Half-Pikes for New Plymouth

The Military Reform of 1653

Jakob de Gheyn The Exercise of Armes (1607)

In 1620, the people we now call ‘the Pilgrims’ landed on the shores of New England. In 1691, the colony they established, which had since grown considerably, joined the Province of Massachusetts, thereby losing its independence existence. Thus, the short life of New Plymouth both began and ended during the period within which most European infantry units wielded a mixture of shoulder-steadied firearms and long sticks tipped with steel, an era that historians like to call ‘the age of pike and shot’.

Notwithstanding the central role played by pikes in the fighting methods of contemporary foot-soldiers, the men of New Plymouth made little use of them. When standing guard over their settlements, they usually carried muskets. When taking part in expeditions, they invariably left their pole-arms at home. Nonetheless, both the government of New Plymouth, and, as the colony grew, some of its component towns, made occasional attempts to train small numbers of men in the art of handling pikes.