As separatists, they were considered illegal radicals by their home country of England. But rather than work for change in England (as other Puritans did), they chose to live as Separatists in religiously tolerant Holland in 1608. See also: Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) § HistoryĪ congregation of approximately 400 English Protestants living in exile in Leiden, Holland, were dissatisfied with the failure of the Church of England to reform what they felt were many excesses and abuses. As one of the earliest colonial vessels, the ship has become a cultural icon in the history of the United States. Before disembarking the Mayflower, the Pilgrims wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that established a rudimentary government, in which each member would contribute to the safety and welfare of the planned settlement. The following year, those 53 who survived, celebrated the colony's first fall harvest along with 90 Wampanoag Native American people, an occasion declared in centuries later the first American Thanksgiving. If not for the help of local indigenous peoples to teach them food gathering and other survival skills, all of the colonists might have perished. As a result, only half of the original Pilgrims survived the first winter at Plymouth. Arriving in November, they had to survive unprepared through a harsh winter. The Pilgrims had originally hoped to reach America by early October using two ships, but delays and complications meant they could use only one, Mayflower.

By 1620, the community determined to cross the Atlantic for America, which they considered a 'new Promised Land', where they would establish Plymouth Colony. Starting in 1608, a group of English families left England for the Netherlands, where they could worship freely. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, Mayflower, with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, reached what is today the United States, dropping anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on November 21 , 1620.ĭiffering from their contemporaries, the Puritans (who sought to reform and purify the Church of England), the Pilgrims chose to separate themselves from the Church of England because they believed it was beyond redemption due to its Roman Catholic past and the church's resistance to reform, which forced them to pray in private. Mayflower was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. Unknown, but carried approximately 135 people to Plymouth Colony Most likely taken apart by Rotherhithe shipbreaker c.

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