(3) See for instance, David Bushnell, "The Treatment of the Indians in
Plymouth Colony," New England Quarterly 26, no.2 (June 1953): 203-7, and James Ronda, "Red and White at the Bench: Indians and the Law in
Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691," Essex Institute Historical Collections 110, no.3 (July 1974): 200-215, both of whom argue that Indians did receive essentially fair treatment in courts, at least before King Philip's War.
Crawford also reported a case of adultery in the
Plymouth colony where the letters AD were decreed.
From Thomas Morton, who broke away from
Plymouth Colony to found Merrymount (a place where same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage were accepted and welcome), to how World War II drastically changed gender roles, to how organizations championing gay and lesbian rights such as ACT UP helped spread awareness of the HIV and AIDS epidemics when the Reagan administration was far too silent, A Queer History of the United States lives up to its title and is an absolutely invaluable addition to American History as well as LGBT Studies shelves.
Although, as she points out, the documents chronicling
Plymouth colony were written by a select group of educated European men, Finch reads official documents alongside theological and colonial texts to discover how various members of society used and viewed their bodies.
As Larkin points out, a farmer in 1620
Plymouth Colony would have been at home on an American farm 200 years later, because very little had changed.
His maypole, Cohen intriguingly argues, was a publishing venue with buckhorns and verse posted on it that impugned and challenged
Plymouth colony's authority over colonial communication systems.
William Bradford, long-time governor of
Plymouth Colony, owned the 1608 version, which he mentions in his memoir Of Plymouth Plantation, citing the page number where the Dutch law establishing civil marriage is found.
Milking Devon: In 1623 two Devon heifers and a bull where shipped to
Plymouth Colony in America from Devonshire England, to be used as draft animals.
Similar to John Demos's study of colonial New England families, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in
Plymouth Colony [1970], the Volos offer a nuanced examination of family roles, relationships, and material culture in the household.
In 1626,
Plymouth Colony passed a law to control the cutting and sale of lumber on colony lands.
Each was a heroine in her own way: Helen Paddock, the Civil War widow in Kankakee, Illinois; Patience Brewster, who died of the fever in
Plymouth colony; Keziah Keyes, the young girl who was sent for help as an Indian raid was taking place on her home during the Revolutionary War; Sarah Towne Cloyce, charged with her two sisters and Goody Proctor in the Salem witch trials; Bessie Barton, granddaughter of Helen Paddock, who dreams of the man she might have married; and Mary Dyer, hanged on Boston Commons for her Quaker beliefs.