by Jerry Curtis

Created on: December 03, 2010

The story of the Pilgrims has its origins in the stubbornness of a group of religious separatists - the Pilgrims from England and their fellows from Holland. That stubbornness was had its own roots in the earnest belief that the Protestant Reformation in England had not yet been completed. The King of England, they believed, was but a substitute for the Pope in Rome, and the Church of England was an imitation of catholicism. Like the Catholic Church of old, the Church of England was loath to countenance any group who refused to read from the Anglican Book of Prayers nor to recognize that an earthly monarch could be their religious leader. 

The two groups of Pilgrims that came together and sailed for the New World were from England's northern counties and Leiden, Holland. The latter group had taken "separatism" to the practical extreme, and by 1620, had established a less-than-flourishing community. That Dutch community, moreover, became increasingly hostile to the Pilgrim outsiders, who were never totally accepted into the local economy and culture. Separatist youngsters, however, were beginning to become acculturated, and this was of growing concern to the Pilgrims who opted to emigrate.

Both groups of Pilgrims met in Southampton, England, and embarked for their six-week journey on the Mayflower. After two false starts that resulted in their leaving the second, smaller ship, Speedwell, behind, the journey to the New World was finally underway. Their original destination and charter was for settling lands near the mouth of the Hudson River in present-day New York. Harsh, undependable winds and dwindling supplies forced the group to make landfall in northeast Cape Cod.

While living on board the Mayflower, the Pilgrims  dispatched a landing party to explore possible sites for their new settlement. They eventually stumbled upon an abandoned Indian village on the eastern shore of present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts. The previous inhabitants had either died from disease brought from contact with European sailors, or they had fled and joined with other tribes. In any case, their site already had cleared land for planting, as well as some stored food supplies. Those supplies would be help supplement the meager food supplies of the Pilgrims that first hard winter.

During that first hard winter, the Pilgrims must have doubted their ability to survive. Starvation and sickness wiped out about half their original 100 along with 18 of the 30 women of childbearing

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