During the late-1600s hundreds of Huguenot refugees moved to New England and New York, fleeing persecution in their native France. Aside from being important players in local societies, these Huguenots also served to attach the region to a much larger world, through their connections to family members and former neighbors in the British Isles, the Netherlands, France, and other parts of the Americas. This paper will examine the Huguenots through the stories of a number of people and families who settled in the region -- starting with Gabriel Bernon, a merchant who attempted to start an autonomous community in central Massachusetts, and ending with the Jay family of New York and New Rochelle. Taken together, these stories illustrate a change over several decades, as dreams of distinctive French Protestant communities faded, and the refugees became enthusiastic partisans of the British empire.

Dr. Owen Stanwood is Professor of History at Boston College. A specialist on colonial American, Atlantic, and global history, he is the author of two books and numerous articles, including most recently The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020). He has held a number of prestigious fellowships, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the British Library.

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