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The Pilgrims
The Pilgrim leaders chose the site at Plymouth for their new home because it
had a broad, sheltered harbor and a large brook providing fresh water. There
were also wooded hills to supply timber and stretches of cleared ground for
farming. The Pilgrims landed at what is now Provincetown, Mass., on Nov. 21,
1620. A month later, on December 21, they arrived at the site of Plymouth.
Their captain, Christopher Jones, named the spot in honor of Plymouth,
England--the harbor from which the Pilgrims had sailed on the
Mayflower
nearly 14 weeks earlier.
Some of the settlers were called Separatists because they had withdrawn from
the Church of England to seek religious freedom in the English Separatist
Church. They immigrated first to the Netherlands and then to North America.
They gave thanks that their long, hard voyage was over; but greater hardships
lay ahead.
The First Winter
The cruel New England winter had already set in when the Pilgrims landed. While
they were building small dwellings and a storehouse, they had to row through
the icy surf to their crowded quarters on the tossing
Mayflower.
The store of food was low. The Pilgrims were not skilled at hunting and
fishing, nor were they equipped with fishing boats and gear.
Many Pilgrims developed scurvy or pneumonia. At times there were no more than
six or seven well persons to care for the others. Two of these were Elder
William Brewster and Captain Miles Standish, the military leader. Of the band
of more than 100 Pilgrims who landed, half were dead before winter's end.
Among those who died was Governor John Carver. The colony survived under the
devoted leadership of his successor, William Bradford. The Pilgrims were afraid
to let the Indians know how greatly their numbers were reduced. They buried the
dead at night and leveled the ground to conceal the graves.
No Indian tribes lived in or near Plymouth. The Patuxet Indians who had lived
in the area had been wiped out by smallpox four years earlier, and the fields
they had cleared lay vacant. The neighboring Indians proved friendly. Samoset
and Squanto, two of their first friends, had learned to speak English from
explorers and could act as interpreters.
Samoset arranged a meeting with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag Indians.
A peace treaty was signed, and it was not broken by either side as long as any
of the signers lived. Massasoit proved to be a loyal friend. He notified the
Pilgrims when other tribes threatened to attack. One day a Narraganset brave
came bearing the skin of a rattlesnake bound around a bunch of arrows as a
challenge to war. Governor Bradford returned the skin filled with bullets, and
the Indians abandoned the attack.
Squanto, or Tisquantum, had been captured by the crew of an English vessel and
sold as a slave in Spain. He escaped to England and returned on an exploring
ship. He and another Indian, Hobomok, made their homes in Plymouth. They taught
the colonists to plant corn and to catch herring for fertilizer by using a
trap. When the 1621 harvest was bountiful, the Pilgrims held their first
Thanksgiving
feast. They invited Massasoit, who came with 90 braves. Fortunately the
Indian hunters brought five deer.
The Pilgrims were handicapped by their contract with the London merchant
adventurers who had supplied the money for the voyage to America. No settler
could work for his own gain. All they produced had to be placed in a common
store. From it the people were given food and other necessities. When they
traded with the Indians or cut and sawed timber, they had to ship the furs and
lumber to London. The merchants were slow in forwarding supplies. Sometimes
they sent over settlers who brought no provisions and had to be fed from the
scanty stores. The Pilgrims went through many hungry seasons.
Land was granted to each settler in 1627. Then each man had a reason to work
hard and provide for his own family. The crops improved. The same year Governor
Bradford and other leaders bought out the English merchants by an agreement to
pay off the colony's debts in return for the right to trade with the
Indians. Many trading posts were quickly built.
Plymouth's most prosperous years were from 1630 to 1640 when the
Massachusetts Bay Colony attracted about 16,000 colonists. The Puritans found a
ready market for their corn, livestock, and other provisions. This prosperity
led to the weakening of the tight-knit religious colony. Families moved away to
find pasture for their stock. Plymouth shrank in size and influence. In 1691 it
was absorbed by Massachusetts when that colony obtained a new charter.
Plymouth Today
Visitors to modern Plymouth find many reminders of the past. On the waterfront
is the famous Plymouth Rock under a granite canopy. Here, according to
tradition, the first Pilgrims stepped ashore. Back of the Rock on Cole's
Hill, where the dead had been secretly buried, stands a statue of Massasoit.
None of the original houses remain along Leyden Street; but on nearby streets
there are five which were built later in the 1600s and several erected in the
18th century.
In Pilgrim Hall, erected by the Pilgrim Society in 1824, are the patent of
Plymouth Colony, granted by the Council for New England in 1621; the chairs of
Elder Brewster and Governor Carver; the cradle of Peregrine White, first white
child born in New England; the Bible of Governor Bradford, printed 1592; and
the sword of Miles Standish. A National Monument to the Forefathers is in
northwest Plymouth.
On Burial Hill, where the old fort was built in the summer of 1622, stands a
reproduction of the powder house. The main floor of the fort was used as a
meetinghouse, and cannon were mounted on the roof. A project to reconstruct the
old fort and other Pilgrim buildings has been sponsored by Plimoth Plantation,
Inc., a nonprofit society. A 106-foot replica of the
Mayflower
sailed from England in 1957 and is now on exhibit in Plymouth. Plymouth's
economy is based on tourism, rope-making, and the fishing industry. There are
many wharves and boat yards. Population (1990 census), 45,608.
This information comes from
Compton's Encyclopedia Online v3.0 © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.
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