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.
In order to finance the voyage, the Pilgrims were forced to take aboard the Mayflower fellow economic migrants who shared their quest for commercial success, but not their separatist beliefs. As a business enterprise, the colonial start-up faced a beginning as rocky as the New England soil the Pilgrims were forced to sow.
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. Thirty-one of the company were dead by the end of February, with deaths still rising.
Coles Hill became the first cemetery, on a prominence above the beach. Only 47 colonists had survived and at its worst just six or seven were able to feed and care for the rest. In this time, half the Mayflower crew also died. The Pilgrims were settling on land home to the Wampanoag — one of many tribes in the wider region.
The Wampanoag had lived here for 10, years before they arrived. Each tribe in New England had their own territory in which to fish, harvest and hunt. The boundaries for hunting were very strict as some areas had large populations. The Wampanoag people knew how to work with the land and moved between sites to get the best of their harvest.
They spent the summer near the shore and the winter in land, amongst the woods. The Wampanoag worked together - a number of groups united together. A head Sachem managed a Sachem from each of the groups. Within this organisation, family and group links were the most important, connecting them to each other and their territory.
In the years before the Mayflower landed, The Wampanoag had been attacked by neighbouring tribes, losing land along the coast. Then came the Great Dying and the losses were so devastating that the Wampanoag had to reorganise its structure and Sachems had to join together and build new unions. During March , an English speaking member of the Wamponaog, named Samoset, entered the grounds of the Plymouth colony and introduced himself.
He is said to have asked for a beer and spent the night talking with the settlers. Samoset, later, brought another member of his tribe — Tisquantum, whose experience meant his English was much advanced. Tisquantum taught them to plant corn, which became an important crop, as well as where to fish and hunt beaver. He introduced them to the Wampanoag chief Ousamequin, chief of the Pokanoket people known as Massasoit, an important moment in developing relations.
One of the first to greet him was Edward Winslow , originally from Worcestershire. A leader in the Separatist group and a skilful diplomat, Winslow had not only been instrumental in organising the journey to America, but was also one of the men who signed the historic Mayflower Compact.
The Wampanoag were wary of the nearby Narragansett tribe, who had not been affected by the disease epidemics and remained a powerful tribe. They demanded that the Wampanoag show them honour and tribute. Ousamequin would have known an alliance with these new English colonists might help fend off any attacks from the Narragansett. In , the Narragansett sent the Plymouth colony a threat of arrows wrapped up in snake skin. William Bradford, who was governor of the colony at the time, filled the snake skin with powder and bullets and sent it back.
Ousamequin and The Pilgrims established an historic peace treaty and the Wampanoag went on to teach them how to hunt, plant crops and how to get the best of their harvest, saving the Pilgrims from starvation. It is believed that Winslow was even able to help nurse Ousamequin back to health when he fell ill, reportedly using his renowned chicken soup and strengthening their relationship further. Success followed and following a bumper harvest in the autumn of , the colonists decided to celebrate with a three-day festival of prayer.
The 53 surviving settlers invited their Native Americans friends to join them for a huge feast in what was to become known as the first Thanksgiving.
The book describes in detail what happened from the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims right through to this celebratory feast. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others.
And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.
The repressive church rule in England would drive more people to follow the Mayflower to America. Another ship arrived in and two more in Winthrop soon established Boston as the capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and it would soon grow into the biggest colony in the area.
They arrived under the guise of creating a perfect city — but ended up creating a society just as intolerant. Quakers were persecuted with public hangings and whippings. Tensions between these colonists and the Native American people rose.
The colonists brought more disease to which the Native Americans would have no immunity. Smallpox would ravage communities still recovering from the Great Dying. Violence increased. By the s, the Native Americans in this region were in the minority in their own lands and wars such as the brutal Pequot War reduced the population significantly. By Boston was an economically flourishing town with a population of about 4, and had established itself as the dominant force. When Ousamequin died in his son and heir Metacom no longer believed in the value of the alliance with the colonists.
The collapse of trade agreements and the aggressive expansion of the colonies left relations at breaking point. Tensions were raised when the colonists demanded the peace agreement should mean the Wampanoag hand over any guns, and hung three of the tribe for murder in They came up against the biggest army the c olonial leaders could muster, that fought in coalition with other tribes.
The war is seen as a final attempt to drive out the colonists and lasted 14 months. It is considered the deadliest war in American history. The colonist army burned villages as they went and by the end of the war, the Wampanoag and their Narragansett allies were almost completely destroyed.
Metacom fled to Mount Hope where he was finally killed by the militia. This war was fought by colonists without support from England or any other European government and is often seen as the moment a new American identity was formed.
Sometime in the autumn of , a group of English Pilgrims who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and created a colony called New Plymouth celebrated their first harvest. They hosted a group of about 90 Wampanoags, their Algonquian-speaking neighbors. Together, migrants and Natives feasted for three days on corn, venison and fowl.
As Gov. Bradford and other Pilgrims believed in predestination. Every event in their lives marked a stage in the unfolding of a divine plan, which often echoed the experiences of the ancient Israelites.
Throughout his account, Bradford probed Scripture for signs. Earlier European visitors had described pleasant shorelines and prosperous indigenous communities. Champlain and Smith understood that any Europeans who wanted to establish communities in this region would need either to compete with Natives or find ways to extract resources with their support.
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