by Whitney Levon

Created on: October 29, 2009

Religion in the late 16th and early 17th centuries in England was a complicated issue. The battle lines were drawn between the Roman Catholics, The Church of England, and the Puritans. The problem for the group of people who were to become known as the Pilgrims was that they believed in none of these religions. These people, known in England as the Separatists, had a completely separate set of beliefs and wanted to fins a place that they could worship free of judgment and persecution. The place that the Separatists originally decided upon was Holland.

The Separatists successfully moved to Amsterdam in 1608, after a failed attempt the year before when they were imprisoned by the crew that was carrying them to freedom. The Separatists found that they were able to practice their religion without fear in this new home. They stayed in Amsterdam for only a short time, as they had trouble getting along with some of the other groups of English people living in the city. They then moved to a town called Leiden.

They stayed in Leiden for a span of 12 years. Although they were able to practice their religion openly, the group did have several hardships to face. The most significant was their state of abject poverty. The Dutch government had welcomed this group to live in their country; the Dutch had no responsibility to provide them with lucrative jobs. Employment for foreigners was limited to low paying work. The Separatists had sold almost all of their belongings to get to Holland, so they had no funding to see them through. They were growing poorer and poorer by the day.

There was also some fear of what living in Holland was doing to their children. They wanted to raise English children with English customs, which was becoming harder to do in a foreign land. The Separatists may have left England due to their religious beliefs, but they still felt in their hearts that they were an English people. They felt as though they were losing their identity.

The Dutch people did subject the Separatists to some harassment with regards to religion. The irony of the Separatists being allowed to move to Holland is this: the Dutch despised the separatist movement happening within their own country, but they freely welcomed dissenters from other nations. Commoners had no qualms about persecuting the English, for in their eyes a separatist was a separatist. There were a few isolated incidents of English people being attacked, but they were minimal compared to what they received in England.

In order to seek a better life financially and for the sake of their heritage, the group that would become the Pilgrims set their eyes on the new world. They petitioned the Dutch government to sponsor their settlement in North America, but were turned down. As a last resort, they asked the same of the English government and were granted a patent to settle in Virginia. With that permission, the Pilgrims set sail for their historic journey on the Mayflower.

Learn more about this author, Whitney Levon.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.