The crossing aboard the Mayflower
On November 11, 1620, the Mayflower, a merchant ship that had left England sixty-six days earlier, anchored at Cape Cod. On board were 102 men, women and children, many of whom had fled Europe to escape religious persecution. It was the Pilgrim Fathers, English separatists who had failed to settle in Holland, who organized the voyage. They are leaving for the New World in the hope of founding a community in which they can freely practice their religion. The Mayflower did not carry only religious dissidents, however. Among the passengers were adventurers, merchants, artisans and servants, considered by the Pilgrim Fathers to be necessary for the success of the colony. Most of them came from modest backgrounds. Among the most illustrious passengers was John Carver, an English separatist accompanied by his wife, one of their children and five servants. During the crossing, Carver was elected governor of the Mayflower and became the first governor of the colony of Plymouth. There is also John Alden, a carpenter on the crew who will marry a Mayflower passenger shortly after his arrival in the New World. When he died at 89, Alden would be one of the last survivors of the Mayflower. But of all the men on board, Stephen Hopkins, a merchant and tanner recruited to help establish the colony, was the only one with experience in the New World. He had already spent four years in Virginia between 1610 and 1614, in the first English colony of Jamestown established in 1607. About forty children were also part of the voyage, as well as an infant, born on board, who was called Oceanus. The Mayflower's voyage, which was not designed to carry passengers, was not at all restful: crammed into the dark and damp holds of the ship, dirty, hungry and, for some, suffering from scurvy, the passengers had to face particularly difficult living conditions. A dozen or so passengers should have been on board another ship, the Speedwell, which was supposed to make the same journey as the Mayflower, but had to turn back for repairs. Initially planned for July, the trip was postponed and the Mayflower left, alone on the water, two months late and at the height of the hurricane season. During the crossing, the Pilgrim Fathers wrote a short document dictating that new laws would be put in place after their arrival in the New World: the Mayflower Compact, which specified that these rules would be fair, equal and established for the good of the new colony. Almost all the men on board signed it before setting foot ashore. The settlers, who described themselves in the document as the "loyal subjects" of King James I, did not intend to declare their independence. However, the Mayflower Compact was a testament to their desire for freedom and the first document to introduce the idea of self-government.
The founding of the Colony of Plymouth
Settlers initially decided to settle in Virginia, where the first English colony was founded in 1607. However, they were unable to reach their intended destination because of winter winds that swept across the Atlantic coast and deflected their course. They finally decided to anchor at the tip of Cape Cod, next to the present-day town of Provincetown. Cape Cod's sandy landscape and conflicting relationships with local Indian tribes, however, prompted the settlers to explore the area in search of a more suitable site for their settlement. They settled along the coastline and founded the colony of Plymouth, named after the English city from which the Mayflower had departed a few months earlier. While waiting to build their homes, the new arrivals spent many months aboard the moored ship. Here, a new start seems possible, but the hostile environment and harsh climate of this completely unknown territory works against them. Who could have expected the winter in this region to be so different from the one they experienced in Europe? So terrible? The already frozen ground made cultivation impossible and soon the first men and women died of cold, hunger and disease. Half of the passengers on the Mayflower, including the young Oceanus, died during the first winter at Plymouth. Those who survive owe their salvation to the intervention of Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, who takes pity on these starving strangers and offers them food. He teaches them how to hunt, fish and farm the land of their new country. Under his guidance, the settlers plant squash, beans and corn. In April 1621, a treaty of peace and mutual protection between the settlers and the Wampanoags was drawn up, in which both sides agreed not to harm the other. It was signed by Massasoit and John Carver, the first governor of the colony of Plymouth, who died tragically a few days later. It is the first known agreement signed between settlers and an Amerindian tribe. It will be honoured for more than fifty years.
The Mayflower makes history..
Thanks to the help of Massasoit, the harvest of autumn 1621 was good and the settlers could finally eat their fill. William Bradford, the new governor of the colony and one of the signatories of the Mayflower Compact, decreed three days of Thanksgiving and organized a large celebratory meal. It was an opportunity for the pilgrims, who were very religious, to thank God for the blessings they had received since their arrival on the continent. By way of thanksgiving, they invite Massasoit and about a hundred Wampanoags to participate in this feast. Wild turkeys, game, berries, lobster and squash are tasted. It is from this shared meal in Plymouth that the traditional Thanksgiving feast, one of the most important in the United States, is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. In the following years, the colony of Plymouth grew with the arrival of new boats from England. In the 1640s, it had a population of about 2,000. Some passengers on the Mayflower were joined by their families, whom they had left behind. In 70 years, the colony's population grew from less than 100 to nearly 3,000. In a booklet entitled Mourt's Relation, William Bradford and Edward Winslow recount their daily life in Plymouth, including the first Thanksgiving and the crossing aboard the Mayflower. Published in London in 1621, the book provides an excellent overview of life in the New World and encourages other Puritans to join the ranks of the settlers. Between 1620 and 1640, approximately 20,000 people left the Kingdom of England to settle in New England. Some came from a privileged background and left a comfortable daily life for a life full of the unknown and adversity. Not all of them would stay: nearly 10% of the settlers would eventually return to England before 1640. By the late 1680s, the population of New England was estimated at 60,000. Today, more than 35 million people have a Mayflower passenger as their ancestor, including 10 million Americans. These include historic figures such as Presidents John Adams and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Clint Eastwood.
The Legacy of the Mayflower and the Plymouth Colony
On April 5, 1621, four months after the arrival of the settlers at Cape Cod, the Mayflower sailed back to England with the crew. The settlers had completed the construction of their wooden houses and no longer needed to spend the night aboard the ship, which returned to England on May 9. The Mayflower is traced back to 1624, when an evaluation of the ship took place to authenticate it, and no one really knows what happened to it afterwards. It is assumed that she was sold in parts in England. However, a replica of the ship, called the Mayflower II, was built in England in 1955, using traditional techniques similar to those of the first Mayflower. As early as 1956, the Mayflower II left the English city of Plymouth for her American twin, replicating the route taken by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. After several years of renovation, notably at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, the replica made its grand return to Plymouth in 2020. Today it is possible to relive the daily life of the early settlers on the East Coast by visiting the Plimoth Plantation. This museum complex tells the story of the pilgrims and reconstructs the colony of Plymouth as it was in the 17th century. There are several sites including a mill, modest wooden houses and a farm, faithfully reconstructed to take us back to the time of the pilgrims. Characters in period costumes make us relive the history of the settlers, as if we were! Every year, in November, the Thanksgiving meal is recreated as faithfully as possible. Downtown Plymouth also has several sites that bear witness to the importance of the settlers. The Pilgrim Hall Museum is a museum dedicated to the Pilgrim Fathers and the history of the Mayflower. It was founded in 1824, making it the oldest continuously open museum in the United States. To get an idea of where the Mayflower passengers anchored four centuries ago, just look at Plymouth Rock, a large rock with the date of their arrival, 1620. Nearby, the National Monument to the Forefathers, a granite monument built in 1889, also pays homage to the pilgrims. As for the statue of Massasoit, it honours the Indian tribal chief who came to the aid of the pilgrims and commemorates the alliance between the settlers and the Wampanoags. Finally, a few historic houses built in the era of the settlers are still standing. This is the case of Richard Sparrow House, built in the 1640s and considered to be the oldest house in Plymouth. It's enough to put oneself in the shoes of the men and women in search of freedom and adventure who shaped this unknown territory and laid the foundations of the future United States. The 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower was to be celebrated with great pomp and circumstance in 2020, but the festivities planned in Plymouth were unfortunately disrupted by the Covid-19 outbreak.
