The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation.
But the rough seas nearly shipwrecked the Mayflower and instead they decided to stay and explore Cape Cod rather than risk another journey south. They anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. Shortly after, Susannah White gave birth to a son aboard the Mayflower, the first English child born in the colony. The colonists knew they had no right to settle in this land they had unintentionally arrived upon and decided to draw up a document that gave them some attempt at legal standing.
So upon arrival the settlers drew up the Mayflower Compact. Signed by 41 men on board, the compact was an agreement to cooperate for the general good of the colony. They would deal with issues by voting, establish constitutional law and rule by the majority. In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Codd the Anno Dom.
The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, while most stayed on board the ship, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. Watching on were a small group of Native Americans, people for whom this area was already home.
The new arrivals tried to follow them but got lost and stuck among some dense thickets. They decided to change course and came across cleared land where corn had been grown and abandoned houses. They found buried corn, which they took back to the ship, intending to plant it and grow more corn, eventually returning what they had taken.
They also found graves. This village they had stumbled upon was once called Patuxet but had since been deserted following the outbreak of disease. This was a legacy of what the Native American people had already experienced from European colonists in the 17 th century. The native inhabitants of the region around Plymouth Colony were the various groups of the Wampanoag people and other tribes, who had lived there for some 10, years before the Europeans arrived.
When the Separatists were living in Leiden in , in the same year a map was published detailing explorations of the Cape Cod area to the Bay of Fundy. But these names were meaningless to the people who lived in this region, which is thought to have been known as Dawnland.
And to them was memorable for very different reasons — the outbreak of European diseases that would devastate their communities. Ships from England had been fishing and trading in North America waters since the beginning of the 16 th century. They would also bring Native Americans back to Europe — some as slaves — often to callously exhibit.
Some were taught English so they could become interpreters in future. In , six years before the Pilgrims arrived, 27 natives were seized by a man called Thomas Hunt. The majority came from Patuxet, the very abandoned village the Pilgrims would later find, and what is now modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts. One of these was named Tisquantum also known as Squanto. Hunt tried to sell the natives as slaves in Spain but somehow Tisquantum made his way to England, where he learned some English and was used as an interpreter in future trips to America.
Eventually he found his way back to Patuxet, where tragically he found his family and village had been wiped out by disease brought by European settlers and explorers. In the winter of an expedition dispatched by Sir Ferdinando Gorges found a region devastated by war and disease, the remaining people so "sore afflicted with the plague, for that the country was in a manner left void of inhabitants.
So before the Mayflower arrived, this region had greatly suffered from the effects of colonisation. Before settling on what is now Plymouth, the Pilgrims explored other areas of the coast, including an area inhabited by the Nauset people.
They saw some figures on the shore who fled when they approached. They explored and found more graves, which they decided not to dig. They remained ashore overnight and the following morning, they were attacked with arrows. The colonists shot back with guns but could not find them. That would be the last contact until the spring. On December 25, , the Saints and the Strangers departed the bleak shores of Provincetown and arrived, finally, in what is now Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, on 26 th December They decided this place, once home to the people of Patuxet, would be where they settled and began construction of their first buildings.
But the first winter was cold and many of the passengers stayed on board the Mayflower. The ship became home to the sick and dying, with many succumbing to a mixture of contagious diseases.
The first common house nearly completed in January, built for general use. Each single man was ordered to join himself to one of the 19 families in order to eliminate the need to build any more houses than absolutely necessary. Each extended family was assigned a plot and they each built their own home and the settlement was mostly built by February. The first house was built as a hospital.
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. The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century.
They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not 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. Two months later, the three-masted That story is incomplete—by the time Englishmen had begun to establish colonies in earnest, there were plenty of French, Spanish, Dutch and even Sailing for more than two months across 3, miles of open ocean, the passengers of the Mayflower—including three pregnant women and more than a dozen children—were squeezed below decks in crowded, cold and damp conditions, suffering crippling bouts of seasickness, and In , the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the On May 14, , a group of roughly members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River.
Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. The Mayflower. The Pilgrims. Mystery at Roanoke. Mayflower Compact The Mayflower Compact was a set of rules for self-governance established by the English settlers who traveled to the New World on the Mayflower.
The Pilgrims Some people, many of them seeking religious freedom in the New World, set sail from England on the Mayflower in September The Puritans The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. The boy was aptly named Oceanus. The Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod in modern-day Massachusetts on 9 November and if the voyage had been bad, that was nothing compared to the first winter that followed.
Due to food shortages and outbreaks of disease, only half that had made the journey survived to see spring and the creation of their New World settlement, Plymouth. While anchored at Cape Cod, 41 Pilgrims — worried that law and order would break down once ashore — signed an agreement on 11 November.
Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses.
0コメント