Jeremy Bangs

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Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs
Bangs in 2019
Born(1946-01-20)20 January 1946
Astoria, Oregon
Died26 August 2023(2023-08-26) (aged 77)
Leiden, The Netherlands
CitizenshipUnited States
The Netherlands
Alma materUniversity of Leiden
Occupations
  • Novelist
  • Historian
  • Scholar
Known forDutch and American History, Leiden American Pilgrim Museum
Notable workChurch Art and Architecture in the Low Countries Before 1566 (1997)
Indian Deeds: Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691 (2002)
Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation (2009)
TitleRidder
Political partyDemocratic Party (until 1968)
SpouseTommie Flynn
Children3
FatherDr. Carl O. Bangs
AwardsPilgrim Academic Research Award (2017)
Knight of the Order of Oranje-Nassau (2018)

Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs (20 January 1946 – 26 August 2023) was an American historian, scholar, and the former director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum. Bangs was known for his research on the pilgrims and authored eleven books covering early modern Dutch, English and American history.

Early life and education

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Bangs was born on 20 January 1946 in Astoria, Oregon. He had two siblings; Carl and Jeanne.[1]

His father, Carl O. Bangs PhD'58 (1922 - 2002), was a church historian and theology professor, who taught at Olivet Nazarene College, and later at the Saint Paul School of Theology.[2] Carl was an expert on Jacob Arminius, and in later years, wrote Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (1998).[3]

His mother, Marjorie Friesen (1922 - 2002) grew up in a Russian Mennonite family, and was a member of the American Guild of Organists.[4]

Bangs was raised in Chicago and Missouri. At high school, he was interested in art and history, but as a talented bassoonist, was accepted into the Julliard School.[5]

Despite his musical talent, he studied Art History at the University of Chicago. In 1968, he left for London after his friends suffered police brutality during the U.S. summer riots.[6]

He completed his doctorate at Rijksuniversiteit Leiden in 1976, where he wrote his dissertation on 16th-century Dutch tapestry weaving and church furnishings.[7]

Career

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His doctorate led to a position working at the Leiden Municipal Archives, where he became an expert on the Pilgrims in Leiden. In 1986, he was Visiting Distinguished Professor of Art History at Arizona State University.[8]

Bangs worked as Chief Curator at Plimouth Plantation from 1986 to 1991. He then worked as Visiting Curator of MSS at Pilgrim Hall Museum and as Assistant Archivist at Scituate Town Archives from 1993 to 1996. After travelling to Holland accessioning historical artefacts, Bangs emigrated there in 1996.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1997, Bangs opened the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, on the ground floor of the city's oldest[9] townhouse, built around 1367-1370.[10] The museum reportedly saw 2,000 visitors annually.[11]

The Pilgrim Museum Leiden (Kloksteeg, Leiden)

In 1998, The New York Times reported that the Dutch government had ordered Bangs to repatriate himself to the U.S. during widespread arrests on unauthorised migrants. [12]

In October 2000, Bangs was invited to the annual Leiden Ontzet feasts, to commerorate the end of the Siege of Leiden (1574). He asserted that the Pilgrims adopted this tradition in the New World, originating from a Dutch Calvinist philosophy of 'rejecting the fixed medieval ecclesiastical calendar in favour of holy days'.[13]

Further, Bangs argued that English Separatists who sailed on The Mayflower had developed a sense of religious tolerance through their persecution, that led them to carry the principle of a separate church and state.[14] His 2009 work, Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, states that, unlike the English Puritans who sought to a establish a theocracy in Massachusetts, Pilgrim colonists were far more tolerant of other faiths, and allowed women to speak in church.[15]

Dr. Bangs spent much of his career transcribing the Plymouth Colony archives.

In his later years, Bangs walked with a cane after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.[16] On 26 August 2023, he died following a period of ill health.

Honours

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In 2017, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Pilgrim Academic Research Committee awarded him the annual Pilgrim Academic Research Award.[17]

Bangs was named as a Knight on the Order of Oranje-Nassau by King Willem-Alexander. At the King's birthday celebrations on 27 April 2018, the mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, presented his knighthood.[18] The civilian title given is 'Ridder'.

In 2019 he was honorarily adopted by the Cothutikut Mattakeeset Massachusett tribe, and presented with a wampum belt and blanket in recognition of his work on Indian deeds.[19]

Publications

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  • Cornelis Engebrechtsz.'s Leiden (1979)[20]
  • The Pilgrims in the Netherlands Recent Research : Papers Presented at a Symposium Held by the Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center and the Sir Thomas Browne Institute[21] (1985)
  • The seventeenth-century town records of Scituate, Massachusetts[22] (1999)
  • Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries Before 1566 (1997)[23]
  • Pilgrim Life in Leiden: Texts and Images from the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum (1997)
  • Indian Deeds: Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691 (2002)[24]
  • Pilgrim Edward Winslow: New England's First International Diplomat : a Documentary Biography (2004)[25]
  • Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation (2009)[26]
  • The Travels of Elkanah Watson: An American Businessman in the Revolutionary War, in 1780s Europe and in the Formative Decades of the United States (2015)[27]
  • New Light on the Old Colony: Plymouth, the Dutch Context of Toleration, and Patterns of Pilgrim Commemoration (2019)[28]
  • Letters on Toleration: Dutch Aid to Persecuted Swiss and Palatine Mennonites 1615-1699[29]

References

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  1. ^ "Carl Bangs Obituary (2002) - Kansas City, MO - Kansas City Star". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  2. ^ "Carl Bangs". Wipf and Stock Publishers. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  3. ^ Bangs, Carl (1998-09-04). Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57910-150-3.
  4. ^ "Carl Bangs Obituary (2002) - Kansas City, MO - Kansas City Star". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  5. ^ Lydialyle Gibson|The University of Chicago Magazine — Nov–Dec 2013
  6. ^ "In Memory: Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs (1946-2023) | Congregational Library & Archives". www.congregationallibrary.org. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  7. ^ Bangs, Jeremy (2005-09-01). "The Truth About Thanksgiving Is that the Debunkers Are Wrong". HNN. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  8. ^ Downey, Erin (2023-09-20). "In Memoriam: Jeremy Dupertius Bangs (1946-2023)". Historians of Netherlandish Art. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  9. ^ "In the Pilgrims' Footsteps, Through England and the Netherlands (Published 2011)". 2011-11-17. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  10. ^ Hanc, John. "The Pilgrims Before Plymouth". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  11. ^ "Going Dutch". mag.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  12. ^ "Government in the Netherlands Thwarts Modern Pilgrim's Progress (Published 1998)". 1998-12-31. Retrieved 2025-10-31.
  13. ^ "Ontzet, a Leiden Celebration". The Washington Post. 2000-11-23. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  14. ^ "Leiden's legacy of open arms". Los Angeles Times. 2009-11-22. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  15. ^ "Thanksgiving Day: Pilgrims were a surprisingly worldly, tolerant lot - CSMonitor.com". www.csmonitor.com. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  16. ^ "Jeremy Bangs: Historian of the Pilgrims". The Way of Improvement Leads Home. 2013-11-23. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  17. ^ "Pilgrim Academic Research Award - General Society of Mayflower Descendants". themayflowersociety.org. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  18. ^ Darling, Erin. "Dr. Jeremy Bangs' Honor - The Mayflower Society". www.themayflowersociety.org.
  19. ^ "Tribal Advisory Committee". Mattakeeset Tribe. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  20. ^ Cornelis Engebrechtsz.'s Leiden: Studies in Cultural History. BRILL. 1979. ISBN 978-90-232-1630-8.
  21. ^ The Pilgrims in the Netherlands: Recent Research : Papers Presented at a Symposium Held by the Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center and the Sir Thomas Browne Institute, September 7, 1984. The Center. 1998. ISBN 978-90-76317-02-1.
  22. ^ The Seventeenth-century Town Records of Scituate, Massachusetts. New England Historic Genealogical Society. 1999. ISBN 978-0-88082-063-9.
  23. ^ Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries Before 1566. Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers. 1997. ISBN 978-0-940474-39-0.
  24. ^ Indian Deeds: Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691. New England Historic Genealogical Society. 2002. ISBN 978-0-88082-218-3.
  25. ^ Pilgrim Edward Winslow: New England's First International Diplomat : A Documentary Biography. New England Historic Genealogical Society. 2004. ISBN 978-0-88082-180-3.
  26. ^ Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation. General Society of Mayflower Descendants. 2009. ISBN 978-0-930270-45-2.
  27. ^ The Travels of Elkanah Watson: An American Businessman in the Revolutionary War, in 1780s Europe and in the Formative Decades of the United States. McFarland. 25 July 2015. ISBN 978-1-4766-2336-8.
  28. ^ Bangs, Jeremy Dupertuis (November 7, 2019). New Light on the Old Colony: Plymouth, the Dutch Context of Toleration, and Patterns of Pilgrim Commemoration. Brill. ISBN 9789004413849 – via Google Books.
  29. ^ "Letters on Toleration: Dutch Aid to Persecuted Swiss and Palatine Mennonites 1615-1699". Amazon. Retrieved November 6, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)