EVENTS
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA
The Slews and Hoars of Beverly
ONLINE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2025, 7-8:30pm ET
JEANNE PICKERING
Independent scholar Jeanne Pickering takes us into the links between generations and between slavery and witchcraft, exploring the lives of two women caught by circumstance. In these Essex county lawsuits, starting with the Salem trials, we have a close-up view of the vulnerability of women trapped by poverty and made victims. One remained victim, one fought back.
radicalism and resistance in the english civil wars
ONLINE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2025, 6-7:30pm ET
RACHEL FOXLEY
We think of revolutionary ideas originating in 1775/1776 but more than a century before, English political thinkers were proposing representation, elements of democracy and an end to monarchy. Historian Rachel Foxley, University of Reading, explores the unexpected, even startling, radicalism of English civil war thinkers, including Levellers such as pamphleteer John Lilburne. Fascinating, little known, and arrestingly radical, these thinkers sound revolutionary even today. Third in our Revolution before the Revolution series.
BOOK CLUB: THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND
ONLINE, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2025, 11am-12:30pm ET
EVANA ROSE TAMAYO
Our first book club discussions were fascinating, enlightening and fun! This one will be too. Join us in exploring the founding myth of American history - Thanksgiving. From primary school we’re taught that Thanksgiving was a moment of harmony between Indigenous people and colonists. From David Silverman’s acclaimed This Land is Their Land we’ll discover something very different - the Thanksgiving story told from the Wampanoag point of view. “A gripping, Native-centred narrative of the English invasion of New England,” wrote a reviewer. Just right for the pre-Thanksgiving season!
RESISTING TYRANNY, DEFINING LIBERTY
ONLINE, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2025, 7-8:30pm ET
FRANCIS J. BREMER
While England plunged into civil war, New England faced dissidents and political questions. But instead of taking up arms (and although they sent men to fight in the English civil wars), Puritan leaders took pen to paper, drafting statements on the nature and limits of liberty, the threat of tyranny, and the proper relationship between church and state. This final lecture in our series Revolutions before the Revolution, by award-winning historian Francis J. Bremer, explores how 17th century Puritans created a new understanding of citizen rights that would inspire colonial rebels a century later - and should inspire us today.
“You knocked it out of the park with this lecture. Have signed up for them all.”
—attendee, Enslavement & Resistance series