Can you imagine...
Can you imagine being on a boat for 2 months and 5 days? This expert wonders what it must have been like. However, the passengers on board the Mayflower definitely knew how hard it must have been. Also, did you know that they named the new colony after their Port of departure, Plymouth. Among the group traveling on the Mayflower in 1620 were 40 members of a Puritan group known as the English Separatist Church. Feeling that the Church of England had not completed the work of the Protestant Reformation, the group had chosen to leave the church altogether. The Separatists had sought religious freedom before, fleeing England in 1607. Wanting to secure their English customs and seeking more economic opportunity, the Pilgrims made plans for a voyage to the New World aboard the Mayflower.
The Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was made to keep peace and order throughout the colony of Plymouth.
It was signed by 41 English colonists on the Mayflower ship on November 11,1620. The Mayflower Compact also served as a platform for the initial governing body of the colony by electing a Governor who enacted laws that ensured there would be some form of law and order.
This researcher thinks that this was a very smart early decision to create some form of rules and boundaries for people to follow. Where there is some type of control you will have less people making bad decisions and creating bad situations.
Geography
When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, they arrived there too late, so they could not plant any crops. Their environment was not bad, it was nice land. Unlike Jamestown, it was not marsh land or full of disease carrying mosquitoes. The following spring their crops grew very well on their new land. The Indians helped teach them to grow corn, beans, squash, etc. However, the weather was very harsh, very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. This historian realizes that the differences in land quality between Plymouth and Jamestown made a big difference in their ability to grow crops and produce enough food to live better.
Hardships
This researcher believes it was definitely no cake walk settling the Plymouth colony! It was very hard, they had trouble planting their crops because it was already too cold when they arrived. They also needed to learn from the Indians how to plant crops since they didn’t know how to do it on their own. The weather was very harsh. A terrible epidemic killed half of the Plymouth Colony, 45 of the 102 Pilgrims died that first winter and were buried on Cole's Hill. At first they had problems with the Wampanoag Indians but later they signed a peace treaty with an Indian named Squanto and settled their past differences and lived together peacefully.
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Conclusion
There may have been many hardships: being on a boat for 2 months, harsh and cold weather, little food, Indian fighting, and an epidemic that killed half of their community.. But luckily it all payed off in the end, because Plymouth became a successful Colony. Plymouth is still the home to many people today. This researcher thinks that the reason they survived was because of strong leadership, their willingness to work, perseverance, and their determination to keep their religious freedom at any cost.
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