Menu
Idea

Pilgrims

45
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Illustration of Thomas Morton of Merrymount being arrested by Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony

Pranksters and Puritans

Why Thomas Morton seems to have taken particular delight in driving the Pilgrims and Puritans out of their minds.
by Christopher Benfey via New York Review of Books on February 15, 2021
The book cover for "They Knew They Were Pilgrims."

A History of the Pilgrims That Neither Idolizes Nor Demonizes Them

Historian John Turner tells the story of Plymouth Colony with nuance and care.
by Grant Wacker via The Christian Century on January 14, 2021

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.
by Peter C. Mancall via TIME on December 17, 2020
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.
by Peter C. Mancall via The Conversation on September 4, 2020
An illustration of a pilgrim looking toward the sky with a group of others gathered around kneeling.

What Liberty Meant to the Pilgrims

Most adult men could aspire to participation in the religious and political government of the colony. But this communal liberty did not imply personal liberty.
by Nathanael Blake via National Review on June 18, 2020
Smiling porcelain salt and pepper shaker figures called "the Pilgrim Pair," and their children, "Lilgrims," atop two academic books about Puritan history entitled "The Barbarous Years" and "Seasons of Misery."

Come On, Lilgrim

The gap between academic and popular understandings of early American topics is an enduring challenge for early Americanists.
by Jonathan Beecher Field via Commonplace on December 16, 2015
A painting of a group of Puritans walking through a snowy forest, with the men carrying rifles.

The Puritans Were Book Banners, But They Weren’t Sexless Sourpusses

From early New England to the present day, censors have acted out of fear, not prudishness.
by Peter C. Mancall via Zócalo Public Square on November 25, 2024
John Winthrop.

When Perry Miller Invented America

In a covenantal nation like the United States, words are the very ligaments that hold the body together, and what words we choose become everything.
by Ed Simon via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 5, 2023
This 1925 painting depicts an idealized version of an early Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth.

How to Tell the Thanksgiving Story on Its 400th Anniversary

Scholars are unraveling the myths surrounding the 1621 feast, which found the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag cementing a newly established alliance.
by David Kindy via Smithsonian on November 23, 2021
A turkey dinner on a table, with the Rockwell painting Freedom from Want, also featuring a turkey dinner, hanging on the wall.

How the American Right Claimed Thanksgiving for Its Own

Pass the free enterprise, please.
by Lawrence B. Glickman via Slate on November 22, 2021
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.
by Peter C. Mancall via The Conversation on November 22, 2021
Mashpee Wampanoag woman puts away traditional clothing in a wetu (wood-framed building).

This Tribe Helped the Pilgrims Survive for Their First Thanksgiving. They Still Regret It.

Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621.
by Dana Hedgpeth via Retropolis on November 4, 2021
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.
by Peter C. Mancall via The Conversation on April 29, 2021
Map of Massachusetts colonial frontier

The “Indianized” Landscape of Massachusetts

In Massachusetts, the inclusion of Native American names and places in local geography has obscured the violence of political and territorial dispossession.
by Mark Jarzombek via Places Journal on February 1, 2021
Pilgrims

Thank the Pilgrims for America's Tradition of Separatism, Division, and Infighting

They were not the nation's first settlers, but they were the most fractious.
by Richard Kreitner via Zócalo Public Square on November 25, 2020
A man watching a maypole celebration.

Lord of Misrule: Thomas Morton’s American Subversions

When we think of early New England, we picture stern-faced Puritans. But in the same decade that they arrived, Morton founded a very different kind of colony.
by Ed Simon via The Public Domain Review on November 24, 2020

On Ancestry

A scholar of the history of race sets out on an exploration of his own family roots, and despite his better judgement, is moved by what he discovers.
by Justin E. H. Smith via jehsmith.com on May 6, 2020

“Infection Unperceiv’d, in Many a Place”: The London Plague of 1625, Viewed From Plymouth Rock

In 1625, New England’s “hideous and desolate” isolation suddenly began to seem a God-given blessing in disguise.
by Peter H. Wood via We're History on April 15, 2020
Statue of John Winthrop

"City on a Hill" and the Making of an American Origin Story

A now-famous Puritan sermon was nothing special in its own day.
by Abram C. Van Engen via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on February 18, 2020

The Way American Kids Are Learning About the 'First Thanksgiving' Is Changing

"I look back now and realize I was teaching a lot of misconceptions."
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on November 21, 2019

The Invention of Thanksgiving

Massacres, myths, and the making of the great November holiday.
by Philip J. Deloria via The New Yorker on November 18, 2019
A painting entitled "The First Thanksgiving, 1621" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (ca. 1932).

A Brief History of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday about food – but it is more specifically a holiday about food’s absence.
by Rachel B. Herrmann via History Extra on November 21, 2018
Pilgrim Thanksgiving

Which Thanksgiving?

The forgotten history of Thanksgiving.
by Karl Jacoby via Los Angeles Times on November 26, 2008
partner

The Truth About Thanksgiving Is that the Debunkers Are Wrong

A response to claims that the First Thanksgiving was not a "thanksgiving" as the Pilgrims understood it.
by Jeremy Bangs via HNN on September 1, 2005
Book cover of "Squanto: A Native Odyssey" by Andrew Lipman.

Squanto: A Native Odyssey

A new biography tells a far more complex, nuanced, and, frankly, interesting historical episode than that depicted in the typical grade-school pageant.
by Lincoln Paine via A Sea Of Words on March 4, 2025
A group of Pilgrims in prayer.

How the Pilgrims Redefined What It Means to Move Across the World

The Puritan origins of modern ideas about migration.
by Yoni Appelbaum via Literary Hub on February 19, 2025
The First Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, 1848.

What American Divorces Tell Us About American Marriages

On the inseparable histories of matrimony and disunion in the United States.
by Lyz Lenz via Literary Hub on February 22, 2024
Onions.

A Brief History of Onions in America

On ramps, xonacatl, skunk eggs and more.
by Mark Kurlansky via Literary Hub on November 9, 2023
Another text is visible beneath a ripped piece of writing

How America's First Banned Book Survived and Became an Anti-Authoritarian Icon

The Puritans outlawed Thomas Morton's "New English Canaan" because it was critical of the society they were building in colonial New England.
by Colleen Connolly via Smithsonian on October 2, 2023
Print of Noah Webster and his dictionary by Root & Tinker, 1886.
partner

The Case For Calling the Language "American"

This demonym will allow other Englishers to be recognized for their own locales.
by Ilan Stavans via HNN on February 12, 2023
View More
30 of
45

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

brought to you by
© Bunk History