Myles Standish

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 [sic] 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.

All but one of the places named in Standish's will are in Lancashire, England, with the exception being the Isle of Man. Some historians have concluded that he was therefore born in Lancashire – possibly in the vicinity of Chorley, where a family named Standish owned a manor called Duxbury Hall. However, there is no conclusive evidence linking Myles Standish to that family. A competing interpretation is that he belonged to a Manx branch of the Standish family. No definitive documentation of his birth exists in either Lancashire or the Isle of Man. However, in recent times, the Isle of Man could be referencing a farm near Croston.

The next earliest source on Standish's family and early life is a short passage recorded by Nathaniel Morton, secretary of Plymouth Colony, who wrote in his New England's Memorial (published 1669) that Standish: