MAYFLOWER DEPARTS ENGLAND:

This is one of those momentous occasions in history that dosen't seem like much at the time. This occured because of another event that we will be "celebrating" on October 12th. Columbus Day or Beginning of Genocide Day depending on your perspective............PEACE............Scott

MAYFLOWER DEPARTS ENGLAND:
September 16, 1620

The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, bound for the New World with 102
passengers. The ship was headed for Virginia, where the colonists--half
religious dissenters and half entrepreneurs--had been authorized to settle by
the British crown. However, stormy weather and navigational errors forced the
Mayflower off course, and on November 21 the "Pilgrims" reached Massachusetts,
where they founded the first permanent European settlement in New England in
late December.Thirty-five of the Pilgrims were members of the radical English
Separatist Church, who traveled to America to escape the jurisdiction of the
Church of England, which they found corrupt. Ten years earlier, English
persecution had led a group of Separatists to flee to Holland in search of
religious freedom. However, many were dissatisfied with economic opportunities
in the Netherlands, and under the direction of William Bradford they decided to
immigrate to Virginia, where an English colony had been founded at Jamestown in
1607.The Separatists won financial backing from a group of investors called the
London Adventurers, who were promised a sizable share of the colony's profits.
Three dozen church members made their way back to England, where they were
joined by about 70 entrepreneurs--enlisted by the London stock company to ensure
the success of the enterprise. In August 1620, the Mayflower left Southampton
with a smaller vessel--the Speedwell--but the latter proved unseaworthy and
twice was forced to return to port. On September 16, the Mayflower left for
America alone from Plymouth.In a difficult Atlantic crossing, the 90-foot
Mayflower encountered rough seas and storms and was blown more than 500 miles
off course. Along the way, the settlers formulated and signed the Mayflower
Compact, an agreement that bound the signatories into a "civil body politic."
Because it established constitutional law and the rule of the majority, the
compact is regarded as an important precursor to American democracy. After a
66-day voyage, the ship landed on November 21 on the tip of Cape Cod at what is
now Provincetown, Massachusetts.After coming to anchor in Provincetown harbor, a
party of armed men under the command of Captain Myles Standish was sent out to
explore the area and find a location suitable for settlement. While they were
gone, Susanna White gave birth to a son, Peregrine, aboard the Mayflower. He was
the first English child born in New England. In mid-December, the explorers went
ashore at a location across Cape Cod Bay where they found cleared fields and
plentiful running water and named the site Plymouth. The expedition returned to
Provincetown, and on December 21 the Mayflower came to anchor in Plymouth
harbor. Just after Christmas, the pilgrims began work on dwellings that would
shelter them through their difficult first winter in America.In the first year
of settlement, half the colonists died of disease. In 1621, the health and
economic condition of the colonists improved, and that autumn Governor William
Bradford invited neighboring Indians to Plymouth to celebrate the bounty of that
year's harvest season. Plymouth soon secured treaties with most local Indian
tribes, and the economy steadily grew, and more colonists were attracted to the
settlement. By the mid 1640s, Plymouth's population numbered 3,000 people, but
by then the settlement had been overshadowed by the larger Massachusetts Bay
Colony to the north, settled by Puritans in 1629.The term "Pilgrim" was not used
to describe the Plymouth colonists until the early 19th century and was derived
from a manuscript in which Governor Bradford spoke of the "saints" who left
Holland as "pilgrimes." The orator Daniel Webster spoke of "Pilgrim Fathers" at
a bicentennial celebration of Plymouth's founding in 1820, and thereafter the
term entered common usage.


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