Mayflower 400 – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

The English believed God communicated through plague – and viewed the epidemic which decimated Algonquian territory between 1616-19 as a sign. John Eliot Preaching to the Indians, Gift of Martha J. Fleischman and Barbara G. Fleischman, 1999, The Met

November 13, 2020

How plague reshaped colonial New England before the Mayflower even arrived

Matthew Patrick Rowley, University of Leicester

Power, plague and Christianity were closely intertwined in 17th-century New England.

John Lacy, a Restoration actor and playwright, satirised puritans, including in his role as Mr Scruple in The Cheats by John Wilson (right). John Michael Wright (died 1694/National Portrait Gallery

September 21, 2020

Mayflower 400: how society feared and ridiculed puritans

Fiona McCall, University of Portsmouth

Puritans were often depicted as fools until they had a shot at government, and then the humour got darker.

Principled revolutionaries: the Pilgrim Monument at Provincetown, Massachusetts. TWA Photography via Shutterstock

September 16, 2020

Mayflower 400: were the Pilgrims asylum seekers or subversives?

Polly Ha, University of East Anglia

Puritan leaders argued vehemently for a church to be free of any higher authority – which caused problems in England and the new world.

Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth, Mass., is a living museum that’s a replica of the original settlement, which existed for 70 years. Wikimedia Commons

September 4, 2020

The complicated legacy of the Pilgrims is finally coming to light 400 years after they landed in Plymouth

Peter C. Mancall, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

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

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