Why pilgrims came to new world

Soon after the Pilgrims built their settlement, they came into contact with Tisquantum, or Squanto, an English-speaking Native American. Meant for slavery, he somehow managed to escape to England, and returned to his native land to find most of his tribe had died of plague.

In addition to interpreting and mediating between the colonial leaders and Native American chiefs including Massasoit, chief of the Pokanoket , Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, which became an important crop, as well as where to fish and hunt beaver.

In the fall of , the Pilgrims famously shared a harvest feast with the Pokanokets; the meal is now considered the basis for the first Thanksgiving holiday. The first Thanksgiving likely did not include turkey or mashed potatoes potatoes were just making their way from South America to Europe , but the Wampanoag brought deer and there would have been lots of local seafood plus the fruits of the first pilgrim harvest, including pumpkin.

Over the next decades, relations between settlers and Native Americans deteriorated as the former group occupied more and more land. By the time William Bradford died in , he had already expressed anxiety that New England would soon be torn apart by violence.

Philip was the English name of Metacomet, the son of Massasoit and leader of the Pokanokets since the early s. That conflict left some 5, inhabitants of New England dead, three quarters of those Native Americans. Three more ships traveled to Plymouth after the Mayflower, including the Fortune , the Anne and the Little James both Winthrop soon established Boston as the capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony, which would become the most populous and prosperous colony in the region.

Compared with later groups who founded colonies in New England, such as the Puritans, the Pilgrims of Plymouth failed to achieve lasting economic success. After the early s, some prominent members of the original group, including Brewster, Winslow and Standish, left the colony to found their own communities. Less than a decade after the war King James II appointed a colonial governor to rule over New England, and in , Plymouth was absorbed into the larger entity of Massachusetts.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. In September , during the reign of King James I, a group of around English men and women—many of them members of the English Separatist Church later known to history as the Pilgrims—set sail for the New World aboard the Mayflower.

They called for a return to a simpler faith and less structured forms of worship. In short, they wanted to return to worshipping in the way the early Christians had. They thought the new Church of England was beyond reform. This opinion was very dangerous; in England in the s, it was illegal to be part of any church other than the Church of England.

The Separatist church congregation that established Plymouth Colony in New England was originally centered around the town of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, England. Members included the young William Bradford and William Brewster.

When they felt they could no longer suffer these difficulties in England, they chose to flee to the Dutch Netherlands. There, they could practice their own religion without fear of persecution from the English government or its church.

Although they had religious freedom, life in the Netherlands was not easy. The Separatists had to leave their homeland and friends to live in a foreign country without a clear idea of how they would support themselves. The congregation stayed briefly in Amsterdam and then moved to the city of Leiden.

There they remained for the next 11 or 12 years. Most found work in the cloth trades, while others were carpenters, tailors and printers. Their lives required hard work. Even young children had to work.

Some older children were tempted by the Dutch culture and left their families to become soldiers and sailors. Their parents feared that they would lose their identity as English people. To make matters worse, the congregation worried that another war might break out between the Dutch and Spanish.

The Plymouth Colony barely survived, let alone thrived, after a brutal first winter in America, and the Mayflower returned to England empty of commodities. It was a sign of things to come. The Plymouth Colony finally gained its financial footing thanks to beaver pelts, which were in great demand back in England to make felt hats and other luxurious fashion accessories. Not until did the Pilgrims pay off their debt. The Plymouth Colony ultimately faced a similar fate to many struggling businesses.

It was consumed by a larger, more successful corporate entity when it was merged with other colonies to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay in The ocean crossing was particularly stormy, terrifying everyone on board, especially when a cracked beam threatened to sink the ship. The passengers suffered seasickness and scurvy during the miserable journey and wondered whether they would arrive safely at distant shores.

They decided to trust the will of God, and they bravely proceeded. The journey took eight weeks, during which two people died and two babies were born. On November 9, the group sighted Cape Cod, which was several hundred miles north of their intended destination in Virginia.

With North America in sight, this group, later known as the Pilgrims, had to determine the kind of community they were creating. Some passengers were unhappy with the decision to stay in Cape Cod rather than continue to their original destination.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancements of the Christian faith and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, [we] do by these presents. Those who signed the document bound themselves to a rule of law and cooperation for the common good in facing the dangers ahead. They were now knit together into a government and a civil society. They decided that they would seek the common good through good government rather than merely their own private self-interests.

The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony. It was written and signed aboard the ship in , and no original drafts survive. This copy from about was transcribed by William Bradford, who served as governor of the Plymouth Colony on and off for about thirty years between and They had very few provisions and faced a brutal winter during which their clothes froze on their bodies. When, the following month, Nauset Indians fired arrows at them, the scouts decided to sail across Cape Cod Bay and settle there instead.

Meanwhile, their fellow migrants remained on the Mayflower , suffering from cold, malnutrition, and disease.