In the seventeenth century (that is, between the year 1600 and the year 1700) there was much religious persecution. In some countries the Catholics persecuted the Protestants, in other countries the Protestants persecuted the Catholics, and sometimes one kind of Protestants persecuted another. There were people in England who did not like the ceremonies of the Church of England, as established by law. These were called Puritans. Some of these went so far as to separate themselves from the Established Church, and thus got the name of Separatists. They were persecuted in England, and many of them fled to Holland.

Among these were the members of a little Separatist congregation in Scrooby, in the north of England. Their pastor's name was John Robinson. In 1607, the year in which Jamestown was settled, these persecuted people left England and settled in Holland, where they lived about thirteen years, most of the time in the city of Leyden [li'-den]. Then they thought they would like to plant a colony in America, where they could be religious in their own way. These are the people that we call "The Pilgrims," on account of their wanderings for the sake of their religion.

About half of them were to go first. The rest went down to the sea to say farewell to those who were going. It was a sad parting, as they all knelt down on the shore and prayed together. The Pilgrims came to America in a ship called the Mayflower. There were about a hundred of them, and they had a stormy and wretched passage. They intended to go to the Hudson River, but their captain took them to Cape Cod. After exploring the coast north of that cape for some distance, they selected as a place to land a harbor which had been called Plymouth on the map prepared by Captain John Smith, who had sailed along this coast in an open boat in 1614.

All the American Indians who had lived at this place had died a few years before of a pestilence, and the Pilgrims found the American Indian fields unoccupied. They first landed at this place on the nth day of December, 1620, as the days were then counted. This is the same as the 21st of December now, the mode of counting having changed since that time. (Through a mistake, the 22nd of December is generally kept in New England as "Forefathers' Day.") Before landing, the Pilgrims drew up an agreement by which they promised to be governed.

The bad voyage, the poor food with which they were provided, and a lack of good shelter in a climate colder than that from which they came, had their natural effect. Like the first settlers at Jamestown, they were soon nearly all sick. Forty-four out of the hundred Pilgrims died before the winter was ended, and by the time the first year was over half of them were dead. The Pilgrims were afraid of the American Indians, some of whom had attacked the first exploring party that had landed. To prevent the American Indians from finding out how much the party had been weakened by disease, they leveled all the graves, and planted Indian corn over the place in which the dead were buried.

One day, after the winter was over, an American Indian walked into the village and said in English, "Welcome, Englishmen." He was a chief named Sam-o'-set, who had learned a little English from the fishermen on the coast of Maine. Samoset afterward brought with him an American Indian named Squanto, who had been carried away to England by a cruel captain many years before, and then brought back. Squanto remained with the Pilgrims, and taught them how to plant their corn as the American Indians did, by putting one or two fish into every hill for manure. He taught them many other things, and acted as their interpreter in their trading with the American Indians. He told the American Indians that they must keep peace with the settlers, who had the pestilence stored in their cellar along with the gunpowder. The neighboring chief, Mas-sa-so'-it, was also a good friend to the Pilgrims as long as he lived.

Captain Myles Standish was the military commander at Plymouth. He dealt severely with any American Indians supposed to be hostile. Finding that certain of the Massachusetts Indians were planning to kill all the settlers, he and some of his men seized the plotters suddenly and killed them with the knives which the American Indians wore suspended from their own necks.

The people of Plymouth suffered much from scarcity of food for several years. They had often nothing but oysters or clams to eat for a long time together, and no drink but water Like the Jamestown people, they tried a plan of living out of a common stock, but with no better success. In 1624 each family received a small allotment of land for its own, and from that time there was always plenty to eat in Plymouth. Others of the Pilgrims came to them from Holland, as well as a few emigrants from England. Plymouth Colony was, next to Virginia, the oldest colony of all, but it did not grow very fast, and in 1692, by a charter from King William III, it was united with Massachusetts, of which its territory still forms a part.



PILGRIMS AT HOME

The Pilgrims held their meetings in a square house on top of a hill at Plymouth. On the flat roof of this house were six small cannons. The people were called to church by the beating of a drum. The men carried loaded firearms with them when they went to meeting on Sunday, and put them where they could reach them easily. The town was surrounded by a stockade and had three gates. Elder Brewster was the religious teacher of the Pilgrims at Plymouth; their minister, John Robinson, having stayed with those who waited in Holland, and died there. It is said that Brewster, when he had nothing but shellfish and water for dinner, would cheerfully give thanks that they were "permitted to suck of the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand."