Who Were the "Pilgrims?"

What's a “Pilgrim” anyway?
What do you think of when you hear the word “Pilgrim?” Maybe you think of people leaving their homes in search of religious freedom in America. Maybe you think of grim-faced people wearing black and white clothing with pointed collars and buckles. Or maybe you think of Thanksgiving with the “Indians.” Although all of these are popular ways to think about the “Pilgrims,” they are not correct.

In fact, the “Pilgrims” weren't really pilgrims at all! The word pilgrim refers to someone who travels a great distance to a special or sacred place for religious reasons. But the people who came on Mayflower in 1620 and settled on the site of modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts didn't come just for religious reasons. Mainly, they came for economic ones—to build a better life for themselves and their families. So, that's why at Plimoth Plantation, we call these people English colonists.

Setting Up a Colony in the “New World”
The Colonists were supposed to set up a fishing colony, a town that made a living by catching fish and sending them back to England to be sold. Fishermen from European countries had been sailing to these plentiful waters for over 100 years for just the same purpose, but they never stayed. So this was different» the town of Plymouth was the first permanent English settlement in New England.

It costs a lot of money to sail across the ocean, bring everything you need and set up a new colony. Since the English colonists were all of the “ middlin sort,” neither very poor nor very rich, they depended upon some wealthy men in London to pay for everything. In return they promised to work together as a company for 7 year's time. At the end of their 7-year contract, the colonists would get land in the “New World” and the wealthy men in London would be even wealthier because of all the fish sent back. As it turned out, it was more profitable for the colonists to trade with Native people for beaver and otter furs, and then send the furs back, than try to catch all that fish.

The promise of owning land was very important to Englishmen in the 17th century. Does your family own any land? Do your parents own the house you live in? Well, chances are if you lived back then, your family would not be able to own land or houses, no matter how hard they worked or how much money they saved. Only a very wealthy class of people called the “gentry” owned land in England in the 1600s. So this was an important opportunity for the families that came to live and work in the “New World.”

Of course, it wasn't really a new world, but since Europeans had not settled on the land, that's what they called it. Native Peoples had been living in North America for thousands of years before the English colonists arrived. And the land the colonists claimed first belonged to the Wampanoag People. You can read more about the Wampanoag in “Who are the Wampanoag?" and the other Homework Help essays.

Who came?
The Englishmen who sailed on the Mayflower were a very unusual mixture of people from many different backgrounds. Some came from big cities like London, others came from small towns and villages in the country. Some had been fishermen, but many had been weavers, farmers, or even printers. Though they joined together as one group on Mayflower , not all of these people knew each other beforehand. About half of these original settlers had been living together as part of an English church in Holland. The other half may have had connections with that church, but most of them were probably people gathered together from various places, simply hoping to improve their lot in life.

Building a New Church
The King of England at that time was King James. As King, he was also head of the Church of England. Small groups of English people criticized his church for being too much like a Catholic church, and not true to what the Bible says a church should be. One group of people wanted to make the King's Church more “pure,” and they came to be called “Puritans.” There were also “Separatists,” who believed that the English church was so bad it was beyond repair. They wanted to separate and form their own church. Such a thing was not allowed in England at that time; it was illegal and punishable by law.

To escape persecution, some Separatists from the northern part of England went to Holland and built a church they believed was a proper one. Although the Dutch allowed them to practice their religion as they wished, the members of this reformed English church experienced other problems. Holland did not feel like home and it was a hard place to live. They could not get good, well-paying jobs. Some families even were forced to send their children to work long hours for very little money. They were also afraid that their children were going to forget how to speak English and lose their English ways.

After about 10 years of such worries, these Englishmen started looking for a new place to live. When the opportunity came to join a new fishing company, many of them took it, even though they knew it would be difficult in the “New World.” They looked forward to living in a place where they could practice their religion as they wished, save their families from such desperate poverty, and have some land for themselves.

A Continuing Story...
Almost 200 years after the Mayflower sailed, when the United States was a brand new country just separated from England, the story of the English colonists became famous as a way for people to be proud of their heritage. Many Americans began to use the word “Pilgrims,” forgetting that not all of the colonists were part of the same church and that they came for many different reasons. Many didn't carefully study how the English colonists dressed, so they painted pictures of them wearing buckles and pointy white collars, when they really didn't wear that style of clothing at that time. They forgot other important details too, like the “First Thanksgiving” was not really the first, nor was it really a “Thanksgiving!” You can read all about the way the English Colonists dressed, Thanksgiving, and many interesting topics in the other Homework Help essays. Enjoy!

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