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Leiden Our "American angle" on the second day was to find out about the Pilgrim Fathers and the time they had spent in the Netherlands. For this reason we took a train to Leiden, because that is where many of them had lived from 1609 until their passage to the New World in 1620. Leiden has a museum dedicated to the Pilgrims, called the "Leiden American Pilgrim Museum" and this is were we headed after Tanja's presentation. The museum is housed in one of the oldest buildings in Leiden, with its original structure dating back to 1370. It was one of six houses, serving as the living quarters for the 24 priests from the nearby collegiate church, and, back then, it had only one storey. Its second storey was added in about 1590 and it is now a listed building, which is privately owned. But we also heard a lot about the first Pilgrims themselves. There was for instance William Brewster, who had books printed in Leiden and then had them smuggled back to England, much to the annoyance of King James I. Or there was Edward Winslow, who, according to the museum's curator, Jeremy Bangs, introduced civil marriage to the New World, as there was no minister among the first settlers and Winslow had come across the concept of civil marriage as an accepted practice in Leiden. And we were also made aware that the ties between the Netherlands, or the United Provinces as they were known then, and the United States of America remained strong, not least of all because the Netherlands became the first country in the world to recognize formal diplomatic relations with the United States in 1782. There are also similarities in the minting of coins: Whoever has looked closely at a Dutch guilder and an American dollar (as we have done!), might notice that in the crest of the Dutch coin there are 11 arrows in the lion's paw (representing the 11 provinces) and in the crest of the American coin there are 13 arrows in the eagle's claw (representing the original 13 colonies)!
More information
about the Pilgrims' time in Leiden, as well as pictures of the museum
and the town, can be found at:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~netlapm/Page01.htm |
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Report about William Bradford and Leiden |