Four hundred years ago as I am typing this, a very brave band of men, women, and children – families – were sailing across a stormy and treacherous Atlantic Ocean to a new life in a wild new world.
Rewind about 40-ish years in my life, and I remember year after year in elementary school, learning about this group of people. The Pilgrims. They sailed on the Mayflower. They landed at Plymouth Rock. They were the people that helped pioneer and begin inhabiting the future United States. They made friends with the “Indians,” and after their first season growing food, they had a big feast with their new Native friends to celebrate their harvest and it became known as the First Thanksgiving. That’s about what I can remember. I didn’t know their names. I certainly felt no connection to them, other than I was glad they came here to begin establishing my homeland, but never thought I had any blood connection to them.
Fast forward 40-ish years.
Just in these last few months something nagged at me to look into it. My first place to check was Relative Finder – the fun computer app developed by BYU. You sign in with your FamilySearch account, and viola! There are many groups already there that you can look at to see if you have relatives: LDS Church Presidents, US Presidents, Famous Americans, European Royalty, and many others, including Mayflower Passengers and crew. So I clicked on the Mayflower, expecting some distant cousins. I found more than that…SIX 10th and 11th Great-Grandparents names looking back at me. I am a DIRECT descendant of 6 people that came here on the Mayflower? Suddenly, there was a deep connection to this group, and I needed to know more.
To begin with, who exactly were these Pilgrims?
After the Church of England was formed, a Separatists Church was founded. In 1602, an offshoot of this group formed in Gainsborough England, They were known as Separatist Puritans. The Puritans believed that the Church of England needed to be purified to more closely resemble the church that was found in the Bible, while the Separatists believed that the Church of England was so far from the truth that only a new and completely separate religion could have any hope of resembling the church that Christ had built. Being persecuted as nonconformists, this group left England around 1608 for Leiden, Holland, where they could practice the religion they wished. They remained there for 10 years, and began looking for a permanent place they could go to and enjoy spiritual freedom as well as maintain their English language and traditions. The place they looked to was America.
After Captain John Smith’s return from his voyage to New England, Prince Charles I gave the names of English towns to points along the New England Coast, one name was Plymouth. The Pilgrims set their eyes on Virginia. Plans began to be made for their journey. The passengers were members of the Separatist Church, other non-Separatist men and families that were recruited to join the company, indentured servants that were actually more like apprentices, and some Mayflower sailors contracted to stay a year in New Plymouth. Because the Separatists were financially strapped, they found a group of merchants who were willing to back their venture to America. The London Merchant Adventurers, a company of merchants looking to invest their money, agreed to fund the voyage in exchange for the colonist’s labor and partnered ownership of all goods generated during the first seven years in America. These merchants recruited the additional, non-Separatist families and individuals.
The group arranged for two ships, but one proved to be leaky and not seaworthy, so everything (passengers and supplies) was moved to the Mayflower. The ship left port late in the year, September of 1620, a month later that the planned departure date. They reached Cape Cod in November, nearly 500 miles north of their intended destination.
The group attempted to continue south to where they had legal permission to settle (Jamestown), but the rough seas forced them to remain at Cape Cod. Due to rising tensions between the Separatists and other passengers, the Mayflower Compact was designed and signed, to help foster unity between the passengers and create self-governance and maintain order in the colony.
After a few weeks of exploring the nearby coast, the Mayflower anchored off of Plymouth Rock in December of 1620. Most passengers remained living on the Mayflower as land was cleared and shelters attempted to be built, but this was very difficult in the middle of the harsh New England winter. During their 4 months of living on the Mayflower, much loss was experienced. Sickness caused by closed quarters and scurvy causing illnesses and pneumonia took many lives. Malnutrition and starvation also caused many to perish. Most of the adult women passed away, since they were giving their food rations to their children and young wards to avoid having them starve. By Spring, only 52 of the original 102 travelers(not counting crew) remained. Eleven of the thirty-one children had passed away, while only four of the eighteen adult women survived. The children that were orphaned were taken in by other families as servants, although their “servants” were treated like family.
In the Spring, the passengers were able to disembark and begin actively clearing land, building homes, and planting crops. At this time, they met Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe. Squanto proved invaluable to the survival of Plymouth Colony, serving as a translator, guide, and teacher in the New World. The picture here shows “Plimouth Plantation”, a recreation of the original village the Pilgrims built.
In early Autumn, the “First Thanksgiving” at Plymouth was held. It was English tradition that a harvest celebration was held yearly, and this tradition continued in New England. This yearly harvest celebration eventually became adopted and called Thanksgiving.
See next, Part 2 – Elizabeth Tilley & John Howland
