Standish, Miles
Standish, Miles or Myles,
c.1584–1656, American colonist, b. England. After serving as a soldier for a number of years, Standish accompanied the PilgrimsPilgrims,in American history, the group of separatists and other individuals who were the founders of Plymouth Colony. The name Pilgrim Fathers is given to those members who made the first crossing on the Mayflower.
..... Click the link for more information. to America on the Mayflower (1620) and was recognized at once as the military leader of Plymouth ColonyPlymouth Colony,
settlement made by the Pilgrims on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. Founding
Previous attempts at colonization in America (1606, 1607–8) by the Plymouth Company, chartered in 1606 along with the London Company (see Virginia Company), were
..... Click the link for more information. . He was probably not a Puritan. He saved the colony from the Native Americans several times, most notably in 1623 when he defeated Native Americans threatening an attack on the settlement at Weymouth. In 1625 he was sent to England as a colonial agent particularly concerned with the colony's debt to its merchant backers in London. Standish was treasurer of the colony (1644–49), held other posts, and was a founder of Duxbury, Mass. Henry W. Longfellow's The Courtship of Miles Standish and James R. Lowell's Interview with Miles Standish are wholly fictional.
Bibliography
See biographies by J. S. C. Abbott (1872) and T. C. Porteus (1920).