Standish, Myles

Standish, Myles

(born c. 1584, Lancashire, Eng.—died Oct. 3, 1656, Duxbury, Mass.) British-American colonist. He fought in the Netherlands, where he met the Pilgrims, with whom he later sailed to North America on the Mayflower (1620). As the Plymouth colony's military leader, he led several expeditions against hostile Indian tribes. He served as the colony's assistant governor and treasurer (1644–49). There is no historical evidence for the story that he asked John Alden to propose marriage for him to Priscilla Mullins, as mythologized in Henry W. Longfellow's poem The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).