why did puritans journey to america in 1620

The Great Migration of Picky Puritans, 1620-40

'great' because of the purpose, not the numbers.

When the Pilgrims landed in Plimoth Plantation in 1620, they began what was called the Great Migration – great not because of the numbers of people who arrived, but because of the Puritans’ purpose.

The Great Migration begins. Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall.

They came to America to live righteous and spiritual lives, rather than to get rich. And they didn’t let just anyone join their movement.

Most of the Puritans who came to New England came from prosperous middle-class families. They differed from the poor, single male immigrants who dominated immigration to other regions of America. They had skills and they could read, unlike the immigrants to Virginia, 75 percent of whom were servants .

The Puritans actually left stable economic lives in a corrupt England for a land where they could build a City Upon a Hill . And yet their future was far from certain.

‘Great Giddiness’ To Leave England

King Charles I

The Pilgrims weren’t the first Europeans to populate New England, not by a long shot. Fishermen and fur traders from France, the Netherlands and Spain set up summer settlements along the coast since the early 16th century.

Anglican English, too, tried to settle New England. Many worked for the Council of New England, a joint stock company set up by Sir Fernando Gorges and 40 friends. Gorges intended to create an aristocratic Anglican colony living off fish and furs. It failed, and the Massachusetts Bay Company took over the charter.

The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony  had the most extreme beliefs of the Puritan sect. They wanted complete separation from the corrupt Anglican church. More moderate Puritans only sought to purify and reform the Church of England.

King Charles I gave the Great Migration an impetus when he dissolved Parliament in 1629 and began the Eleven Years’ Tyranny. Charles, a high Anglican, embraced religious spectacle and persecuted Puritans.

The Puritans knew the Plymouth Colony experiment worked, and decided to replicate it. The Great Migration began to take off in 1630 when John Winthrop led a fleet of 11 ships to Massachusetts. Winthrop brought 800 people with him to New England; 20,000 followed him over the next 10 years.

Emigration Rage

The Massachusetts Bay Company found willing recruits. Marcus Lee Hansen in The Atlantic Migration 1607-1860 wrote that the company had no trouble finding congregational groups willing to make the Great Migration. Nor did the groups have any trouble recruiting members.

A rage of emigration swept through the eastern and midland counties of England, arousing in the authorities an apprehension which was to be shared by many other local officials of Europe during the next two and a half centuries. The popular interest anticipated most of the features appearing in later periods. The ballad, “Summons to New England,” was sung on the streets; a “great giddiness” to depart prevailed; “incredible numbers’ sold their lands; and debtors attempted to get away under the pretext of religion.

Emigration fever spread beyond southern England. When John Winthrop, Jr. , in 1635 traveled through Ireland, Scotland and the north of England, he found that the contagion preceded him.

“Everywhere he stopped, eager inquirers sought him out,” Hansen wrote.

Great Migration

John Winthrop, leader of the Great Migration

The Puritans discriminated against people who wanted to settle with them. Magistrates scrutinized each arriving immigrant. They sent some back to England as “persons unmeete to inhabit here.” The governor could put anyone on a month’s probation who wasn’t fit ‘to sit down among us without some trial of them.’

In 1633 and 1634, the Puritans declared  thanksgiving for the harvest and for the ships that brought “persons of spetial use and quality.”

The Second Wave

Immigrants who had less property and weaker religious convictions than the early wave began to arrive.

The Massachusetts Puritans passed a law forbidding a person or town to entertain guests for more than three weeks without special permission. In Rhode Island, Providence and Portsmouth required a town vote to let a newcomer stay. New Haven appointed a committee to evaluate landless strangers — and a whipping before it sent them out of town .

Once the immigrants arrived, they’d spend a few weeks or the winter in their port of entry. Then they  typically fanned out to new towns. If they arrived early enough in a new town to become proprietors, they would share in the distribution of land. Towns limited the number of proprietors to make sure their children had viable economic futures.

When a town reached its limit, the proprietors closed it. Within the first 10 years of settlement, the Puritans closed 22 towns from Maine to Rhode Island . But plenty of frontier land beckoned from the interior.

The Battle of Naseby, 1645. Turning point in the English Civil War.

All that ended when the English Civil War broke out in 1640. The great migration stopped. Some settlers had already returned because life was too harsh in the howling wilderness, and some settlers returned to England to fight the war. In fact, more Puritans left New England that year than arrived .

But the population of New England grew anyway. The Puritans lived long lives and formed large, healthy families . When the first U.S. census was taken in 1790 , New England had a population of 1,009,522.

George Francis Train, One of the Few Sane Men in a Mad, Mad World

Quock walker, 28, kicks the legs out from under slavery in massachusetts, 87 comments.

Janet Vincent

Betty LaCasse,this is about the time your family came over from england

[…] a problem except Mary took up with a man named John Britton. Britton was a professor in England who came to the Colonies, but he was not a […]

[…] site, anchored in Plymouth Harbor for 110 days as the settlers did their best to establish a toe-hold in New […]

[…] Edmund Greenleaf and Sarah Moore. She emigrated to Massachusetts with her family in 1634 during the Great Migration of Puritans. Her father, a silk dyer and tavern keeper, was one of the founders of Newbury. In 1644, when she […]

[…] were coming to America then with the uneasy blessing of the Massachusetts Puritans, who viewed them as another persecuted religious minority. The Puritans also thought the newcomers […]

[…] the rear of the general store in the small village of Plymouth Notch on July 4, 1872. He came from old Puritan stock, and his family had deep roots in New England politics and farming. (You can watch him wield a […]

[…] neighbors. East Anglia was the birthplace of many Puritans who came to Massachusetts Bay during the Great Migration of 1620 to 1640. It was a wealthy center of cloth manufacturing with thriving ports of Boston, Great Yarmouth, […]

[…] create their moral community – their ‘city on a hill’ – the Puritans had left their homes, sailed across the Atlantic and confronted the terrors of the […]

[…] the Puritans, fasting was a way to assuage God’s wrath. The purpose of fasting was to imbue people with a […]

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[…] would battle the Puritans over the next two decades using his wit, his pen, his political connections and his legal […]

[…] only fitting the word game took root in New England, where the Puritans brought with them the highest level of literacy in the North American […]

[…] New England Christmas started out as an ordinary work day for Puritans who frowned on the papist revelry of their Anglican neighbors. Over the years it evolved, with the […]

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[…] Day, when Christians celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin. So in 1620, John Winthrop's father Adam wrote in his diary, "The new year beginneth," on March […]

[…] the book John Winthrop carried across the Atlantic, Allestree’s Almanacke for 1620, his father had written such entries […]

[…] age 54, she pulled up stakes and sailed for America. She first settled in Saugus, and was granted 400 acres for a plantation. Shortly, however, she […]

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[…] Not much is known about his early life. He was born Jan. 22, 1645 (Old Style), in Dundee, Scotland. His father was a seaman lost at sea, though some claim he was a Puritan minister. […]

[…] differed from the New England Congregationalists, or Puritans, who believed the 'elect' were saved and the 'unregenerate' weren't, Universalists believed in […]

[…] Puritans already had trouble with the Baptists, but their differences were minor compared to the Quakers. […]

[…] later) scouted the New World with about 70 others who sailed aboard the Abigail in 1628, during the Great Migration of Puritans began. He established a small settlement and called it ‘Salem,’ the Hebrew word for […]

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[…] the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony of Boston gained ascendance, they had plenty of disagreements with the Pilgrims in Plymouth. But they were largely united in […]

[…] was still aboard the Arbella when he delivered his sermon, in which he listed the qualities he hoped the Puritan colonists would […]

[…] Fundamental Orders was an extraordinary document written by Roger Ludlow, a lawyer who had sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1630. Nowhere did it mention a king or a sovereign. Nowhere did it refer to any […]

[…] Elizabeth Poole left England on April 22, 1637 on the Speedwell with two friends, 14 servants, goods and 20 tons of salt. William and his family were probably already there. Another sister married the Rev. Nicholas Street, one of the first ministers in Taunton. […]

[…] Latin was established by the early Puritans, who believed strongly in educating boys and girls so they could read the Bible. It became a […]

[…] New Hampshire accent started with the English colonists who first arrived in North America. They brought with them speech patterns from Elizabethan London and part rural speech from […]

[…] Downing was John Winthrop’s nephew, a member of Harvard’s first graduating class and a soldier supporting Oliver Cromwell’s […]

[…] from Anne Bradstreet, a Puritan mother of eight who sailed to New England as a young wife on the Arbella in 1630. She wasn’t always the perfect Puritan mother: She wrote poems, mourned the death of her […]

[…] Mather, born in 1639, was so named in the midst of the Great Migration of Puritans. “Increase” meant "…the never-to-be-forgotten increase, of every sort, wherewith God favored […]

[…] in 1638, Lucy Downing and her family sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony on the Thomas and Francis so they could lead spiritual and righteous […]

[…] was great-grandson of the John Winthrop who founded Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was also grandson of Connecticut Gov. John Winthrop, who […]

[…] 1635. They were among 100 passengers on the James, one of five ships carrying Puritans during the Great Migration. Three smaller ships on the journey crossed quickly and landed […]

[…] their rigid enforcement of community standards, Puritan New Englanders often resorted to unusual punishments such as the bilbo, the cleft stick, the brand, the ear crop […]

[…] Richard Sears and Eleonora Randolph Coolidge Sears.  Her ancestors included Thomas Jefferson, John Winthrop and Massachusetts Gov. James Sullivan. She was Henry Cabot Lodge’s […]

[…] Russell Lowell was descended from Percival Lowell, who had come to America in the Great Puritan Migration. His uncle James Russell Lowell was a famous poet. Lowell, Mass., was named for his great-uncle, […]

[…] born Mary Reeve, daughter of Thomas Reeve and Hannah Rowe Reeve, in England around 1624. The family migrated to Springfield in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Mary married William Webster in 1670. He was 53 and she was […]

[…] Plymouth Colony was settled in 1620 by Anglicans and Separatists, also known as Brownists, and later known together as the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims believed democracy was the form of government required by God — and that government should enforce religious belief. […]

Is England a city?

[…] nine children. Together they ‘braved the dangers of the sea’ to come to Massachusetts in the Great Puritan Migration. He started a glassmaking business in Salem, but moved to Rehoboth in Plymouth Colony. There he led […]

[…] the beaches of Narragansett the pacers were raced. While Puritan Massachusetts frowned on sporting events such as racing, the more liberal Rhode Island allowed it. […]

[…] as soon as the Salem witch hysteria subsided, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony tried to justify killing 20 people. The Rev. Cotton Mather explained […]

[…] Vaughan didn’t leave much in the way of paper records, but he did change the face of Puritan New England with dozens of striking and much-admired Gothic Revival churches, schools and […]

[…] great-great-grandfather Henry Adams had come to Massachusetts in 1630 as part of the Great Migration of Puritans from […]

[…] the arrival of the Winthrop fleet in 1630, Massachusetts had steadily grown in size and in wealth. With an organized government, its citizens […]

[…] played such an important role in any  feast that some 17th-century Puritan ministers denounced them from the pulpit. They preached that Thanksgivings should be renamed ‘St. […]

[…] Susannah Johnson was born Feb.  20, 1729 or 1730, in Lunenberg, Mass., one of 12 children to Moses and Susanna Hastings Willard. She was descended from Maj. Simon Willard, who founded Concord, Mass., and Thomas Hastings, who immigrated to America in the Puritan Great Migration. […]

[…] One of those rooms had shelves full of board games, relatively new in Puritan Massachusetts. […]

[…] Winthrop famously wrote in this journal that the Arbella departed for the New World on Easter Monday – March 29, 1630. But the Puritan Easter would soon […]

[…] breweries sprang up in Boston shortly after the Puritans arrived.  Soon the General Court regulated the price of beer at 2-1/2 cents per […]

[…] College pranks have been part of the college experience since at least the 13th century, when Oxford students sent a prostitute to the cardinal in residence. The tradition of college pranks came to North America with the Puritans. […]

[…] into a religious family in Northampton, Mass., in 1788, Lewis Tappan adhered to strict Puritan principles throughout his life. He opened a store in Philadelphia, then Boston, and achieved early success. He […]

[…] the other New England accents, the Rhode Island accent started with the English colonists who first arrived in North America. They brought with them speech patterns from Elizabethan London and rural speech from Yorkshire […]

[…] 1620, Plimoth Plantation leaders decided marriage belonged to the courts, not to the church. Therefore, they concluded, the […]

[…] Great Migration of Puritans had ended, and the colonists badly needed workers. Across the sea, Oliver Cromwell’s new […]

[…] 1, 1792. One of his ancestors, John Porter and his wife Mary, immigrated from England during the Great Migration of Puritans. When he died, he owned property that included the Massachusetts cities and towns of Salem, […]

[…] another, the  New England Puritans brought with them a prejudice toward the original Hebrew version of the Old […]

[…] 1700, just 70 years after the Puritans’ Great Migration began, colonial Americans had 38 percent more purchasing power than their British brothers and […]

[…] Phelps ‘Polly’ Jacob was descended from Puritans, but was anything but puritanical. Her ancestors included Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford […]

[…] most Puritans arrived during the Great Migration of 1620-40, they left behind an England they viewed as hostile to their beliefs. King James I, who died in […]

[…] exchanging rich letters with friends and devouring key volumes on foreign faiths. A descendant of Puritan immigrants, he saw the world while serving as an American statesman in revolutionary Europe. Between his […]

[…] immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, having been imprisoned in England as an outspoken Puritan who advocated independence for […]

[…] of Nonconformist religious thought. The fleet carried about 1,000 people, the first of the Great Migration of 1630-42, during which thousands of English families immigrated to […]

[…] was born in England sometime around 1608 and came to Massachusetts during the Great Migration of Puritans. He brought with him his wife, who he had married when they were both 15. They had three children, […]

[…] want to practice law, and he had a keen interest in science and in travel. Before he followed his father to Massachusetts in 1631, he went to western France and to the Near East. Winthrop also attended medical lectures at the […]

[…] many Quakers of the era, Thomas Maule spoke out against the Puritans for their cruelty and intolerance.  He received 10 stripes of the whip for saying Salem John […]

[…] accent” is one way to describe maine-speak. Like all New England accents, it came with the English colonists who first arrived in North America. They brought with them speech patterns from Elizabethan London, Yorkshire and […]

[…] extremely harsh winter followed the hurricane, which caused the crops to fail. The English settlers coming to New England then competed intensely for […]

[…] came to Boston sometime in the 1620s, before the Puritans arrived, and lived on Noddles Island in Boston Harbor. Noddles Island is now East Boston, which has a […]

[…] religious beliefs were being challenged as well. The Methodist movement was steamrolling the established religious traditions of the country and causing a tremendous stir.  Somewhat more progressive in their attitudes toward slavery and […]

[…] the Great Migration the Puritans fled the monarchy, not the monarch. But they also brought with them English ideas of […]

[…] Born Jan. 25, 1614 in London, he came to Massachusetts toward the end of the great Puritan migration. […]

[…] £28 in 1638 (£3,400 in 2010, or $5,200 at parity). However, the flood of immigrants during the Great Migration drove down the price of cattle. The same cows sold at £28 in 1638 were valued in 1640 at only £5 […]

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The Mayflower Story

• Stories of the Mayflower

The Mayflower set sail on 16th September 1620 from Plymouth, UK, to voyage to America. But its history and story start long before that.

Its passengers were in search of a new life – some seeking religious freedom, others a fresh start in a different land. They would go on to be known as the Pilgrims and influence the future of the United States of America in ways they could never have imagined.

This story isn't just about the Mayflower's passengers though. It's about the people who already lived in America and the enormous effect the arrival of these colonists would have on Native Americans and the land they had called home for centuries.

More than 30 million people can trace their ancestry to the 102 passengers and approximately 30 crew aboard the Mayflower when it landed in Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, in the harsh winter of 1620.

On board were men, women and children from different walks of life across England and the city of Leiden in Holland.

A significant number were known as Separatists, a group of people who mostly wanted to live a life free from the current Church of England.

Others were on the ship for a multitude of reasons – some anticipated the chance to build a better future for their families and the opportunity of new land, while for others the offer of freedom and adventure was too good to turn down.

Then there were the crew themselves, plus the servants and unaccompanied children sent by their families to be looked after by the adults.

The passengers are often grouped into ‘Saints’ or ‘Strangers’ by historians, alluding to their motivations for the journey. But it’s likely that many ‘Saints’ were skilled tradesmen and many ‘Strangers’ had their own religious reasons for leaving 17 th century England.

The origins of these passengers can be traced across England and in the Netherlands – as illustrated by the interactive map below.

Importantly, the Pilgrims were not the first to land in America, nor did they discover it. There were already established colonies at the time, not least Jamestown – founded in 1607.

But the Mayflower story is renowned for its themes of freedom and humanity – including the relationships first formed between the Native American Wampanoag tribe and the colonists and the first Thanksgiving.

We begin much earlier than 1620, in the villages, towns and cities of England.

The King of England

The decision by Henry VIII to break away from the Roman Catholic Church – principally so he could divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had far-reaching ramifications.

He created his own church, with its own rules determined by him - called the Church of England. In doing this, Henry was expelled by the Pope and the reformation of the English churches had started.

Many believed that Henry’s new church was still too similar to the Pope’s and wanted even more changes. Some wanted to separate it from other churches by purifying it of all Catholic practices. They became known as the Puritans.

However, others believed that you could not change the church and that the only way to form a new group was to break away entirely. They became known as the Separatists.

The Church dictated all aspects of life – from what you ate to what you wore. To dispute that rule was a dangerous path ending in prosecution. This was especially foreboding for Separatists.

The Separatist leaders

The leading religious Separatists who voyaged to America in 1620 mostly originated from an area where modern-day Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire meet.

Regarded as dangerous renegades who rejected fundamental principles of the State and the established Church of England, they worshipped in secret to avoid arrest and persecution.

Among them was William Brewster, who was brought up in the village of Scrooby in north Nottinghamshire.

Inspired by the radical words of Richard Clifton, the rector of nearby All Saints' Church in Babworth , Brewster is believed to have founded a Separatist Church in his family home - the manor house at Scrooby.

Scrooby Manor House

He was fined for non-attendance at St Wilfrid’s Church in Scrooby but was respected as an elder and spiritual guide and played a significant role in the congregation’s later journeys.

Brewster strongly influenced William Bradford from Austerfield, a nearby South Yorkshire village. When the Separatists landed in America, Bradford went on to become a Governor of the Plymouth Colony, serving for more than 30 years.

William Bradford’s journal, Of Plimoth Plantation, records much of what happened to the group, including how they had become so persecuted that they could no longer live peacefully.

Bradford was baptised St Helena's church where the original font can be seen today. Heavily influenced by leading Pilgrim William Brewster, he was a sickly young orphan when they first met, but grew into a passionate religious radical.

A similar group had long been growing in the nearby town of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, drawing members from surrounding villages. They would also worship clandestinely under the guidance of John Smyth at the Gainsborough Old Hall.

Inside Gainsborough Old Hall

Escaping to Holland

As the authorities intensified their crackdown on the Separatists, the two groups decided to flee England for Holland – seen as a liberal nation where they could live peacefully.

One night in the autumn of 1607, they secretly met a boat on the edge of ‘The Wash’ at Scotia Creek, near Boston in Lincolnshire – some having walked 60 miles.

The monument at Scotia Creek that marks where the Pilgrims tried to make their escape

But the captain of a ship betrayed them and the local militia seized the group and took their money, books and personal possessions. Stripped of their belongings and hope, the group were brought by boat back to Boston and held and tried at the Guildhall, home to the local law court and cells.

They were eventually freed and made a second, successful attempt at fleeing to Holland – this time from the coastal town of Immingham in Lincolnshire.

A new life in Leiden

They settled in the city of Leiden via Amsterdam. Leiden was a city of free-thinkers, relative religious tolerance, and a long tradition of offering shelter to the dispossessed.

They built a life in Leiden, living and working here for 12 years. They built land near the spectacular Pieterskerk church and built houses in what is today known as the Engelse poort (English Alley). 

Many worked in the textile industry and similar trades – but it was hard work and a challenging life. William Brewster operated a printing press in what is today known as ‘William Brewster Alley’. Here he produced dissident pamphlets that were smuggled into England for distribution.

William Brewster Alley

Eventually the time in a foreign land took its toll and the group started to plan a journey to a new land to start again.

It’s thought there were several reasons for this – not least that the fear their children were effectively growing up as Dutch children.

They wanted to find a place completely free of limitations where they could build a better economic future. They had been living in small houses with big families – and were becoming poor.

The looming threat of war with Spain also cast a cloud over their future.

From 1617 they planned to leave and eventually settled on Virginia in America.

More than half of the group stayed though and fully integrated into Dutch life. Among them was John Robinson, known as the ‘pastor to the Pilgrims’.

Leiden had a profound influence on the lives of the Pilgrims - even after their departure. The concept of civil marriage was one innovation they took with them.

Planning the voyage to America

Virginia in America was an attractive destination because several colonies had already settled there. However, they also felt that they should not settle too near and end up with a similar environment to which they originally fled.

The Separatists worked with their counterparts in England to fund and organise the journey – which had to make commercial sense.

They negotiated with merchants in London and convinced them that funding their journey would see a return on investment thanks to the goods they would be able to send back to England. They also needed permission to land in Virginia and establish a colony.

A ship called the Speedwell would carry the Leiden group to America while another ship called the Mayflower was hired to take passengers who weren’t necessarily travelling for religious reasons.

The Mayflower would sail from the port of Rotherhithe in London, carrying many there for work in the new land, who simply wanted to build a new life, crew and servants. Rotherhithe was home to many of the crew including the Mayflower's Captain Christopher Jones .

A statue of Christopher Jones found in St Mary's Church in Rotherhithe

Leaving England

The Speedwell set sail from Holland on 22 nd July 1620, after a moving ceremony by the water’s edge.

The plan was to meet the Mayflower in Southampton before heading off together across the Atlantic.

Southampton was a thriving seaport offering all the commercial facilities to provision and equip for the long sea voyage. Many of the buildings and streets familiar to the passengers then still exist.

When the two ships met in the port there were concerns about the Speedwell though, which needed repairs after developing a leak. But on 15th August 1620 the two ships weighed anchor and set sail from Southampton.

The two ships didn’t get very far when the Speedwell began to take on water again. It may have been because she carried too much sail, straining her timbers, or the direct result of sabotage by a reluctant crew.

They changed course for Dartmouth , a port on the south coast of Devon. It took about a week for the port’s skilled craftsmen to make good the damage.

Unfortunately, the second attempt did not go as hoped either. The Mayflower and the Speedwell were 300 miles clear of Land’s End when the smaller ship yet again began leaking badly and could not risk continuing. The two boats turned about for Plymouth .

One last stop

By this time, the cramped, damp and miserable passengers had already spent up to six weeks at sea. With a fair wind and good fortune, they would have hoped to be nearing America by then.

The Speedwell was finally declared unfit for the journey. Some of the Pilgrims dropped out. The remainder crowded onto the Mayflower, which required re-provisioning, despite funds running low.

They left Plymouth on 16 th  September 1620, with up to 30 crew and 102 passengers on board. Just under half of them were Separatists, or Saints. They used the name Saints as a way to indicate that they were part of a particular group with a certain set of beliefs.

The Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, built as a memorial to the historic voyage

The rest were known as Strangers, as this is how the Saints viewed all others outside of their group. Many were skilled tradespeople sent by the investors to help build the new colony. Though plenty of the passengers could have probably been defined on either side of this divide.

The passengers

The following passengers were on board the Mayflower:

• Isaac and Mary (Norris) Allerton, and children Bartholomew, Remember, and Mary
• John Allerton
• John and Eleanor Billington, and sons John and Francis.
• William and Dorothy (May) Bradford
• William and Mary Brewster, and children Love and Wrestling
• Richard Britteridge
• Peter Browne
• William Butten
• Robert Carter
• John and Katherine (White) Carver
• James and Mrs. Chilton, and daughter Mary
• Richard Clarke
• Francis Cooke and son John
• Humility Cooper
• John Crackstone and son John
• Edward Doty
• Francis and Sarah Eaton, and son Samuel
• Thomas English
• Moses Fletcher
• Edward and Mrs. Fuller, and son Samuel
• Samuel Fuller
• Richard Gardiner
• John Goodman
• William Holbeck
• Stephen and Elizabeth (Fisher) Hopkins and children Constance, Giles and Damaris; son Oceanus was born during the voyage.
• John Howland
• John Langmore
• William Latham
• Edward Leister
• Edmund Margesson
• Christopher and Mary (Prower) Martin
• Desire Minter
• Ellen, Jasper, Richard, and Mary More
• William and Alice Mullins and children Priscilla and Joseph
• Degory Priest
• Solomon Prower
• John and Alice Rigsdale
• Thomas Rogers and son Joseph
• Henry Samson
• George Soule
• Myles and Rose Standish
• Elias Story
• Edward Thompson
• Edward and Agnes (Cooper) Tilley
• John and Joan (Hurst) Tilley and daughter Elizabeth
• Thomas and Mrs. Tinker, and a son
• William Trevore
• John Turner, and two sons
• Richard Warren
• William and Susanna (Jackson) White, and son Resolved(son Peregrine was born shipboard in Provincetown Harbor after arrival).
• Roger Wilder
• Thomas Williams
• Edward and Elizabeth (Barker) Winslow
• Gilbert Winslow
• Dorothy (John Carver's maidservant)

Source:  New England Historic Genealogical Society

Sailing the Atlantic

The Mayflower took 66 days to cross the Atlantic – a horrible crossing afflicted by winter storms and long bouts of seasickness – so bad that most could barely stand up during the voyage.

By October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous. It was so bad that the sails often could not be used, instead they simply drifted.

One Stranger was swept overboard and one woman, Elizabeth Hopkins, gave birth to a baby boy, aptly named Oceanus.

The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia and the Hudson River (today New York) was their intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands.  The Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees.

As they approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9, 1620.

The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation.

But the rough seas nearly shipwrecked the Mayflower and instead they decided to stay and explore Cape Cod rather than risk another journey south. They anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. Shortly after, Susannah White gave birth to a son aboard the Mayflower, the first English child born in the colony. He was named Peregrine, derived from the Latin for ‘pilgrim’.

The Mayflower Compact

The colonists knew they had no right to settle in this land they had unintentionally arrived upon and decided to draw up a document that gave them some attempt at legal standing.

An illustration of the signing of the Mayflower Compact

So upon arrival the settlers drew up the Mayflower Compact. Signed by 41 men on board, the compact was an agreement to cooperate for the general good of the colony. They would deal with issues by voting, establish constitutional law and rule by the majority.

The document read:

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc. having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and equall laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Codd the 11. of November, in the year of the raigne of our sovereigne lord, King James, of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fiftie-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

Watching from the west

The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, while most stayed on board the ship, trying to decide where they would build their plantation.

They searched much of the coastline in this region including the area now known as Plymouth.

The replica Mayflower in Plymouth, Massachusetts today

Watching on were a small group of Native Americans, people for whom this area was already home. The new arrivals tried to follow them but got lost and stuck among some dense thickets. They decided to change course and came across cleared land where corn had been grown and abandoned houses.

They found buried corn, which they took back to the ship, intending to plant it and grow more corn, eventually returning what they had taken. They also found graves.

This village they had stumbled upon was once called Patuxet but had since been deserted following the outbreak of disease.

This was a legacy of what the Native American people had already experienced from European colonists in the 17 th century.

The native inhabitants of the region around Plymouth Colony were the various groups of the Wampanoag people and other tribes, who had lived there for some 10,000 years before the Europeans arrived.

The Great Dying

When the Separatists were living in Leiden in 1616, in the same year a map was published detailing explorations of the Cape Cod area to the Bay of Fundy.

But these names were meaningless to the people who lived in this region, which is thought to have been known as Dawnland.

And to them 1616 was memorable for very different reasons – the outbreak of European diseases that would devastate their communities.

Ships from England had been fishing and trading in North America waters since the beginning of the 16 th century. They would also bring Native Americans back to Europe – some as slaves – often to callously exhibit.

Some were taught English so they could become interpreters in future. In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims arrived, 27 natives were seized by a man called Thomas Hunt.

The majority came from Patuxet, the very abandoned village the Pilgrims would later find, and what is now modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts.

One of these was named Tisquantum (also known as Squanto). Hunt tried to sell the natives as slaves in Spain but somehow Tisquantum made his way to England, where he learned some English and was used as an interpreter in future trips to America.

Eventually he found his way back to Patuxet, where tragically he found his family and village had been wiped out by disease brought by European settlers and explorers.

A Wampanoag hut

Between 1616 and 1619 a mysterious disease that would become known as the ‘Great Dying’ ravaged this region, before the Mayflower laid anchor in Cape Cod.

In the winter of 1616-17 an expedition dispatched by Sir Ferdinando Gorges found a region devastated by war and disease, the remaining people so "sore afflicted with the plague, for that the country was in a manner left void of inhabitants."

Two years later another Englishman found “ancient plantations” now completely empty with few inhabitants – and those that had survived were suffering. 

So before the Mayflower arrived, this region had greatly suffered from the effects of colonisation. 

The first harsh winter

Before settling on what is now Plymouth, the Pilgrims explored other areas of the coast, including an area inhabited by the Nauset people. They saw some figures on the shore who fled when they approached. They explored and found more graves, which they decided not to dig. 

They remained ashore overnight and the following morning, they were attacked with arrows. The colonists shot back with guns but could not find them. That would be the last contact until the spring.

On December 25, 1620, the Saints and the Strangers departed the bleak shores of Provincetown and arrived, finally, in what is now Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, on 26 th  December 1620.

They decided this place, once home to the people of Patuxet, would be where they settled and began construction of their first buildings.

But the first winter was cold and many of the passengers stayed on board the Mayflower. The ship became home to the sick and dying, with many succumbing to a mixture of contagious diseases.

Building the colony

The settlement’s first fort and watchtower was built on what is now known as Burial Hill (the area contains the graves of Bradford and other original settlers).

The first common house nearly completed in January, built for general use. Each single man was ordered to join himself to one of the 19 families in order to eliminate the need to build any more houses than absolutely necessary.

The Plimoth Plantation recreation of the village

Each extended family was assigned a plot and they each built their own home and the settlement was mostly built by February.

The first house was built as a hospital. Thirty-one of the company were dead by the end of February, with deaths still rising. Coles Hill became the first cemetery, on a prominence above the beach

Only 47 colonists had survived and at its worst just six or seven were able to feed and care for the rest. In this time, half the  Mayflower  crew also died.

When his crew began to recover from disease, the Mayflower’s captain Christopher Jones sailed the ship back to England, taking half the time that it did on its outward journey.

The Wampanoag and the Pilgrims

The Pilgrims were settling on land home to the Wampanoag – one of many tribes in the wider region. The Wampanoag had lived here for 10,000 years before they arrived.

Each tribe in New England had their own territory in which to fish, harvest and hunt. The boundaries for hunting were very strict as some areas had large populations.

The Wampanoag people knew how to work with the land and moved between sites to get the best of their harvest. They spent the summer near the shore and the winter in land, amongst the woods.

The Wampanoag worked together - a number of groups united together. A head Sachem managed a Sachem from each of the groups. Within this organisation, family and group links were the most important, connecting them to each other and their territory.

In the years before the Mayflower landed, The Wampanoag had been attacked by neighbouring tribes, losing land along the coast. Then came the Great Dying and the losses were so devastating that the Wampanoag had to reorganise its structure and Sachems had to join together and build new unions.

A historic peace

During March 1621, an English speaking member of the Wamponaog, named Samoset, entered the grounds of the Plymouth colony and introduced himself. He is said to have asked for a beer and spent the night talking with the settlers. Samoset, later, brought another member of his tribe – Tisquantum, whose experience meant his English was much advanced.

Tisquantum taught them to plant corn, which became an important crop, as well as where to fish and hunt beaver.

He introduced them to the Wampanoag chief Ousamequin, chief of the Pokanoket people known as Massasoit, an important moment in developing relations.

The statue of Ousamequin that stands on land he would have once ruled over today

One of the first to greet him was  Edward Winslow , originally from Worcestershire. A leader in the Separatist group and a skilful diplomat, Winslow had not only been instrumental in organising the journey to America, but was also one of the men who signed the historic Mayflower Compact.

The Wampanoag were wary of the nearby Narragansett tribe, who had not been affected by the disease epidemics and remained a powerful tribe.

They demanded that the Wampanoag show them honour and tribute. Ousamequin would have known an alliance with these new English colonists might help fend off any attacks from the Narragansett.

In 1621, the Narragansett sent the Plymouth colony a threat of arrows wrapped up in snake skin. William Bradford, who was governor of the colony at the time, filled the snake skin with powder and bullets and sent it back.

The Narragansett knew what this message meant, and would not attack the colony.

Ousamequin and The Pilgrims established an historic peace treaty and the Wampanoag went on to teach them how to hunt, plant crops and how to get the best of their harvest, saving the Pilgrims from starvation.

It is believed that Winslow was even able to help nurse Ousamequin back to health when he fell ill, reportedly using his renowned chicken soup and strengthening their relationship further.

The first Thanksgiving

Success followed and following a bumper harvest in the autumn of 1621, the colonists decided to celebrate with a three-day festival of prayer.

The 53 surviving settlers invited their Native Americans friends to join them for a huge feast in what was to become known as the first Thanksgiving.

One of two first-hand accounts of this celebration was contained in the book Mourt’s Relation, primarily written by Winslow. The book describes in detail what happened from the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims right through to this celebratory feast.

Winslow’s account states:

“Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

Today, the US celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.

The impact of colonisation

The repressive church rule in England would drive more people to follow the Mayflower to America. Another ship arrived in 1621 and two more in 1623.

In 1630, 1,000 Puritans arrived under Governor John Winthrop under a charter from by the Massachusetts Bay Company. Winthrop soon established Boston as the capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and it would soon grow into the biggest colony in the area.

These Puritans wanted to free themselves of the Church of England and ‘purify’ it from Roman Catholic practices.

They arrived under the guise of creating a perfect city – but ended up creating a society just as intolerant. Quakers were persecuted with public hangings and whippings.

Tensions between these colonists and the Native American people rose. The colonists brought more disease to which the Native Americans would have no immunity. Smallpox would ravage communities still recovering from the Great Dying. Violence increased.

By the 1630s, the Native Americans in this region were in the minority in their own lands and wars such as the brutal Pequot War reduced the population significantly.

By 1676 Boston was an economically flourishing town with a population of about 4,000 and had established itself as the dominant force.

King Philip's War

The carefully managed peace that had originated between the Wampanoag and the Plymouth colony was eventually shattered by King Philip’s War in 1675.

When Ousamequin died in 1662 his son and heir Metacom no longer believed in the value of the alliance with the colonists. The collapse of trade agreements and the aggressive expansion of the colonies left relations at breaking point.

Tensions were raised when the colonists demanded the peace agreement should mean the Wampanoag hand over any guns, and hung three of the tribe for murder in 1675.

Metacom - who was known as King Philip by the English - led an uprising of  Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Pocumtuck and Narragansett tribes. They came up against the biggest army the c olonial leaders could muster, that fought in coalition with other tribes.

The war is seen as a final attempt to drive out the colonists and lasted 14 months. It is considered the deadliest war in American history.

The colonist army burned villages as they went and by the end of the war, the Wampanoag and their Narragansett allies were almost completely destroyed. Metacom fled to Mount Hope where he was finally killed by the militia.

This war was fought by colonists without support from England or any other European government and is often seen as the moment a new American identity was formed.

The fate of the Plymouth colony

Eventually the likes of Brewster and Winslow went on to found their own communities and the colony began to struggle. The cost of the war did not help and after a colonial governor was appointed to rule over New England in 1692, Plymouth was absorbed into Massachusetts.

The term Pilgrim originated in 1820, when during the 200 th commemoration of the colony’s landing they were referred to as the Pilgrim Fathers in reference to Bradford’s manuscript where he names passengers on the boat from Leiden ‘saints’ and ‘pilgrimes’. The phrase was coined.

Modern Response

The Native American activist group, The United American Indians of New England, continues to raise awareness of racism towards Native Americans and the consequences of colonialism. When the Wampanoag leader, Frank James, was informed that his speech was inappropriate and inflammatory for the annual Thanksgiving ceremony 1970, he refused to read their revised speech.

Supporters followed James to hear him give his original speech on Cole’s Hill, next to the statue of Ousamequin. This became the first National Day of Mourning, which continues today in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the same day as Thanksgiving.

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The Pilgrims and Pilgrim Fathers in Colonial America

A guide to the Pilgrims and Pilgrim Fathers in Colonial America, covering the Founding Fathers of New England, their travels in Europe, the voyage of the Mayflower, and the establishment of Plymouth Colony.

This painting by Robert Weir depicts the Pilgrims on the Speedwell as they prepare to leave Delfshaven, Netherlands for England. Image Source: Brooklyn Museum .

Pilgrims in Colonial America, a Quick Summary of New England’s Founding Fathers

The Pilgrims were a group of English colonists who emigrated to New England and established Plymouth Plantation — or Plymouth Colony — in 1620. Many of the Pilgrims were Puritan Separatists , who sought religious freedom. They were joined on their journey to New England by others who simply sought the opportunity for a new life.

Their story is well-known and legendary — they sailed to America on the Mayflower , survived with the help of local Native American Indians, and celebrated the First Thanksgiving.

However, the Pilgrims — or the Pilgrim Fathers — as they have come to be called, were much more important to the course of history than a famous voyage and a cherished American holiday.

What might be the most extraordinary aspect of the Pilgrims is the simple fact they survived — and by doing so they set in course a chain of events that ultimately changed the course of history.

10 Quick Facts About the Pilgrims

• The Pilgrims were a group of English colonists who emigrated from England to present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.
• They sailed to the New World on a ship called the Mayflower.
• When the ship left Plymouth, England, there were 102 passengers. 49 of them were from the Puritan Separatist congregation in Leiden, Netherlands who sought religious freedom in America. The other 53 were men, women, and children who wanted to start a new life. The ship’s crew consisted of 20-30 men, including Captain Christopher Jones.
• The Separatists were responsible for setting up the voyage and received funding from a group called the “Merchant Adventurers.” The Adventurers decided to add more colonists to the trip, in order to increase the chances of making a profit from the new colony.
• The Separatists referred to themselves as “Saints” and the other passengers and crewmembers as “Strangers.”
• The Mayflower left Plymouth on September 6, 1620, and arrived off the coast of Cape Cod on November 9, 1620. The trip took 65 days.
• Prior to leaving the ship, the leaders of the Saints and Strangers agreed to a government, which was outlined in the Mayflower Compact. The document set up the first democratic government in American history that did not involve a monarch.
• Three expeditions were sent to the mainland to find a suitable place to build a settlement. 
• On December 20, 1620, they selected a site — present-day Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts — as the place.
• They started construction on their first building on December 25, 1620.

The History of the Pilgrims and the Founding of Plymouth Colony

Note: The dates used in this timeline are “Old Style” dates. The “New Style” date is the O.S. date, plus 10. So the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact on November 11 by their calendar, which is November 21 by today’s calendar.

The Church of England, Puritans, and Separatists

1534 — King Henry VIII breaks away from the Roman Catholic Church and establishes the Church of England. People in England are required to attend and participate in services for the Church of England. The Puritan movement starts in the late 16th century and leads to the establishment of the Separatists.

1606 — A Separatist church is established in Scrooby, England by William Brewster. Services are held in his home at Scrooby Manor. The pastor of the congregation is John Robinson.

The Separatists Move to the Netherlands

1607–1608 — After intense persecution and harassment from English officials, the Scrooby Separatists decide to leave England. Since it was illegal to leave the country without the permission of the King, they have to escape. Over the course of two years, they make their way to Amsterdam.

1609 — In May, Robinson and his congregation decided to move to Leiden , which is southwest of Amsterdam.

1617 — The Separatists decide to leave the Netherlands and move to Virginia. John Carver and Robert Cushman are sent to England to acquire permission to settle in Virginia and financial support.

Preparations to Move to Virginia

June 9, 1619 — The Virginia Company of London grants the Separatists a charter, which gives them permission to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River, at the site of present-day New York City.

February 1620 — The Separatists join a joint-stock company to raise money to help pay for transportation and provisions. They work with a group of investors who called themselves the “Merchant Adventurers,” including Thomas Weston. In order to raise enough money, the Adventurers decided to send a group of their own settlers — also known as planters — on the voyage with the Separatists.

July 22, 1620 — 125 Separatists from Robinson’s congregation set sail from Delfshaven, Holland on a ship called the Speedwell. The Speedwell sails to England and joins the Mayflower at Southampton. Robinson stays in Leiden because of his age, along with the majority of the congregation.

The Mayflower Journey Begins

August 15, 1620 — The Speedwell and Mayflower sail out of Southampton, on their way to the New World. The Separatists are on the Speedwell. Unfortunately, the Speedwell leaks and needs repairs. The ships stop in Dartmouth, England, and repairs are made to the Speedwell. 

August 17, 1620 — The repairs to the Speedwell are completed, but stormy weather keeps the ships from leaving. When the weather cleared, the ships set sail again. However, the Speedwell continues to leak and the ships are forced to stop at Plymouth, England. At Plymouth, it is decided that Speedwell will not be able to make the voyage and everyone will need to go on the Mayflower. Around 20 of the Separatists decide to stay in England, including Robert Cushman.

September 6, 1620 — The Mayflower departs from Plymouth with 102 passengers. 49 of the passengers are Separatists, but only two of them — William Brewster and William Bradford — are from the original church at Scrooby. It is estimated there are 20-30 crewmen on the ship. The Separatists are joined by 35 colonists recruited by the Merchant Adventurers. There are also 18 servants on the ship. Two babies are born before they settle in America.

The Pilgrims Arrive in America

November 9, 1620 — After 65 days, the Mayflower arrives off the East Coast at Cape Cod. The ship is much further north than expected but was forced to change course due to violent storms. Captain Jones tries to sail south, but the rough seas force the Mayflower to turn back. That night, the ship drifts off of Cape Code, near present-day Chatham, Massachusetts.

The Pilgrims Write the Mayflower Compact

November 10 — There is dissension between the Separatists and the other passengers. There are concerns they do not have the authority to settle anywhere but at the mouth of the Hudson. However, they cannot make the journey south due to the weather. According to William Bradford’s account, “several strangers made discontented and mutinous speeches.” A decision needs to be made before anyone leaves the ship. The leaders of both sides worked together on an agreement that will hold the Pilgrims together and form a government for the new colony — the “Mayflower Compact.” Separatist John Carver is chosen as the first Governor of what will become Plymouth Colony.

November 11, 1620 — The Pilgrim’s First Landing. Early in the morning, most of the men on board — 41 total — either sign their name or make their mark on the Mayflower Compact. After 66 days at sea, the Mayflower anchors in present-day Provincetown Harbor. 16 men leave the Mayflower on a small boat and sail to the mainland. According to William Bradford, when they first set foot on land they “fell upon their knees…and blessed the God of Heaven…” Then they explored and gathered wood, which they burned that night on the Mayflower. The First Landing in New England is commemorated with a memorial at Pilgrim’s First Landing Park in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.

November 13, 1620 — The First Washing Day. The passengers go ashore for the first time. They wash their clothes properly for the first time since they left England. 

The Pilgrims Explore Cape Cod and Encounter Native American Indians

November 15, 1620 — The First Expedition. Miles Standish leads a group of 16 men on an expedition to the mainland. The group includes William Bradford, Stephen Hopkins, and Edward Tilley. They are armed and wearing light armor. They encounter a small group of Indians on the beach. The Indians run away, down the shore. The Pilgrims chase after them, but cannot catch up and spend the night on the beach.

November 16, 1620 — First Water at Pilgrim Spring. Standish and his men continue the search for the Indians and follow tracks into the forest. They come across a spring, now called Pilgrim Spring, where they take their first drink of fresh, New England water. The site is marked by Pilgrim Spring Memorial Plaque. They spend the night on the mainland.

November 17, 1620 — The Pilgrims Find Corn Hill. Standish and his men come across an old cornfield and Indian graves. They find some baskets of shelled and whole corn at a place called Corn Hill. The Pilgrims decided to take some of the corn with them because they are desperate. Afterward, they return to the harbor.

November 20, 1620 — Susanna White gives birth to a boy, Peregrine White, on board the Mayflower. Susanna and her husband, William, are believed to have been “Strangers,” not Separatists. However, the name “Peregrine” is derived from the Latin word “peregrinus,” which means “pilgrim.”

November 27, 1620 — The Second Expedition. Captain Jones leads an expedition of 34 men — 24 passengers and 10 crewmen — on an expedition to find a place for the settlement to be built. Their boat is blown to the east side of Provincetown Harbor and the strong wind will not allow them to return to the Mayflower. They camp for the night near what is called Pilgrim Lake. There is a heavy snowfall that night.

November 28, 1620 — The next morning, they sail south, but it is too cold. Jones decides to stop and make camp again. Some of the men are sick.

November 29, 1620 — Jones and his men return to Corn Hill where they find and take more corn. The corn and sick men are loaded onto the boat and sent to the Mayflower. Jones returns to the Mayflower and leaves Standish in charge of the remaining men.

November 30, 1620 — Standish leads a search for the Indians. They come across a grave that is covered with boards. The grave contains the skull of a man — with yellow hair and skin still present — and a bag with the bones of a child. The boards appear to be from a ship. Later that day, they find abandoned Indian wigwams. The boat arrives and they return to the Mayflower.

December 6, 1620 — The Third Expedition. An expedition sails in the small boat down along the coast of Cape Cod Bay. Near present-day Wellfleet, they see a group of Indians on the beach, butchering a dead, beached whale. When they see the Pilgrims coming, they run off. The Pilgrims camp on the shore that night.

December 7, 1620 — The group splits up to look for a place to build the settlement. Neither group finds anything. They spend the night near Herring River, on Wellfleet Harbor.

December 8, 1620 — The First Encounter. Early in the morning, the Pilgrims are ambushed by Indians The Indians hide in the woods and fire arrows at the camp. The Pilgrims fired a few shots into the darkness and then took defensive positions in their camp. It is estimated there were about 30 Indians on the attack. When the Pilgrims identified the leader of the attacking party, they fired on him and the Indians withdrew. The location of this brief fight is called First Encounter Point Beach. It is in present-day Eastham, Massachusetts.

The Pilgrims Start Plymouth Colony

December 8, 1620 — Arrival at Clark’s Island. The expedition sailed all the way around the south end of the Cape Cod Harbor and up the western shore to a place earlier explorers called “Thievish Harbor.” The wind is harsh and the water is rough. The boat suffers damage and they are forced to row with oars. They spend the night on what is now Clark’s Island in Duxbury Bay. It was named for the pilot, John Clark, who was the first to set foot on it.

December 11, 1620 — The Pilgrims explore the area of what is now Plymouth Bay. They find old fields, but no Indian settlements. They believe they have found the place to build their settlement.

December 12, 1620 — The expedition returns to the Mayflower.

December 15, 1620 — The Mayflower leaves Provincetown Harbor. Strong winds keep it from reaching Plymouth Harbor that day. The ship anchors at present-day Goose Point, near Duxbury, just north of Plymouth.

December 16, 1620 — The Mayflower Arrives at Plymouth Bay. Over the course of the next three days, they explore the area more and discuss the exact location to build their settlement. An old map, drawn by Samuel de Champlain, showed an Indian village on the banks of the harbor. However, by the time the Pilgrims arrived, nothing was left — except for the bones of the dead. Most of them likely died when an epidemic wiped out a significant portion of the Indians in New England from 1616 to 1619 in what is known as the “Great Dying.”

December 20, 1620 — Cole’s Hill is Chosen for Settlement. They decide to begin building on a hill, which is known today as Cole’s Hill. A small group stays on the mainland that night. They plan to begin work the next day, but bad weather keeps them from starting.

December 23, 1620 — Workers sail from the Mayflower to the mainland and start cutting down trees.

December 25, 1620 — The First Christmas in New England. The Pilgrims do not celebrate most holidays , so they spend Christmas Day working. They build the frame for the first building in Plymouth Colony.

December 31, 1620 — The Pilgrims name their new home New Plymouth, after the town they left from in England.

Important Dates in Pilgrim History After the Founding of Plymouth

March 16, 1621 — Samoset walks into Plymouth, and, according to legend, asks for bread and beer — in English. The Pilgrim leaders meet Massosiot and Squanto a few days later.

April 1, 1621 — Plymouth and the Wampanoag agree to the Pilgrim-Wampanoag Treaty.

Mid-Apil, 1621 — John Carver dies and William Bradford is elected Governor.

October 1621 — The First Thanksgiving.

November 1621 — A ship called the Fortune arrives, carrying 35 new settlers.

November 1622 — Squanto dies from an illness.

1623 — The shared system of living is abolished. Settlers are given one acre of land to plant their own crops. If they raise more than they need, they can trade the surplus.

Summer 1623 — Two ships, the Anne and Little James bring around 100 new settlers.

June 1630 — The Winthrop Fleet arrives in Massachusetts Bay. The Great Puritan Migration is accelerates.

May 1657 — William Bradford dies.

June 1660 — Massasoit dies. He is succeeded by his son, Wamsutta, who the English call Alexander.

1662 — Wamsutta dies after visiting Plymouth. He is succeeded by his brother, Metacomet, who the English call Philip. Philip blames the people of Plymouth for his brother’s death.

June 1675 — Wampanoag warriors attack Swansea , a settlement in Plymouth Colony. King Philips’ War begins .

December 1686 — Plymouth Colony becomes part of the Dominion of New England .

October 1691 — William and Mary issue a new charter for Massachusetts. Under the new charter, Plymouth and Maine become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Famous Pilgrims and Founders of Plymouth Colony

William brewster.

William Brewster founded the Separatist church in Scrooby, England, and moved with the group to Amsterdam, then Leiden, and then Plymouth. In Plymouth, he served as the pastor of the congregation and an advisor to the Governor. He left Plymouth in 1632 and moved to Duxbury. Brewster signed the Mayflower Compact.

John Carver

John Carver went to London with Thomas Cushman to help organize transportation and funding for the trip. Carver signed the Mayflower Compact and was chosen as the first Governor of Plymouth Colony. He was a Separatist and had joined the congregation in Leiden. Carver died in the spring of 1621.

William Bradford

William Bradford signed the Mayflower Compact and went on to serve as the Governor of Plymouth Colony for nearly 30 years between 1621 and 1657. He wrote a history of the Pilgrim journey and early years of Plymouth Colony called “Of Plymouth Plantation.” He was a Separatist and an original member of the Scrooby Congregation. He succeeded Carver as Governor in 1621.

John Alden was a crew member on the Mayflower. He was hired in Southampton, England, as the ship’s cooper, and was responsible for maintaining the ship’s barrels. He signed the Mayflower Compact and stayed in Plymouth when the Mayflower left. He married fellow passenger, Priscilla Mullins. During his life, he played a prominent role in the government of the colony and was the last surviving signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Myles Standish

Myles Standish was an English soldier living in Leiden who accompanied the Separatists on their voyage to America. He signed the Mayflower Compact and participated in the Pilgrim expeditions to the mainland in search of a place to build their settlement. Standish was the military leader of Plymouth Colony.

Significance of the Pilgrims

The success of the Pilgrims had a significant impact on the course of not just the history of the United States, but of the entire world. Plymouth Colony helped shape the course of New England, led to the Great Puritan Migration, and ultimately the creation of the United States of America. Today, more than 30 million people can trace their ancestry to the Pilgrims and there are various historic sites dedicated to them in the Netherlands, England, and the United States.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Pilgrims

The Pilgrims were a small group of English colonists that emigrated from England to the New World in 1620 on the ship Mayflower. Some of them were Puritan Separatists who wanted to completely separate from the Church of England. The other passengers were servants, workers, and families that were sympathetic to the Separatist cause or wanted their own fresh start in the New World. The Separatists called themselves “Saints” and referred to everyone else on the Mayflower as “Strangers.”

Over time, the entire group — Saints and Strangers — have come to be known as the Pilgrims. In 1820, Daniel Webster delivered a speech at the bicentennial celebration and referred to the entire group of colonists as the “Pilgrim Fathers.”

There were about 102 passengers in total, along with 20-30 crewmembers. There were men, women, and children — entire families. There were unaccompanied children who were looked after by the other adults on the trip. Within the group were skilled tradesmen and men with military experience. A baby boy, Oceanus Hopkins, was born during the voyage. Another boy, Peregrine White, was born after the Mayflower reached Cape Cod.

In England, people were required to attend and participate in the services of the Church of England, however, the Separatists — who were part of the Puritan movement — wanted to separate from the Church of England . They first moved to the Netherlands but found they were losing their identity as Englishmen. They decided to emigrate to America, where they could have religious freedom and retain their English customs and way of life. The other passengers on the Mayflower were looking for a new life in the New World.

They arrived at Cape Cod and established Plymouth Colony in 1620. It was the first successful English Colony in New England .

• Written by Randal Rust

Pilgrims’ Progress

We retrace the travels of the ragtag group that founded Plymouth Colony and gave us Thanksgiving

Simon Worrall

On an autumn night in 1607, a furtive group of men, women and children set off in a relay of small boats from the English village of Scrooby, in pursuit of the immigrant's oldest dream, a fresh start in another country. These refugees, who would number no more than 50 or 60, we know today as Pilgrims. In their day, they were called Separatists. Whatever the label, they must have felt a mixture of fear and hope as they approached the dimly lit creek, near the Lincolnshire port of Boston, where they would steal aboard a ship, turn their backs on a tumultuous period of the Reformation in England and head across the North Sea to the Netherlands.

There, at least, they would have a chance to build new lives, to worship as they chose and to avoid the fate of fellow Separatists like John Penry, Henry Barrow and John Greenwood, who had been hanged for their religious beliefs in 1593. Like the band of travelers fleeing that night, religious nonconformists were seen as a threat to the Church of England and its supreme ruler, King James I. James' cousin, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), had made concerted efforts to reform the church after Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic faith in the 1530s. But as the 17th century got under way at the end of her long reign, many still believed that the new church had done too little to distinguish itself from the old one in Rome.

In the view of these reformers, the Church of England needed to simplify its rituals, which still closely resembled Catholic practices, reduce the influence of the clerical hierarchy and bring the church's doctrines into closer alignment with New Testament principles. There was also a problem, some of them felt, with having the king as the head of both church and state, an unhealthy concentration of temporal and ecclesiastical power.

These Church of England reformers came to be known as Puritans, for their insistence on further purification of established doctrine and ceremony. More radical were the Separatists, those who split off from the mother church to form independent congregations, from whose ranks would come the Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and other Protestant denominations. The first wave of Separatist pioneers—that little band of believers sneaking away from England in 1607—would eventually be known as Pilgrims. The label, which came into use in the late 18th century, appears in William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation .

They were led by a group of radical pastors who, challenging the authority of the Church of England, established a network of secret religious congregations in the countryside around Scrooby. Two of their members, William Brewster and William Bradford, would go on to exert a profound influence on American history as leaders of the colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, the first permanent European settlement in New England and the first to embrace rule by majority vote.

For the moment, though, they were fugitives, inner exiles in a country that did not want their brand of Protestantism. If caught, they faced harassment, heavy fines and imprisonment.

Beyond a few tantalizing details about the leaders Brewster and Bradford, we know very little about these English men and women who formed the vanguard of the Pilgrim's arrival in the New World—not even what they looked like. Only one, Edward Winslow, who became the third governor of Plymouth Colony in 1633, ever sat for his portrait, in 1651. We do know that they did not dress in black and white and wear stovepipe hats as the Puritans did. They dressed in earth tones—the green, brown and russet corduroy typical of the English countryside. And, while they were certainly religious, they could also be spiteful, vindictive and petty—as well as honest, upright and courageous, all part of the DNA they would bequeath to their adopted homeland.

To find out more about these pioneering Englishmen, I set off from my home in Herefordshire and headed north to Scrooby, now a nondescript hamlet set in a bucolic landscape of red brick farmhouses and gently sloping fields. The roadsides were choked with daffodils. Tractors chugged through rich fields with their wagons full of seed potatoes. Unlike later waves of immigrants to the United States, the Pilgrims came from a prosperous country, not as refugees escaping rural poverty.

The English do not make much of their Pilgrim heritage. "It's not our story," a former museum curator, Malcolm Dolby, told me. "These aren't our heroes." Nonetheless, Scrooby has made at least one concession to its departed predecessors: the Pilgrim Fathers pub, a low, whitewashed building, right by the main road. The bar used to be called the Saracen's Head but got a face-lift and a change of name in 1969 to accommodate American tourists searching their roots. A few yards from the pub, I found St. Wilfrid's church, where William Brewster, who would become the spiritual leader of Plymouth Colony, once worshiped. The church's current vicar, the Rev. Richard Spray, showed me around. Like many medieval country churches, St. Wilfrid's had a makeover in the Victorian era, but the structure of the building Brewster knew remained largely intact. "The church is famous for what's not in it," Spray said. "Namely, the Brewsters and the other Pilgrims. But it's interesting to think that the Thanksgiving meal they had when they got to America apparently resembled a Nottinghamshire Harvest Supper—minus the turkey!"

A few hundred yards from St. Wilfrid's, I found the remains of Scrooby Manor, where William Brewster was born in 1566 or 1567. This esteemed Pilgrim father gets little recognition in his homeland—all that greets a visitor is a rusting "No Trespassing" sign and a jumble of half-derelict barns, quite the contrast to his presence in Washington, D.C. There, in the Capitol, Brewster is commemorated with a fresco that shows him—or, rather, an artist's impression of him—seated, with shoulder-length hair and a voluminous beard, his eyes raised piously toward two chubby cherubs sporting above his head.

Today, this rural part of eastern England in the county of Nottinghamshire is a world away from the commerce and bustle of London. But in William Brewster's day, it was rich in agriculture and maintained maritime links to northern Europe. Through the region ran the Great North Road from London to Scotland. The Brewster family was well respected here until William Brewster became embroiled in the biggest political controversy of their day, when Queen Elizabeth decided to have her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, executed in 1587. Mary, a Catholic whose first husband had been the King of France, was implicated in conspiracies against Elizabeth's continued Protestant rule.

Brewster's mentor, the secretary of state, became a scapegoat in the aftermath of Mary's beheading. Brewster himself survived the crisis, but he was driven from the glittering court in London, his dreams of worldly success dashed. His disillusionment with the politics of court and church may have led him in a radical direction—he fatefully joined the congregation of All Saints Church in Babworth, a few miles down the road from Scrooby.

There the small band of worshipers likely heard the minister, Richard Clyfton, extolling St. Paul's advice, from Second Corinthians, 6:17, to cast off the wicked ways of the world: "Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean." (This bit of scripture probably gave the Separatists their name.) Separatists wanted a better way, a more direct religious experience, with no intermediaries between them and God as revealed in the Bible. They disdained bishops and archbishops for their worldliness and corruption and wanted to replace them with a democratic structure led by lay and clerical elders and teachers of their own choosing. They opposed any vestige of Catholic ritual, from the sign of the cross to priests decked out in vestments. They even regarded the exchanging of wedding rings as a profane practice.

A young orphan, William Bradford, was also drawn into the Separatist orbit during the country's religious turmoil. Bradford, who in later life would become the second governor of Plymouth Colony, met William Brewster around 1602-3, when Brewster was about 37 and Bradford 12 or 13. The older man became the orphan's mentor, tutoring him in Latin, Greek and religion. Together they would travel the seven miles from Scrooby to Babworth to hear Richard Clyfton preach his seditious ideas—how everyone, not just priests, had a right to discuss and interpret the Bible; how parishioners should take an active part in services; how anyone could depart from the official Book of Common Prayer and speak directly to God.

In calmer times, these assaults on convention might have passed with little notice. But these were edgy days in England. James I (James VI as King of Scotland) had ascended to the throne in 1603. Two years later, decades of Catholic maneuvering and subversion had culminated in the Gunpowder Plot, when mercenary Guy Fawkes and a group of Catholic conspirators came very close to blowing up Parliament and with them the Protestant king.

Against this turmoil, the Separatists were eyed with suspicion and more. Anything smacking of subversion, whether Catholic or Protestant, provoked the ire of the state. "No bishop, no king!" thundered the newly crowned king, making it clear that any challenge to church hierarchy was also a challenge to the Crown and, by implication, the entire social order. "I shall make them conform," James proclaimed against the dissidents, "or I will hurry them out of the land or do worse."

He meant it. In 1604, the Church introduced 141 canons that enforced a sort of spiritual test aimed at flushing out nonconformists. Among other things, the canons declared that anyone rejecting the practices of the established church excommunicated themselves and that all clergymen had to accept and publicly acknowledge the royal supremacy and the authority of the Prayer Book. It also reaffirmed the use of church vestments and the sign of the cross in baptism. Ninety clergymen who refused to embrace the new canons were expelled from the Church of England. Among them was Richard Clyfton, of All Saints at Babworth.

Brewster and his fellow Separatists now knew how dangerous it had become to worship in public; from then on, they would hold only secret services in private houses, such as Brewster's residence, Scrooby Manor. His connections helped to prevent his immediate arrest. Brewster and other future Pilgrims would also meet quietly with a second congregation of Separatists on Sundays in Old Hall, a timbered black-and-white structure in Gainsborough. Here under hand-hewn rafters, they would listen to a Separatist preacher, John Smyth, who, like Richard Clyfton before him, argued that congregations should be allowed to pick and ordain their own clergy and worship should not be confined only to prescribed forms sanctioned by the Church of England.

"It was a very closed culture," says Sue Allan, author of Mayflower Maid , a novel about a local girl who follows the Pilgrims to America. Allan leads me upstairs to the tower roof, where the entire town lay spread at our feet. "Everyone had to go to the Church of England," she said. "It was noted if you didn't. So what they were doing here was completely illegal. They were holding their own services. They were discussing the Bible, a big no-no. But they had the courage to stand up and be counted."

By 1607, however, it had become clear that these clandestine congregations would have to leave the country if they wanted to survive. The Separatists began planning an escape to the Netherlands, a country that Brewster had known from his younger, more carefree days. For his beliefs, William Brewster was summoned to appear before his local ecclesiastical court at the end of that year for being "disobedient in matters of Religion." He was fined £20, the equivalent of $5,000 today. Brewster did not appear in court or pay the fine.

But immigrating to Amsterdam was not so easy: under a statute passed in the reign of Richard II, no one could leave England without a license, something Brewster, Bradford and many other Separatists knew they would never be granted. So they tried to slip out of the country unnoticed.

They had arranged for a ship to meet them at Scotia Creek, where its muddy brown waters spool toward the North Sea, but the captain betrayed them to the authorities, who clapped them in irons. They were taken back to Boston in small open boats. On the way, the local catchpole officers, as the police were known, "rifled and ransacked them, searching to their shirts for money, yea even the women further than became modesty," William Bradford recalled. According to Bradford, they were bundled into the town center where they were made into "a spectacle and wonder to the multitude which came flocking on all sides to behold them." By this time, they had been relieved of almost all their possessions: books, clothes and money.

After their arrest, the would-be escapees were brought before magistrates. Legend has it that they were held in the cells at Boston's Guildhall, a 14th-century building near the harbor. The cells are still here: claustrophobic, cage-like structures with heavy iron bars. American tourists, I am told, like to sit inside them and imagine their forebears imprisoned as martyrs. But historian Malcolm Dolby doubts the story. "The three cells in the Guildhall were too small—only six feet long and five feet wide. So you are not talking about anything other than one-person cells. If they were held under any sort of arrest, it must have been house arrest against a bond, or something of that nature," he explains. "There's a wonderful illustration of the constables of Boston pushing these people into the cells! But I don't think it happened."

Bradford, however, described that after "a month's imprisonment," most of the congregation were released on bail and allowed to return to their homes. Some families had nowhere to go. In anticipation of their flight to the Netherlands, they had given up their houses and sold their worldly goods and were now dependent on friends or neighbors for charity. Some rejoined village life.

If Brewster continued his rebellious ways, he faced prison, and possibly torture, as did his fellow Separatists. So in the spring of 1608, they organized a second attempt to flee the country, this time from Killingholme Creek, about 60 miles up the Lincolnshire coast from the site of the first, failed escape bid. The women and children traveled separately by boat from Scrooby down the River Trent to the upper estuary of the River Humber. Brewster and the rest of the male members of the congregation traveled overland.

They were to rendezvous at Killingholme Creek, where a Dutch ship, contracted out of Hull, would be waiting. Things went wrong again. Women and children arrived a day early. The sea had been rough, and when some of them got seasick, they took shelter in a nearby creek. As the tide went out, their boats were seized by the mud. By the time the Dutch ship arrived the next morning, the women and children were stranded high and dry, while the men, who had arrived on foot, walked anxiously up and down the shore waiting for them. The Dutch captain sent one of his boats ashore to collect some of the men, who made it safely back to the main vessel. The boat was dispatched to pick up another load of passengers when, William Bradford recalled, "a great company, both horse and foot, with bills and guns and other weapons," appeared on the shore, intent on arresting the would-be departees. In the confusion that followed, the Dutch captain weighed anchor and set sail with the first batch of Separatists. The trip from England to Amsterdam normally took a couple of days—but more bad luck was in store. The ship, caught in a hurricane-force storm, was blown almost to Norway. After 14 days, the emigrants finally landed in the Netherlands. Back at Killingholme Creek, most of the men who had been left behind had managed to escape. The women and children were arrested for questioning, but no constable wanted to throw them in prison. They had committed no crime beyond wanting to be with their husbands and fathers. Most had already given up their homes. The authorities, fearing a backlash of public opinion, quietly let the families go. Brewster and John Robinson, another leading member of the congregation, who would later become their minister, stayed behind to make sure the families were cared for until they could be reunited in Amsterdam.

Over the next few months, Brewster, Robinson and others escaped across the North Sea in small groups to avoid attracting notice. Settling in Amsterdam, they were befriended by another group of English Separatists called the Ancient Brethren. This 300-member Protestant congregation was led by Francis Johnson, a firebrand minister who had been a contemporary of Brewster's at Cambridge. He and other members of the Ancient Brethren had done time in London's torture cells.

Although Brewster and his congregation of some 100 began to worship with the Ancient Brethren, the pious newcomers were soon embroiled in theological disputes and left, Bradford said, before "flames of contention" engulfed them. After less than a year in Amsterdam, Brewster's discouraged flock picked up and moved again, this time to settle in the city of Leiden, near the magnificent church known as Pieterskerk (St. Peter's). This was during Holland's golden age, a period when painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer would celebrate the physical world in all its sensual beauty. Brewster, meanwhile, had by Bradford's account "suffered much hardship....But yet he ever bore his condition with much cheerfulness and contentation." Brewster's family settled in Stincksteeg, or Stink Alley, a narrow, back alley where slops were taken out. The congregation took whatever jobs they could find, according to William Bradford's later recollection of the period. He worked as a maker of fustian (corduroy). Brewster's 16-year-old son, Jonathan, became a ribbon maker. Others labored as brewer's assistants, tobacco-pipe makers, wool carders, watchmakers or cobblers. Brewster taught English. In Leiden, good-paying jobs were scarce, the language was difficult and the standard of living was low for the English immigrants. Housing was poor, infant mortality high.

After two years the group had pooled together money to buy a house spacious enough to accommodate their meetings and Robinson's family. Known as the Green Close, the house lay in the shadow of Pieterskerk. On a large lot behind the house, a dozen or so Separatist families occupied one-room cottages. On Sundays, the congregation gathered in a meeting room and worshiped together for two four-hour services, the men sitting on one side of the church, the women on the other. Attendance was compulsory, as were services in the Church of England.

Not far from the Pieterskerk, I find William Brewstersteeg, or William Brewster Alley, where the rebel reformer oversaw a printing company later generations would call the Pilgrim Press. Its main reason for being was to generate income, largely by printing religious treatises, but the Pilgrim Press also printed subversive pamphlets setting out Separatist beliefs. These were carried to England in the false bottoms of french wine barrels or, as the English ambassador to the Netherlands reported, "vented underhand in His Majesty's kingdoms." Assisting with the printing was Edward Winslow, described by a contemporary as a genius who went on to play a crucial role in Plymouth Colony. He was already an experienced printer in England when, at age 22, he joined Brewster to churn out inflammatory materials.

The Pilgrim Press attracted the wrath of authorities in 1618, when an unauthorized pamphlet called the Perth Assembly surfaced in England, attacking King James I and his bishops for interfering with the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The monarch ordered his ambassador in Holland to bring Brewster to justice for his "atrocious and seditious libel," but Dutch authorities refused to arrest him. For the Separatists, it was time to move again—not only to avoid arrest. They were also worried about war brewing between Holland and Spain, which might bring them under Catholic rule if Spain prevailed. And they recoiled at permissive values in the Netherlands, which, Bradford would later recall, encouraged a "great licentiousness of youth in that country." The "manifold temptations of the place," he feared, were drawing youths of the congregation "into extravagant and dangerous courses, getting the reins off their necks and departing from their parents."

About this time, 1619, Brewster disappears briefly from the historical record. He was about 53. Some accounts suggest that he may have returned to England, of all places, there to live underground and to organize his last grand escape, on a ship called the Mayflower . There is speculation that he lived under an assumed name in the London district of Aldgate, by then a center for religious nonconformists. When the Mayflower finally set sail for the New World in 1620, Brewster was aboard, having escaped the notice of authorities.

But like their attempts to flee England in 1607 and 1608, the Leiden congregation's departure for America 12 years later was fraught with difficulties. In fact, it almost didn't happen. In July, the Pilgrims left Leiden, sailing from Holland in the Speedwell , a stubby overrigged vessel. They landed quietly in Southampton on the south coast of England. There they gathered supplies and proceeded to Plymouth before sailing for America in the 60-ton Speedwell and the 180-ton Mayflower , a converted wine-trade ship, chosen for its steadiness and cargo capacity. But after "they had not gone far," according to Bradford, the smaller Speedwell , though recently refitted for the long ocean voyage, sprang several leaks and limped into port at Dartmouth, England, accompanied by the Mayflower . More repairs were made, and both set out again toward the end of August. Three hundred miles at sea, the Speedwell began leaking again. Both ships put into Plymouth—where some 20 of the 120 would-be Colonists, discouraged by this star-crossed prologue to their adventure, returned to Leiden or decided to go to London. A handful transferred to the Mayflower , which finally hoisted sail for America with about half of its 102 passengers from the Leiden church on September 6.

On their arduous, two-month voyage, the 90-foot ship was battered by storms. One man, swept overboard, held onto a halyard until he was rescued. Another succumbed to "a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner," according to William Bradford. Finally, though, on November 9, 1620, the Mayflower sighted the scrubby heights of what is known today as Cape Cod. After traveling along the coast that their maps identified as New England for two days, they dropped anchor at the site of today's Provincetown Harbor of Massachusetts. Anchored offshore there on November 11, a group of 41 passengers—only the men—signed a document they called the Mayflower Compact, which formed a colony composed of a "Civil Body Politic" with just and equal laws for the good of the community. This agreement of consent between citizens and leaders became the basis for Plymouth Colony's government. John Quincy Adams viewed the agreement as the genesis of democracy in America.

Among the passengers who would step ashore to found the colony at Plymouth were some of America's first heroes—such as the trio immortalized by Longfellow in "The Courtship of Miles Standish": John Alden, Priscilla Mullins and Standish, a 36-year-old soldier—as well as the colony's first European villain, John Billington, who was hanged for murder in New England in 1630. Two happy dogs, a mastiff bitch and a spaniel belonging to John Goodman, also bounded ashore.

It was the beginning of another uncertain chapter of the Pilgrim story. With winter upon them, they had to build homes and find sources of food, while negotiating the shifting political alliances of Native American neighbors. With them, the Pilgrims celebrated a harvest festival in 1621—what we often call the first Thanksgiving.

Perhaps the Pilgrims survived the long journey from England to Holland to America because of their doggedness and their conviction that they had been chosen by God. By the time William Brewster died in 1644, at age 77, at his 111-acre farm at the Nook, in Duxbury, the Bible-driven society he had helped create at Plymouth Colony could be tough on members of the community who misbehaved. The whip was used to discourage premarital sex and adultery. Other sexual offenses could be punished by hanging or banishment. But these early Americans brought with them many good qualities too—honesty, integrity, industry, rectitude, loyalty, generosity, flinty self-reliance and a distrust of flashiness—attributes that survive down through the generations.

Many of the Mayflower descendants would be forgotten by history, but more than a few would rise to prominence in American culture and politics—among them Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Orson Welles, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Hefner and George W. Bush.

Simon Worrall , who lives in Herefordshire, England, wrote about cricket in the October issue of Smithsonian .

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Why Did the Puritans Settle in America?

We know that Puritans came to America, many of them seeking religious freedom. But what kind of religious freedom were they looking for?

Why did the Puritans settle in America? What makes a group of people leave everything they know and love, the only land they’ve ever known, to travel into the unknown?

We’re so accustomed to the story of America’s first settlers that we sometimes imagine them to be people very unlike ourselves, with no fears, longings, or concerns about sailing to an unsettled land across the sea.

But, while cultures and languages change over time, the human heart is remarkably the same from generation to generation. A deeper understanding of the complexity of what the Puritans initiated and endured can help us understand ourselves.

Who Were the Puritans?

The Puritans were a group of people living in England in the late 16 th century. Like many of us, they cared deeply about obeying God and living according to the Bible.

This group of people became uncomfortable with certain traditions and practices of the Church of England and advocated for change. When the King of England was also the head of the Church of England, and civil war was occurring in England, advocating for changes could be divisive.

The name “Puritans” was given contemptuously by people who saw them as troublemakers. The Church of England had already distinguished itself from the Roman Catholic Church and saw itself as a kind of reformation of that institution. The Puritans believed too many of the Roman Catholic practices remained. People also referred to the Puritans as “Precisionists,” which gives an idea of how others viewed them.

A group of Puritans left the church and declared themselves “Separatists.” This group became the Pilgrims, who left Europe and landed on Plymouth Rock in what is now known as New England.

The difference between the two groups is that one group of Puritans sought not to separate and instead wanted to call for reform from within the church. They desired to be heard. They wanted to remain within the Church of England and spearhead the purging of practices and traditions not absolutely rooted in Scripture.

Puritans were largely students of John Calvin’s reformed theology. They valued preaching and highlighted the Supremacy of God. They held to a literal belief of Scripture and were minimalistic in worship and sanctuary style. Many Puritans were well-educated, articulate, and skilled at writing.

The church still experiences conflict over adherence to Biblical teachings today, especially over socially divisive issues. And again, some try to make changes from within denominations while others decide to separate and create new ones.

Why Did the Puritans Leave Europe?

It’s not hard to understand that in a monarchy where the king is also head of the church, theological disagreements and calls for change can easily translate into threats of treason. King James I and his son, King Charles I, were hostile toward the Puritans. This resulted in a distinct unwelcome feeling in their land and the constant specter of persecution. It became harder and harder to earn a living, maintain friendships, or steer clear of legal trouble.

They left England and sailed for the New World, landing in Massachusetts but eventually spreading to the other colonies, aiming to create the “city of God” they envisioned from their understanding of God’s Word.

During this “Great Migration,” some 80,000 Puritans left Europe to travel to the New World. The initial settlers were primarily young men, often skilled in the trades and well off enough to afford passage across the Atlantic. Our image from the first Thanksgiving suggests small groups coming across the ocean. In fact, many Puritan settlers came in large groups. For instance, the Winthrop Fleet in 1630 consisted of 11 ships transporting over 700 Puritans to the New World.

Where Did the Puritans Arrive in America?

Initially, Puritans landed in Massachusetts in Plymouth, including the separatist Puritans or Pilgrims, famously remembered for the first Thanksgiving . This band of around 100 landed in 1620. But, settlers moved beyond New England to other areas along the Eastern Coast and Bermuda. (There were also English settlers who remained faithful to the Church of England, including the group who landed in Jamestown.)

While we celebrate religious freedom in America, we don’t necessarily share the Puritans’ exact vision. The Puritans sought the freedom to worship in a way they believed aligned with Scripture. Still, they weren’t looking to create a world that tolerated deviances from their understanding of religious practice.

This strict view resulted in different colonies forming when people discovered they had variations of theology. My home state of Rhode Island is an example of this. Roger Williams dared to suggest there be a separation of church and state, which didn’t sit well with some Puritans’ concept of the “city of God.” Consequently, Roger Williams was sent to settle a different part of the territory.

Modern believers haven’t lost the idea of creating a “city on a hill” to point toward the “city of God,” but reasonable Christians differ on how they think that works out and what form it can take. Some hold a view similar to the Puritans that it can combine church and government leadership. Others take a view closer to Roger Williams’s view, that church and state should remain separate and that the church alone is the purview of God’s rule until Jesus’ return (except where Christians wield voluntary influence).

When Did the Puritans Celebrate the First Thanksgiving?

Traditionally, we celebrate what many believe was the first Thanksgiving . This feast followed the settlers’ first harsh year of survival and initial harvest. The Wampanoag tribe, a tribe of indigenous people, reportedly celebrated with the Pilgrim Puritans, sharing a meal and engaging in athletic games.

10 Verses that Remind Us Who God Says We Are

Of course, indigenous people already had their own celebratory harvest traditions before the “first Thanksgiving” with the settlers. The Plimoth/Pawtuxet Museum website states that in the only surviving record of the celebration, Pilgrim Edward Winslow writes this:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” — Winslow’s Letter in Mourt’s Relation

The meal likely consisted of roasted game meat (such as wild turkey and venison) alongside mussels or fish. Also, there would have been onions, leeks, greens for a salad, squash, and possibly nuts, berries, and cheese. Possibly there was pork and native corn.

Some argues the record of the first Thanksgiving is inaccurate and cite aggressions by the settlers against the indigenous peoples already living on the land when they arrived.

What Can We Learn from the Puritans Today?

We still learn from Puritan writings and sermons. Some of the more famous Puritans who continue to be read and inspire faith in our times are John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress), Jonathan Edwards (Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God), and Thomas Goodwin (The Heart of Christ). One penchant of Puritan writers was to take a single verse of Scripture and write an entire volume on the implications of its truth.

The Puritans remind us that conflict and disagreement within the Body of Christ isn’t a new dilemma, and it still has no simple solution. But, we can study this period of church history and learn from their experience.

A strong lesson from the Puritans is the power of not only reading and studying God’s Word but being willing to sacrifice every comfort to live it out. The Puritans exercised a faith that had hands and feet. They maintained that faith even when they suffered harsh conditions, losses, and unexpected challenges in the New World.

And, of course, they already knew what we have come to understand: a grateful life is a richer life. Expressing thanks to God in all circumstances strengthens us, frees us, and brings us together—across the miles and the ages.

Further Reading: 

Who Were The Puritans?

John Winthrop: American Nehemiah

What Is Puritanism?

Cotton Mather: Witch Trial Advisor and Puritan Preacher

Who Are the Most Important Puritans?

Photo Credit: Getty Images/Christine_Kohler

What Is the National Day of Prayer?

Is Satisfaction Guaranteed for Christians?

Is Masturbation a Sin?

Morning Prayers to Start Your Day with God

The Best Birthday Prayers to Celebrate Friends and Family 

31 Powerful Night Prayers to Pray for Rest in the Evening

It involves setting aside our preconceived notions and intellectual barriers, allowing ourselves to be enveloped by the mystery and majesty of God’s presence.

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Mayflower Compact

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 17, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

The Mayflower Compact was a set of rules for self-governance established by the English settlers who traveled to the New World on the Mayflower . When Pilgrims and other settlers set out on the ship for America in 1620, they intended to lay anchor in northern Virginia. But after treacherous shoals and storms drove their ship off course, the settlers landed in Massachusetts instead, near Cape Cod, outside of Virginia’s jurisdiction. Knowing life without laws could prove catastrophic, colonist leaders created the Mayflower Compact to ensure a functioning social structure would prevail.

Mutiny on the Mayflower

Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower , there were 50 men, 19 women and 33 young adults and children. Just 41 were true Pilgrims, religious separatists seeking freedom from the Church of England .

The others were considered common folk and included merchants, craftsmen, indentured servants and orphaned children—the Pilgrims called them “strangers.”

Seeking the right to worship as they wished, the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company to settle on land near the Hudson River, which was then part of northern Virginia. The Virginia Company was a trading company chartered by King James I with the goal of colonizing parts of the eastern coast of the New World. London stockholders financed the Pilgrim’s voyage with the understanding they’d be repaid in profits from the new settlement.

But when the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts instead of Virginia, discord began before the colonists even left the ship. The strangers argued the Virginia Company contract was void. They felt since the Mayflower had landed outside of Virginia Company territory, they were no longer bound to the company’s charter.

The defiant strangers refused to recognize any rules since there was no official government over them. Pilgrim leader William Bradford later wrote, “several strangers made discontented and mutinous speeches.”

The Pilgrims knew if something wasn’t done quickly it could be every man, woman and family for themselves.

What Was the Mayflower Compact?

Pilgrim leaders wanted to quell the rebellion before it took hold. After all, establishing a New World colony would be difficult enough without dissent in the ranks. The Pilgrims knew they needed as many productive, law-abiding souls as possible to make the colony successful.

With that in mind, they set out to create a temporary set of laws for ruling themselves as per the majority agreement.

On November 11, 1620, 41 adult male colonists, including two indentured servants, signed the Mayflower Compact, although it wasn’t called that at the time.

Who Wrote the Mayflower Compact?

It’s unclear who wrote the Mayflower Compact, but the well-educated Separatist and pastor William Brewster is usually given credit.

One now-famous colonist who signed the Mayflower Compact was Myles Standish . He was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims to accompany them to the New World to serve as a military leader for the colony. Standish played an important role in enforcing the new laws and protecting colonists against unfriendly Native Americans .

What Was the Purpose of the Mayflower Compact?

No one knows exactly what happened to the original Mayflower Compact. The accepted translation was found in William Bradford’s journal, Of Plymouth Plantation , in which he wrote about his experiences as a colonist.

The Mayflower Compact created laws for Mayflower Pilgrims and non-Pilgrims alike for the good of their new colony. It was a short document which established that:

The colonists would remain loyal subjects to King James, despite their need for self-governance .

• The colonists would create and enact “laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices…” for the good of the colony, and abide by those laws .
• The colonists would create one society and work together to further it.
• T he colonists would live in accordance with the Christian faith .

Plymouth Colony

Once the colonists agreed to work together, the hard work of starting the colony began. They elected John Carver as governor on November 21, 1620.

Carver had helped secure financing for the Mayflower expedition and served in a leadership role during the voyage to America. He’s also sometimes given credit for helping write the Mayflower Compact.

Search parties then went ashore to find an ideal place to settle. They decided on Plymouth, where the colonists endured a brutal winter. Ravaged by starvation, disease and lack of shelter, more than half of the colonists died, yet Plymouth Colony survived.

It has been argued the Mayflower Compact’s role in cementing the colonists’ dedication to each other and their mission was critical to their endurance that first winter.

John Carver survived the hard winter of 1620 but died in April 1621, and the colonists chose William Bradford to replace him. Under his leadership, Plymouth Colony started to thrive.

As more and more settlers arrived and colonized the surrounding areas, a General Court was established. Each town elected representatives to attend the court, thereby creating an early representative government.

Why Was the Mayflower Compact Important?

The Mayflower Compact was important because it was the first document to establish self-government in the New World. It remained active until 1691 when Plymouth Colony became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Mayflower Compact was an early, successful attempt at democracy and undoubtedly played a role in future colonists seeking permanent independence from British rule and shaping the nation that eventually became the United States of America.

Text of The Mayflower Compact

The full text of the Mayflower Compact is as follows:

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.:

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another; covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

Featured Articles

How the Mayflower Compact Laid a Foundation for American Democracy

Pilgrims had to find a way to get along with "strangers" on their ship once they landed in the New World.

The Pilgrims' Miserable Journey Aboard the Mayflower

During their two-month journey to America, the Mayflower's passengers faced cramped quarters, rough seas, limited food and numbing cold.

What’s the Difference Between Puritans and Pilgrims?

Both sought a different religious practice than what the Church of England dictated, but they were otherwise distinct groups of people.

Mayflower Compact: 1620. The Avalon Project. Mayflower Compact: A Foundation for Our Constitution . ACLJ. Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. HistoryofMassachusetts.org. The Plymouth Colony Archive Project . The Mayflower Compact. Constitutional Rights Foundation .

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The Great Puritan Migration

The Great Puritan Migration was a period in the 17th century during which English puritans migrated to New England, the Chesapeake and the West Indies.

English migration to Massachusetts consisted of a few hundred pilgrims who went to Plymouth Colony in the 1620s and between 13,000 and 21,000 emigrants who went to the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1630 and 1642.

Why Did Puritans Leave England for the New World?

The Puritans left England primarily due to religious persecution but also for economic reasons as well. England was in religious turmoil in the early 17th century, the religious climate was hostile and threatening, especially towards religious nonconformists like the puritans.

There were two different types of Puritans at the time: separatists and non-separatists. The non-separatist Puritans wanted to remain in the church and reform it from within. The separatist Puritans felt the church was too corrupt to reform and instead wanted to separate from it.

This was problematic for the separatists because, at that time, the church and state were one in England and the act of separating from the Church of England was considered treasonous.

This prompted the separatists to leave England for the New World in order to escape potential punishment for their beliefs and to be able to worship more freely.

In 1607, a sect of separatists from Yorkshire left England and moved to Leiden, Holland in search of religious freedom. Although they found freedom there, they eventually tired of their grueling jobs in Holland’s cloth industry.

In 1619, after living in Holland for 12 years, these separatists sought out investors in England who would be willing to finance their journey to the New World.

The group made a deal with the Plymouth Company who promised to finance their trip to North America to establish a colony. In return, the colony would repay the company by harvesting supplies, such as fur, timber and fish, to send back to England.

The Great Puritan Migration in the 1620s:

In September of 1620, the separatists traveled to the New World on a rented cargo ship called the Mayflower and landed off the coast of Massachusetts in November, where they established Plymouth Colony , the first colony in New England. This event marks the beginning of the Great Puritan Migration.

Embarkation of the Pilgrims, oil painting by Robert W. Weir, circa 1844

In 1623, the Dorchester Company founded a fishing settlement at Gloucester, Massachusetts in Cape Ann. This was the first of many “Old Planter” colonies in New England that were not a part of either the Plymouth Colony or the Massachusetts Bay Colony and were established by Puritans purely for financial reasons, mainly to catch fish to send to England and Spain for profit.

The Gloucester settlement later failed in 1626 and the colonists migrated to the Salem area where they started a new settlement without obtaining permission from the king to do so.

Although the Old Planter colonies were established as a business venture, one of the founders of the Cape Ann settlement, Reverend John White, also wanted the settlement to be a place of refuge for Puritans escaping religious persecution in England.

In 1625, the religious climate in England worsened when King Charles I ascended the throne. Since King Charles had a catholic wife and favored the catholic religion, hostility towards the puritans and protestants alike greatly increased. This prompted many of the more moderate Puritans in England, such as the non-separatists, to finally leave the country.

In 1628, the New England Company, the original name of the Massachusetts Bay Company, obtained a patent to settle Salem and took over the illegal settlement established there by the colonists from the failed Gloucester settlement in 1626.

In 1629, the Puritans leaders of New England Company renamed their company the Massachusetts Bay Company and obtained a charter from King Charles I to engage in trade in New England.

The charter neglected to say that the company had to remain in England to conduct the business so the company took a vote in August of that year and decided to move the entire company to New England.

The Great Puritan Migration in the 1630s:

Led by Puritan lawyer, John Winthrop, the company left England in April of 1630 and arrived in New England in June where they settled in what is now modern day Boston and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony . The colony became the largest colony in New England and was hugely successful.

Arrival of the Winthrop Fleet, painting by William F. Halsall

Some sources state that the reasons for the Massachusetts Bay colonist’s migration were far more complicated than just the quest for religious freedom.

According to the book The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards, the Massachusetts Bay puritans felt a moral obligation to live the way God commanded and felt that by doing so they could serve as a religious example to others which, in turn, would help reform England and Christianity:

“But they [the puritans] did believe that they had a responsibility to lead exemplary lives both individually and collectively and that by doing so they too were cooperating with God’s plan and serving a redemptive function. They believed, in the words of John Winthrop, that ‘we shall be as a City upon a Hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.’ In coming to the New World, according to Winthrop, the colonists were accepting the terms of a covenant with God. If they lived properly, maintained a true faith, and upheld God’s ways, they would be blessed and their example would inspire others….Winthrop was not alone in explaining that the purpose of the new England was to re-form the old. Other Puritans who recorded their reasons for settling Massachusetts emphasized the redemptive function they hoped to perform. Edward Johnson, who was not one of the colony’s leaders, wrote in his Wonder-Working Providence of Sion’s Savior in New England that the purpose of the colony was to ‘be set as lights upon a hill more obvious of New England as ‘holding forth a pregnant demonstration of the consistency of Civil-Government with a Congregational-way.'”

When the old planter colonies in New England began to fail, the Massachusetts Bay Colonists believed it to be a punishment from God for establishing a colony for financial reasons rather than religious ones, according to Cotton Mather in his book Magnalia:

“There were more than a few attempts of the English to people and improve the parts of New England which were to the northward of New Plimouth. But the designs of those attempts being aimed no higher than the advancement of some worldly interest, a constant series of disasters has confounded them, until there was a plantation erected upon the nobler designs of Christianity; and that plantation, though it has had more adversaries than perhaps any one upon earth, yet, having obtained help from God, it continues to this day.”

The Massachusetts Bay Colony took over the Dorchester Company’s failed planter settlements, such as Gloucester, as well as some of the Plymouth Company’s failed settlements, such as Hull and Weymouth , in the 1630s and 40s.

In the 1630s, droves of Puritans soon began to flock to New England, particularly after 1633, when King Charles appointed William Laud as the new Archbishop of Canterbury and he began rooting out nonconformity in the church.

Laud launched a widespread crackdown on dissidents like the Puritans which led to a surge in Puritan migration to the colonies, according to the book Library of World History: Containing a Record of the Human Race:

“Charles I also attempted to establish the Episcopal Church on a firmer basis, and to suppress Puritanism in England and Presbyterianism in Scotland, with the view of checking the rapid growth of republican principles among the English people. For the purpose of accomplishing this end, the king appointed the zealous William Laud, Bishop of London, to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury…Archbishop Laud, who thus became the chief agent in a religious tyranny which almost drove both England and Scotland to revolt, improved every opportunity to preach submission to the ‘Lord’s Anointed’ in the payment of taxes; and he demanded from English Puritans and Scotch Presbyterians a strict conformity to his own rules for public worship…Archbishop Laud’s ecclesiastical tyranny led to a large Puritan emigration to New England. Patents were secured and companies organized for that purpose. The Puritans proceeded reluctantly to the place of embarkation, with their eyes looking longingly toward the distant refuge of the Pilgrim Fathers across the billowy deep, yet moist with tears as they turned their backs upon their native land and upon scenes that were dear to them: their hearts swelling with grief as the shores of ‘Dear Old Mother England’ faded from their sight, yet rising to lofty purposes and sublime resignation as they abandoned home and country to enjoy the blessings of religious freedom in a strange land. They fully counted the cost of their forced migration – the peril, poverty and hardships, of their new homes in the American wilderness.”

Yet another source, the book Exile and Journey in Seventeenth-Century Literature, states that the Massachusetts Bay colonist’s reasons for migrating were even more varied than that and were also based on economic reasons:

“It should be noted that the reasons for leaving England were various, and involve economics as well as religious factors; often the decision to migrate to New England came not out of a specifically Puritan alienation from Laudian reforms, but rather from local influences, such as the decision of a neighbor, a minister, or, more immediately, a patron or employer to depart across the Atlantic. Yet the leaders deep sense of difference can be seen in their successful attempt to transport the charter of the colony with them to Massachusetts, effectively cutting off any administrative interference from the homeland. The decision by Winthrop and others to lead a migration westward certainly came from a sense that the Puritan cause in England had faltered, but its faltering, in many ways, may have been effected by the Puritans own conservatism and ‘assimilation into the fabric of English society.’ Winthrop and Thomas Dudley, the Earl of Lincoln’s steward, for example, represented important propertied interests in New England, and went with the Crown’s permission to the New World, not only to found a godly community, but also, according to their own representations, to further the cause of England in the burgeoning Atlantic commercial world. The Massachusetts Bay Colonists, a rather different set of migrants from those who left Leiden for Plymouth a decade earlier, often included prominent gentlemen and ministers or their servants leaving the mainstream of English society.”

Who Were The Puritan Migrants?

Massachusetts Bay Colonists tended to be middle-class and usually migrated in family units, according to an article on the New England Historical Society website:

“Most of the Puritans who came to New England were prosperous middle-class families. They were different from the poor, single male immigrants who predominated immigration to other regions of America. They were highly literate and skilled, unlike the immigrants to Virginia, 75 percent of whom were servants.”

Although Puritan migrants came from almost every county in England, the greatest groups of these migrants came from Eastern and Southern England, particularly the East Anglian counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex; London, Hertfordshire and Kent; and the southwestern counties of Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, and Devon.

According to the book, British Atlantic, American Frontier, two specific groups of migrants came from these areas:

“From this considerable area, two major migrant streams can be identified: first, a migration of families, drawn mainly from East Anglia, the Home Counties, and the West Country, who had Puritan sympathies; second, a migration of single, young men, drawn from London and Devon, who were attracted by prospects of employment in agriculture, trades, and the fishery. The migration from East Anglia – approximately 38 percent of total migrants in one study – comprised mainly of families, focused on the Boston area. During the early seventeenth century, East Anglia was a center of religious nonconformism. Many of the migrants from the area were Puritans, who feared religious oppression in England, and wished to join Puritan leader John Winthrop in building a ‘holy city upon the hill’ in the New World. Similar Puritan congregations existed in the Home Counties and the West Country. As the migration got underway, migrants frequently recruited other family members as well as friends to join them, creating a chain of migration across the Atlantic. Particular towns and villages in England became linked to specific townships in New England. Hingham, Massachusetts, drew 40 percent of its families from East Anglia, most of them from the Hingham area in Norfolk. Other family migrations most likely linked eastern Kent to the South Shore of Boston (Scituate, Plymouth, Sandwich), the Wiltshire/Berkshire area to the Merrimack Valley (Salisbury, Newbury, Amesbury), and southwest Dorset to the South Shore (Dorchester) and the Connecticut Valley (Windsor.) The migrations from London and Devon were much different. Although both sent families to New England, the migrations appear to have been weighted toward single, young men, comprising perhaps a third of total male migrants.”

Migrants who went to the Chesapeake and the West Indies tended to be indentured servants from London. A small fraction of indentured servants were also sent to New England too though, probably contracted to merchants and tradesman who themselves had emigrated from London and Boston, England.

In fact, many of the migrants sent to the fishing settlements in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine were indentured servants contracted by merchants in Barnstable, Plymouth, and Dartmouth.

What Brought the Great Puritan Migration to an End?

A couple of factors brought the Great Puritan Migration to an end around 1640-1642. These factors were the establishment of the Long Parliament in 1640 and the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642.

The Long Parliament, which was an English Parliament held from 1640 to 1660, restructured the government, limited the power of the king and punished King Charles’ advisers, such as Archbishop Laud, for their actions, according to the book Early European Civilizations:

“The Long Parliament met in no uncertain temper. It proceeded to attack Charles’ chief advisers and finally beheaded the Earl of Strafford and Laud. Parliament protected itself against the king. It provided for meetings of Parliament at least every three years. It abolished the Courts of the Star Chamber and High Commission.”

According to the introduction of a 1908 edition of John Winthrop’s Journal, History of New England, 1630-1649, this had a big impact on Puritan migration to New England, and “immigration suddenly ceased; with the opening of the Long Parliament the grievances which had driven into exile so many of the non-conformists no longer pressed heavily.”

Up to the time of the Long Parliament in 1640, the average number of emigrants to New England had been about 2,000 a year.

This new power struggle within the English government then led to the English Civil War in 1642. Not only did the war also halt any further emigration to the colonies, but it is estimated that between 7 to 11 percent of colonists returned to England after the outbreak of the war, including nearly one-third of clergymen, to assist in the war effort.

According to the book British Atlantic, American Frontier, English emigration stopped for the rest of the colonial period:

“The outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 brought the migration to a close; for the rest of the colonial period, only a few hundred settlers trickled in, mostly Scots-Irish who settled at Londonderry, New Hampshire.”

Even though English migration to the area was nonexistent for nearly two hundred years, the population of the New England colonies grew rapidly during that time.

This was due to an equal balance of males and females in New England, a healthy environment that led to longer life spans and the trend of couples marrying at a young age and having large families of typically seven to eight children, with at least six or seven of those children surviving to adulthood.

In 1650, the total population of New England was about 22,800 and by the middle of the next century it had grown to 360,000 and by 1770 it was about 581,000.

Sources: Gardner, Frank. “The Old Planters at Salem.” Putnam’s Monthly Historical Magazine and Magazine of New England History . The Research Publication Company, 1902, pp: 3-18. Dowley, Tim. Atlas of the European Reformations . Fortress Press, 2015. Ashley, Roscoe Lewis. Early European Civilization: A Textbook for Secondary Schools. The Macmillan Company, 1920. Hornsby, Stephen and Michael Hermann. British Atlantic, American Frontier: Spaces of Power in Early Modern British America. UPNE, 2005. D’Addario, Christopher. Exile and Journey in Seventeenth-Century Literature . Cambridge University Press, 2007. Axelrod, Alan. Charles Phillips. What Every American Should Know About American History . Adams Media Corporation, 1992. Byington, Ezra Hoyt. The Puritan in England and New England . Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1897. Kennedy, David M., et al, The Brief American Pageant: A History of the Republic. Cenage Learning, 2017. Library of World History: Containing a Record of the Human Race. Vol. 6, World Publishing Company, 1914. Bremer, Francis J. The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards . University Press of New England, 1995. Betlock, Lynn. “New England’ Great Migration.” The Great Migration Study Project , New England Historic Genealogical Society, www.greatmigration.org/new_englands_great_migration.html “Great Migration of Picky Puritans, 1620-40.” New England Historical Society, www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-great-migration-of-picky-puritans-1620-40/ Anderson, Virginia Dejohn. “Migrants and Motives: Religion and the Settlement of New England, 1630-1640.” The New England Quarterly , Vol. 58, No. 3, Sept. 1985, pp. 339-383, www.jstor.org/stable/365037?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

9 thoughts on “ The Great Puritan Migration ”

Rebecca: I totally loved your website. Have you done any writing on what the Puritans who left England for Religious reasons and economic reasons did to those who they thought were practicing a nonconformist religion,such as Quakers/Seekers. By putting them in fear for their lives and making them leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony for areas like,NH.,Maine,Penn., Nantucket,Ma., and Rhode Island.

YES! Thank you so much for this comment! My ancestor who emigrated was treated like a leper by the puritans, he was forced to move to RI specifically because of relations with a Quaker and refusing to accept puritanical beliefs.

I want to know what it was like for the PIilgrims/Puritans when they were on the Mayflower ship on their way to America

Hi Kat, there is a link to my article about the Mayflower in this article.

Don’t have the numbers to back it up, but pretty sure there was another bump in Puritan immigration to New England following the restoration of Charles II in 1660, which certainly created an unfriendly environment for Puritans in the old country. This later wave even included two of the regicides that had signed the death warrant for Charles I (Edmund Whalley and William Goffe), who were hidden in Massachusetts and Connecticut from the king’s agents who were searching for them.

Omg I love your website it totally the best

Thanks, Lily!

It wasn’t just puritans who migrated. My catholic Cornish ancestor emigrated during the great migration WITH puritans but he was no Puritan. In fact he was later ostracized from the Salem colony because of his relations with a Quaker woman whom he left his wife for, and became a Quaker. I just dislike the fact that everyone refers to it solely as a group of puritans, not everyone in the original colonies were puritans. Not all of us were living under the tyranny of fire and brimstone. Although his mother in law WAS incarcerated by those lunatics after being accused of witchcraft.

My 12th level Grandfather Ambrose Meador with his wife and son Thomas (11th level) arrived in Jamestown in 1629-1633. Where indentured moved immediately to Isle of Wight County Virginia now Smithfield. This is where many of the Puritans lived . Unfriendly relations with Loyalist in Jamestown. In 1649 Cromwell gave land grants to the Puritans in Va. They migrated to he Rappohnek River area near now the town of Tappohneck. Both Ambrose and son Thomas received 1000acres of land which they called Accokeek Sold half of land to George Mason. Thomas Meador started the first Militia to defend against Indian attacks. Same militia that was used for Bacons Rebellion in 1676. Due to economics family moved to Meador Va Bedford County in 1720’s

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