They had built only one single-room house when illness struck. Only 50 survived the first winter out of the 100 or so who arrived on the Mayflower. Standish's wife Rose died in January.
Standish was one of the very few who did not fall ill, and William Bradford credited him with comforting many and being a source of strength to those who suffered. Standish tended to Bradford during his illness, and this was the beginning of a decades-long friendship. Bradford held the position of governor for most of his life and, by necessity, worked closely with Standish. The two men were opposites in terms of character; Bradford was patient and slow to judgment, while Standish was well known for his fiery temper. Despite their differences, the two worked well together in managing the colony and responding to dangers as they arose.