1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to settle in North America.
Mayflower was an English square-rigged merchant sailing ship, active from before 1609 until 1622. She was 110 feet long and 25 feet in the beam, with several decks. She was notable in that she transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After 10 weeks at sea,
Mayflower, with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, reached what is today the United States, dropping anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts on 21 November 1620. The Pilgrims, often conflated with the Puritans (who sought to reform and purify the Church of England from within), sought separation from the church and prayed privately. They believed that the church's resistance to reform and its Roman Catholic past left it beyond redemption. Starting in 1608, a group of English families departed England for the Netherlands, where they could worship freely. By 1620, the community resolved to cross the Atlantic Ocean for America, which they considered a "new Promised Land" where they would establish Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims had originally hoped to reach America by early October using two ships, and had a second arranged for the voyage,
Speedwell, which, however, proved unseaworthy and so was left behind in England. The ensuing delays and complications restricted the Pilgrims' journey to a single ship,
Mayflower. Before disembarking from her, they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that established a rudimentary government in which each member would contribute to the safety and welfare of the planned settlement. Arriving in November, they were unprepared to endure a harsh winter. Local indigenous peoples assisted the colonists in gathering food, but only half of the original Pilgrims survived the first winter at Plymouth following an outbreak of disease. The following year, the survivors celebrated the colony's first fall harvest along with 90 Wampanoag people, an occasion declared in centuries later as the first American Thanksgiving. As one of the earliest colonial vessels, Mayflower has become a cultural icon in the history of the United States. "Plymouth Colony was the first experiment in consensual government in Western history between individuals with one another, and not with a monarch," noted author Rebecca Fraser. "The colony was a mutual enterprise, not an imperial expedition organized by the Spanish or English governments. In order to survive, it depended on the consent of the colonists themselves. Necessary in order to bind the community together, it was revolutionary by chance."
