Pilgrims
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- This article is about the colonists of North America. For religious travellers in general, see Pilgrim. For the football teams of this nickname, see Plymouth Argyle F.C. and Boston United F.C.. For The Pilgrims' School Winchester, an independent choir school in England, go to The Pilgrims' School. For the Pilgrims' Hall, go to Winchester.
Image:George-Henry-Boughton-Pilgrims-Going-To-Church.jpg The Pilgrims were a group of English religious separatists who sailed from Europe to North America in the early 17th century, in search of a home where they could freely practice their style of religion.
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Experiences and Politics in Europe
The various members of the group had broken away from the Church of England, feeling that the Church had not completed the task begun by the Reformation. Under the guidance of the Reverends William Brewster, Richard Clifton and John Robinson, a portion of the group left their homes in and around Scrooby, England (near Boston, England, in Lincolnshire) and sailed to Amsterdam in Holland to escape what they saw as religious persecution at the hands of the religious and civil authorities of their countrymen. Although not actively persecuted, the group was subjected to ecclesiastical investigation and to the mockery, criticism, and disfavor of their neighbors (Columbia Encyclopaedia). They left, not for religious freedom, but because there was too much freedom of religion in England and they wanted it to be more strict. These separatist "Pilgrims" settled in Leiden for 12 years, but by 1617 a poor economy, and concern about the Dutch influence upon their community convinced many of them to move on, this time to the New World.
Concerned with the morals of the time in the Netherlands, and with their children being brought up in a Dutch environment, they decided to move to a place better-suited to them; and in 1620, they set sail on the ship Mayflower from Plymouth Harbor, bound for the Americas. These people became known as the Pilgrim Fathers.
Another way of explaining the atmosphere in the Netherlands is that some of the exiles, such as Brewster, were publishing what the English government saw as "seditious" books, and were sending them into England (see John Lilburne). The English authorities put diplomatic pressure on the Dutch government to stop it; the Dutch government began to comply, and the exiles decided that it was time to leave.
At the time, fewer than half of the Congregation's members chose to leave the Netherlands aboard the Speedwell, sailing from Delfshaven near Rotterdam and heading for Southampton, England, where they joined a larger group of religious separatists aboard the Mayflower. After stopping at Plymouth, England, they departed on September 6, 1620, with 102 people aboard. Their intended destination was a section of land in the area called Northern Virginia, granted by one of the Brewster family friends in the London Company. This grant would have placed them near the Hudson River.
Arrival in America
Although it is uncertain, historically, whether or not the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth due to storms, an error in navigation, or on purpose, the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod after between one and two months at sea, and anchored off present-day Truro on November 11, 1620. Having no legal authority to colonize the area, they met to sign their own charter, known as the Mayflower Compact, in which they agreed to form a "self-governing, Christian community" in Provincetown. It was not long before the Pilgrims determined that the sandy land of the outer cape was insufficient to support them, so a group of them sailed across Cape Cod Bay and landed at Plymouth on December 21. The bulk of the settlers followed six days later.
The first settlement of the colony was "New Plymouth", later Plymouth, Massachusetts. By the end of that winter, almost half of the settlers were dead (probably from starvation and disease), including their leader John Carver. Thus began one of the best-intended, historically renowned, and yet strangely ill-fated colonial ventures in America (after the Roanoke Island Settlement and Jamestown).
William Bradford (1590-1657) became governor in 1621 upon the death of Carver, served for eleven consecutive years, and was elected to various other terms until his death in 1657. The patent of Plymouth Colony was surrendered by Bradford to the freemen in 1640, minus a small reserve of three tracts of land. On March 22, 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
The colony contained roughly what is now Bristol County, Plymouth County, and Barnstable County, Massachusetts.
Plymouth was the second permanent English settlement in the Americas, the first being Jamestown, Virginia. Early, abandoned settlements include the Popham Colony (present-day Maine), the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island (present-day North Carolina), and Cuper's Cove and Bristol's Hope in present-day Newfoundland.
When the Massachusetts Bay Colony was reorganized and issued a new charter as the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691, Plymouth ended its history as a separate colony.
Many people (including school teachers) confuse Pilgrims and Puritans. Plymouth's Pilgrims wanted to separate from the Church of England. The Massachusetts Bay Colony's Puritans wanted to purify, but not separate from, the Church of England.
See also
- The Pilgrimage of Grace was in the region surrounding Scrooby, along the Humber.
- Society of Mayflower Descendants
- Brownist
- Robert Browne
External links
it:Padri Pellegrini nl:Pilgrim Fathers ja:ピルグリム・ファーザーズ no:Pilegrimene