Майлз Стэндиш: Пилимдер әскерінің басшысы және оның өмірі

English military officer hired by the Pilgrims (1584–1656)
the astronomer

Myles Standish (c. 1584 – October 3, 1656) 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.

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 [Ormskirk] Borscouge [Burscough] Wrightington Maudsley [Mawdesley] Newburrow [Newburgh] Crowston [Croston] 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. 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 (1585–1604). 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. 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 (the Pilgrims). 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. 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. It became apparent that the weather would not permit the passage south, so they decided to settle near Cape Cod. Shortage of supplies (including wood and beer) and the roaring Atlantic made it too dangerous to press on for a Virginia landing. They anchored at the hook on November 11,

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. 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.

By February 1621, the colonists had sighted Indians several times, but there had been no communication. The men of the colony were anxious to prepare themselves in case of hostilities, so they formed a militia on February 17, 1621, consisting of all able bodied men, electing Standish as their commander. The leaders of Plymouth Colony had already hired him for that role, but this vote ratified the decision by democratic process. Contact with the Indians came in March 1621 through Samoset, an English speaking Abenaki who arranged for the Pilgrims to meet with Massasoit, the sachem of the nearby Pokanoket tribe. On March 22, Plymouth Colony's governor John Carver signed a treaty with Massasoit, declaring an alliance between the Pokanokets and the Colonists and requiring the two parties to defend one another in times of need. Governor Carver died the same year and the responsibility of upholding the treaty fell to his successor William Bradford. Bradford and Standish were frequently preoccupied with the complex task of reacting to threats against both the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets from tribes such as the Massachusetts and the Narragansetts.

The first challenge to the treaty came in August 1621 when a sachem named Corbitant began to undermine Massasoit's leadership. Corbitant worked to turn the people against Massasoit in the Pokanoket village of Nemasket, now the site of Middleborough, Massachusetts, about 14 mile (23 km) west of Plymouth. Bradford and Standish agreed that this represented a dangerous threat to the Plymouth Pokanoket alliance and decided to act quickly. On August 14, 1621, Standish led a group of 10 men to Nemasket, determined to kill Corbitant. Reaching Nemasket, Standish planned a night attack on the shelter in which Corbitant was believed to be sleeping. That night, he and Hobbamock burst into the shelter, shouting for Corbitant. As frightened Pokanokets attempted to escape, Standish's men outside fired their muskets, wounding a Pokanoket man and woman who were later taken to Plymouth to be treated. Standish soon learned that Corbitant had already fled the village and Tisquantum was unharmed. Standish had failed to capture Corbitant, but the raid had the desired effect. On September 13, 1621, nine sachems came to Plymouth, including Corbitant, to sign a treaty of loyalty to King James.

In November 1621, a Narragansett messenger arrived in Plymouth and delivered a bundle of arrows wrapped in a snakeskin. Tisquantum and Hobbamock told them that this was a threat and an insult from Narragansett sachem Canonicus. The Narragansetts lived west of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island and were one of the more powerful tribes in the region. Bradford sent back the snakeskin filled with gunpowder and shot in an effort to show that they were not intimidated. Standish took the threat seriously and urged that the colonists encircle their small village with a palisade made of tall, upright logs. The proposal would require a wall more than half a mile (or 0.8 km) long. In addition, he recommended the construction of strong gates and platforms for shooting over the wall. The colony had recently been reinforced by the arrival of new colonists from the ship Fortune, but there were still only 50 men to work on the task. Despite the challenges, the settlers constructed the palisade per Standish's recommendations in just three months, finishing in March 1622. Standish divided the militia into four companies, one to man each wall, and drilled them in defending the village in the event of attack.

A more serious threat came from the Massachusett tribe to the north and was precipitated by the arrival of a new group of English colonists. In April 1622, the vanguard of a new colony arrived in Plymouth. They had been sent by merchant Thomas Weston to establish a new settlement somewhere near Plymouth. The men chose a site on the shore of the Fore River in Weymouth, Massachusetts, about 25 mile (40 km) north of Plymouth, and they called their colony Wessagusset. The settlers of the poorly managed colony infuriated the Massachusett tribe through theft and recklessness. By March 1623, Massasoit had learned that a group of influential Massachusett warriors intended to destroy both the Wessagusset and Plymouth colonies. He warned Plymouth to strike first. One of the colonists of Wessagusset named Phineas Pratt verified that his settlement was in danger. He managed to escape to Plymouth and reported that the colonists in Wessagusset had been repeatedly threatened by the Massachusetts, that the settlement was in a state of constant watchfulness, and that men were dying at their posts from starvation. Bradford called a public meeting at which the Pilgrims decided to send Standish and a small group of eight, including Hobbamock, to Wessagusset to kill the leaders of the plot. The mission had a personal aspect for Standish. One of the warriors threatening Wessagusset was Wituwamat, a Neponset who had earlier insulted and threatened Standish. Standish arrived at Wessagusset and found that many of the colonists had gone to live with the Massachusetts, and he ordered them to be called back to Wessagusset. Pecksuot was a Massachusett warrior and leader of the group threatening Wessagusset; he came to the settlement with Wituwamat and other warriors the day after Standish's arrival. Standish claimed simply to be in Wessagusset on a trading mission, but Pecksuot said to Hobbamock, "Let him begin when he dare; he shall not take us unawares." Later in the day, Pecksuot approached Standish, looking down on him, and said, "You are a great captain, yet you are but a little man. Though I be no sachem, yet I am of great strength and courage." The next day, Standish arranged to meet with Pecksuot over a meal in one of Wessagusset's one room houses. Pecksuot brought Wituwamat, Wituwamat's adolescent brother, and several women. Standish had three men of Plymouth and Hobbamock with him in the house. On an arranged signal, they shut the door of the house and Standish attacked Pecksuot, stabbing him repeatedly with the man's own knife. Having accomplished his mission, Standish returned to Plymouth with Wituwamat's head. The leaders of the plot to destroy the settlements had been killed and the threat removed, but the action had unexpected consequences. The settlement of Wessagusset, which Standish had been trying to protect, was all but abandoned after the incident. Most of the settlers departed for an English fishing post on Monhegan Island. The attack also caused widespread panic among Indian tribes throughout the region. Villages were abandoned and the Pilgrims had difficulty reviving trade for some time. Pastor John Robinson was still in Leiden, but he criticized Standish for his brutality. Bradford, too, was uncomfortable with his methods, but he defended him in a letter: "As for Capten Standish, we leave him to answer for him selfe, but this we must say, he is as helpfull an instrument as any we have, and as carefull of the generall good."

In 1625, another group of English settlers established an outpost not far from the site of Wessagusset, located in Quincy, Massachusetts, about 27 mile (43 km) north of Plymouth. The settlement was officially known as Mount Wollaston, but soon earned the nickname "Merrymount." Their leader Thomas Morton encouraged behavior that the Pilgrims found objectionable and dangerous. The men of Merrymount built a maypole, drank liberally, refused to observe the Sabbath, and sold weapons to the Indians. Bradford found the weapons sales particularly disturbing and ordered Standish to lead an expedition to arrest Morton in 1628. Standish arrived with a group of men to find that the small band at Merrymount had barricaded themselves within a small building. Morton eventually decided to attack the men from Plymouth, but the Merrymount group were too drunk to handle their weapons.

Standish's last significant known expedition was against the French who had established a trading post in 1613 on the Penobscot River in Castine, Maine. English forces captured the settlement in 1628 and turned it over to Plymouth Colony. It was a valuable source of furs and timber for the Pilgrims for seven years. However, the French mounted a small expedition in 1635 and easily reclaimed the settlement. Bradford ordered Standish to take action, determined that the post be reclaimed in Plymouth Colony's name. This was a significantly larger proposition than the small expeditions which Standish had previously led and, to accomplish the task, he chartered the ship Good Hope captained by a man named Girling. Another effort was successful later in 1626, this time negotiated by Isaac Allerton, and several leading men of Plymouth, including Standish, ultimately paid off the colony's debt to the Adventurers. The leaders of Plymouth Colony were now free of the directives of the Merchant Adventurers, and they exerted their newfound autonomy by organizing a land division in 1627. Large farm lots were parceled out to each family in the colony along the shore of Plymouth, Kingston, Duxbury, and Marshfield, Massachusetts. Standish received a farm of in Duxbury, and he built a house and settled there around 1628. There are indications that Standish began to seek a quieter life by 1635 (after the Penobscot expedition), maintaining the livestock and fields of his Duxbury farm. He was about 51 years old at that time, and he began to relinquish the responsibility of defending the colony to a younger generation. A note in the colony records of 1635 indicates that Lieutenant William Holmes was appointed to train the militia as Standish's immediate subordinate. When the Pequot War loomed in 1637, Standish was appointed to a committee to raise a company of 30 men, but it was Holmes who led the company in the field. The coincidence would suggest that he had something to do with it, though no records exist to indicate how the town was named.

During the 1640s, Standish took on an increasingly administrative role. He served as a surveyor of highways, as treasurer of the colony from 1644 to 1649, and on various committees to lay out boundaries of new towns and inspect waterways. His old friend Hobbamock had been part of his household, but he died in 1642 and was buried on Standish's farm in Duxbury.

Standish's true life role in defending Plymouth Colony and the sometimes brutal tactics that he employed were largely obscured by the fictionalized character created by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish. Historian Tudor Jenks wrote that Longfellow's book had "no claim to be considered other than a pleasant little fairystory, and as an entirely misleading sketch of men and matters in old Plymouth." However, the book elevated Standish to the level of folk hero in Victorian America. In late 19th century Duxbury, the book generated a movement to build monuments in Standish's honor, a beneficial byproduct of which was increased tourism to the town. The site of Standish's house reveals only a slight depression in the ground where the cellar hole was, but it is now a small park owned and maintained by the town of Duxbury. Standish, Maine is named for him, as well as the neighborhood of Standish, Minneapolis. At least two forts were named after him: an earthen fort on Plymouth's Saquish Neck built during the American Civil War, and a larger cement fort built on Lovells Island in Boston Harbor in 1895. Both forts are now abandoned. Camp Myles Standish in nearby Taunton was also named for him. Myles Standish State Forest is located in the towns of Plymouth and Carver in southeastern Massachusetts, approximately 45 miles (70 km) south of Boston. It is the largest publicly owned recreation area in this part of Massachusetts, and is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). Myles Standish Hall is a dormitory at Boston University, originally constructed as the Myles Standish Hotel in 1925. In 2020, Chorley in Lancashire commemorated 400 years of Myles Standish's Pilgrim journey. However, many elements of its planned year were postponed due to the COVID 19 outbreak.