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| == '''Plymouth Colony''' ==
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| ''by [[User:Richard Jensen|Richard Jensen]], [[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]], [[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]], and [[User:Aleksander Stos|Aleksander Stos]]''
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| | ==Footnotes== |
| '''[[Plymouth Colony]]''' was an English colony in North America from 1620 until 1691, when it was absorbed by its much larger neighbor, Massachusetts. At its height, the colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of the modern state of Massachusetts.
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| Founded by a group of separatists who later came to be known as the Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony was, along with Jamestown, Virginia, one of the earliest colonies to be founded by the English in North America and the first sizable permanent English settlement in New England. The colony agreed on a treaty with Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure the colony's success. The colony played a central role in King Phillip's War, one of the earliest and bloodiest of the Indian Wars.
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| Plymouth holds a unique role in American history as the beginnings of the nation's democratic culture through the Mayflower Compact. Rather than a commercial venture like Jamestown, its citizens sought freedom from religious persecution and a place to settle and worship God in a way they saw fit. The social and legal systems of the colony were closely tied to strong religious beliefs.
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| Many of the anecdotes and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American identity, including the tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument at Plymouth Rock. Despite the colony's relatively short history, it has become an important clue to what is "American."
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| ===History=== | |
| ====Origins====
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| Plymouth Colony was founded by permanent settlers who later came to be known as the "Pilgrims". The core group — roughly 40% of the adults and 56% of the family groupings was a congregation of religious separatists led by pastor John Robinson, church elder William Brewster, and William Bradford (1590-1657). While still in the town of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, England, the congregation began to feel the pressures of religious persecution. In the Hampton Court Conference, King James I declared Puritans and Protestant Separatists to be undesirables, and in 1607, the Bishop of York raided the homes of and imprisoned several members of the congregation in a prison in Boston, Lincolnshire. The congregation left England and settled the Netherlands, first in Amsterdam, and finally in Leiden in 1609.
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| In Leiden, the congregation found the freedom to worship as it chose, but Dutch society was unfamiliar to these immigrants. Scrooby had been an agricultural village, whereas Leiden was a thriving industrial center. More serious was their children began adopting Dutch customs and language. Finally, the Pilgrims were not free from the persecutions of the English Crown; after William Brewster in 1618 published comments highly critical of the King of England and the Anglican Church, English authorities came to Leiden to arrest him. Though Brewster escaped arrest, the events motivated the congregation to move even further from England.
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| In 1619, the Pilgrims obtained a land patent from the London Virginia Company, allowing them to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River. They obtained financing -- a loan--through the "Merchant Adventurers," a group of Puritan businessmen who viewed colonization as a means of both spreading their religion and making a profit. Upon arrival in America, the Pilgrims would then work to repay their debts. Using the money from the Merchant Adventurers, the Pilgrims bought provisions and obtained passage on two ships, the ''Mayflower'' and the ''Speedwell''. After some delays the Pilgrims finally boarded the ''Speedwell'' in July 1620 from the Dutch port of Delfshaven.
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| ====Mayflower voyage====
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| {{Image|Pilgrim1.jpg|right|350px|"The Embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delfthaven in Holland" (1843) by Robert Walter Weir}} | |
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| The ''Mayflower'' arrived in Southampton, England to rendezvous with the ''Speedwell'' and to pick up supplies and additional passengers. Among the passengers to join the group in Southampton were several Pilgrims including William Brewster, who had been in hiding for the better part of a year, and a group of passengers known to the Pilgrims as "The Strangers". This group was largely made up of passengers recruited by the Merchant Adventurers to provide governance for the colony as well as additional hands to work for the colony's ventures. Among the Strangers were Miles Standish (1584-1656), who became the colony's military leader. Characterized in Longfellow's poem as a shy and diffident person and suitor, Standish in reality was a pugnacious, touchy, short-tempered, and aggressive professional soldier. Also included were Christopher Martin, who had been designated by the Merchant Adventurers to act as Governor for the duration of the trans-Atlantic trip, and Stephen Hopkins, a veteran of a failed colonial venture to Bermuda. 120 passengers, ninety on the ''Mayflower'' and thirty on the ''Speedwell'', finally departed on August 15. The ''Speedwell'' proved unseaworthy; some passengers went home; most crowded onto the "Mayflower." With 102 settlers, it left Plymouth on September 6, 1620. The voyage took almost two months as it was drawn out by strong westerly winds and by the Gulf Stream. Land was sighted on November 9 off the coast of Cape Cod and with winter approaching and provisions running dangerously low, the passengers decided to return north and abandon their original plans to land sat the mouth of the Hudson River.
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| ''[[Arab Spring|.... (read more)]]''
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Napoleon (Napoleon Bonaparte or, after 1804, Napoleon I, Emperor of the French) was a world historic figure and dictator of France from 1799 to 1814. He was the greatest general of his age--perhaps any age, with a sure command of battlefield tactics and campaign strategies, As a civil leader he played a major role in the French Revolution, then ended it when he became dictator in 1799 and Emperor of France in 1804 He modernized the French military, fiscal, political legal and religious systems. He fought an unending series of wars against Britain with a complex, ever-changing coalition of European nations on both sides. Refusing to compromise after his immense defeat in Russia in 1812, he was overwhelmed by a coalition of enemies and abdicated in 1814. In 1815 he returned from exile, took control of France, built a new army, and in 100 days almost succeeded--but was defeated at Waterloo and exiled to a remote island. His image and memory are central to French national identity, but he is despised by the British and Russians and is a controversial figure in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Rise to Power
Once the Revolution had begun, so many of the aristocratic officers turned against the Revolutionary government, or were exiled or executed, that a vacuum of senior leadership resulted. Promotions came very quickly now, and loyalty to the Revolution was as important as technical skill; Napoleon had both. His demerits were overlooked as he was twice reinstated, promoted, and allowed to collect his back pay. Paris knew him as an intellectual soldier deeply involved in politics. His first test of military genius came at Toulon in 1793, where the British had seized this key port. Napoleon, an acting Lieutenant-Colonel, used his artillery to force the British to abandon the city. He was immediately promoted by the Jacobin radicals under Robespierre to brigadier-general, joining the ranks of several brilliant young generals. He played a major role in defending Paris itself from counter-revolutionaries, and became the operational planner for the Army of Italy and planned two successful attacks in April 1794. He married Josephine (Rose de Beauharnais) in 1796, after falling violently in love with the older aristocratic widow.[1]
- ↑ Englund pp 63-73, 91-2, 97-8
