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Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)

The Pilgrims, also known as the Pilgrim Fathers, were the English settlers who traveled to North America on Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts (John Smith had named this territory New Plymouth in 1620, sharing the name of the Pilgrims' final departure port of Plymouth, Devon). The Pilgrims' leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownists, or Separatists, who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands.

This article is about the English settlers of New England. For people as pilgrims, see Pilgrim. For other uses, see Pilgrim (disambiguation).

They held many of the same Calvinist religious beliefs as Puritans, but unlike Puritans (who wanted a purified established church), Pilgrims maintained that their congregations should separate from the English state church, which led to them being labeled Separatists. After several years living in exile in Holland, they determined to establish a new settlement in the New World and arranged with investors to fund them. They established Plymouth Colony in 1620, where they erected Congregationalist churches.[1] The Puritan later colonial establishment of Massachusetts Bay eventually became more powerful in the area, nonetheless the Pilgrims' story became a central theme in the history and culture of the United States.[2]

Etymology[edit]

Bradford's history[edit]

The first use of the word pilgrims for the Mayflower passengers appeared in William Bradford's 1651 Of Plymouth Plantation. In recounting his group's July 1620 departure from Leiden, he used the imagery of Hebrews 11 (Hebrews 11:13–16) about Old Testament "strangers and pilgrims" who had the opportunity to return to their old country but instead longed for a better, heavenly country.

Mayflower Society

National Monument to the Forefathers

Pilgrim Hall Museum

Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollar

Thanksgiving (United States)

List of Mayflower passengers

List of Mayflower passengers who died at sea November/December 1620

List of Mayflower passengers who died in the winter of 1620–21

; Edward Winslow (1865) [1622]. Henry Martyn Dexter (ed.). Mourt's Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. Boston: John Kimball Wiggin. OCLC 8978744. Retrieved November 28, 2008.

Bradford, William

(1898) [1651]. Hildebrandt, Ted (ed.). Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation" (PDF). Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved November 28, 2008.

Bradford, William

(1891). A History of Nottinghamshire. London: Elliot Stock. OCLC 4624771. Retrieved November 28, 2008.

Brown, Cornelius

. "The Pilgrim Press in Leyden". New England Magazine. 19/25 (January 1899). Boston: Warren F. Kellogg: 559–575. Retrieved November 28, 2008.

Griffis, William

Matthews, Albert (1915). . Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. 17. Boston: The Society: 293–391. Retrieved November 28, 2008.

"The Term Pilgrim Fathers and Early Celebrations of Forefathers' Day"

(2003). Johnson, Caleb (ed.). "Hypocrisy Unmasked" (PDF). MayflowerHistory.com. Retrieved November 28, 2008.

Winslow, Edward

Cheney, Glenn Alan. Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America (New London Librarium, 2007)

Fraser, Rebecca. The Mayflower Generation: the Winslow Family and the Fight for the New World (Vintage, 2017)

Tompkins, Stephen. The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s Outlaws and the Invention of Freedom (Hodder and Stoughton, 2020)

Vandrei, Martha. "The Pilgrim's Progress," History Today (May 2020) 70#5 pp 28–41. Covers the historiography 1629 to 2020; online

Whittock, Martyn. Mayflower Lives (Simon and Schuster, 2019).

Media related to Pilgrim Fathers at Wikimedia Commons

Searchable municipal and court records from Leiden Regional Archive

Pilgrim Archives

Photographs of New York (Lincs – UK) and Pilgrim Fathers monument (Lincs – UK)

founded after an 1801 schism

Church of the Pilgrimage

Pilgrim history and artifacts

Pilgrim Hall Museum

All about the Mayflower and Pilgrim Fathers with a Plymouth (UK) focus. Many pictures

Mayflower Steps

The original mooring point of The Pilgrim Fathers’ Mayflower ship in Rotherhithe, London and the oldest pub on the River Thames

The Mayflower Pub London

Pilgrim ships searchable by ship name, sailing date and passengers.

Pilgrim ships from 1602 to 1638

BBC Radio 4 discussion with Kathleen Burk, Harry Bennett & Tim Lockley (In Our Time, July 5, 2007)

The Pilgrim Fathers