Republican debate.

What the Republican Debates Get Wrong About the Puritans

Pence invoked them at the Republican debates, but a true reckoning with their history provides a different vision of the nation’s future.
Two white containers from English colonists, with a backdrop of a Virginia map.

Was the 1623 Poisoning of 200 Native Americans One of the Continent's First War Crimes?

English colonists claimed they wanted to make peace with the Powhatans, then offered them tainted wine.
English painting of Pocahontas by Simon van de Passe.

The Moment That Changed Colonial-Indigenous Relations Forever

How a massacre on March 22, 1622 irrevocably shaped relations between Indigenous Americans and English colonists.
Painting of the first Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving is a Key Chapter in America's Origin Story

What happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more.
Puritans watching a May Day celebration.

The Pilgrims' Attack on a May Day Celebration Was a Dress Rehearsal for Removing Native Americans

The Puritans had little tolerance for those who didn't conform to their vision of the world.

How America Keeps Adapting the Story of the Pilgrims at Plymouth to Match the Story We Need to Tell

The word “Plymouth” may conjure up visions of Pilgrims in search of religious freedom, but that vision does not reflect reality.
Drawing of pilgrims walking in a line in the snow

Why the Puritans Cracked Down on Celebrating Christmas

It was less about their asceticism and more about rejecting the world they had fled.
Replica of the original Plimoth Plantation.

The Complicated Legacy of the Pilgrims is Finally Coming to Light After 400 Years

Descendants of the Pilgrims have highlighted their ancestors’ role in the country’s founding. But their sanitized version of events is only now starting to be told in full.

Columbus Believed He Would Find ‘Blemmyes’ and ‘Sciapods’ – Not People – in the New World

Columbus wasn't unique in his belief that bizarre, monstrous humanoids inhabited the far reaches of the world.