The deaf migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: What we can learn about integration.

On September 18th, 1634, the Reverend John Lothropp arrived at Plymouth in New England, with some 200 religious dissidents aboard The Griffin, a ship that had sailed from England. The passengers included several families who were deaf and whose future children had an impact on the life of the community for generations to come. Many of the migrants made their way to Martha’s Vineyard which, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was in an extremely isolated area of America. Its population was small; Wampanoag Indians were…