Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)

The Pilgrims, also known as the Pilgrim Fathers, were the English settlers who traveled to America on the Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts (John Smith had named this territory New Plymouth in 1616, coincidentally sharing the name of the Pilgrims' final departure port of Plymouth, Devon.). The Pilgrims' leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownists, or Separatist Puritans, who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands. They held many of the same Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs but, unlike most other Puritans, they 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. The Pilgrims' story became a central theme in the history and culture of the United States. Plymouth Colony The core of the group was brought together around 1605 when they quit the Church of England to form Separatist congregations in Nottinghamshire, England led by John Robinson, Richard Clyfton, and John Smyth. Their congregations held Brownist beliefs—that true churches were voluntary democratic congregations, not whole Christian nations—as taught by Robert Browne, John Greenwood, and Henry Barrowe. As Separatists, they held that their differences with the Church of England were irreconcilable and that their worship should be independent of the trappings, traditions, and organization of a central church. The Separatist movement was controversial. Under the Act of Uniformity 1559, it was illegal not to attend official Church of England services, with a fine of one shilling (£0.05; about £ today) for each missed Sunday and holy day. The penalties included imprisonment and larger fines for conducting unofficial services.