Who were the Pilgrims?

Bow of the Mayflower II

Who were the Pilgrims? The term "Pilgrims" is applied generally to all of the people who sailed on the English ship named the Mayflower and who arrived in the Massacusetts Bay on November 11, 1620, 400 years ago this year (2020). The Pilgrim story as it has evolved in the United States claims that the "Pilgrims" came to America to avoid religious persecution and the tradition lumps all of the passengers and crew in this one category. There were four general categories of people on the Mayflower:

• Separatitsts
• Non-Separatists
• Indentured Servants
• Contracted Mayflower Sailors

There were 32 sailors who were the crew of the ship. The sailors had contracted to stay a year after arriving. However, because of the late arrival and because of the lack of adequate maps and directions, the whole expedition was originally supposed to be going to the Virginia Colony with the intent of settling near what is now New York City. See Who were the Pilgrims? 

The religious segment of the are called Separatists. They began their existence near Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England where they suffered persecution from the English government and the Church of England. The eventually moved to the Netherlands (Holland) where they stayed for about 12 years. Some of the Separatists had children born in the Netherlands.  My direct-line Ancestor, Francis Cooke had his first five children in Holland. The move to America was likely made for economic and cultural reasons. My question would be, why did they move back into an English colony if they were worried about religious freedom?

Now, the Non-Separists. Here is a quote from the FamilySearch blog article, "Mayflower Passenger List and Other Mayflower Passenger Facts."

The “strangers,” as they are sometimes called, included English families and individuals who were recruited by London merchants to help establish the Colony of Virginia. These individuals outnumbered the group of Separatists. 

I can imagine that this group was not overjoyed to find out they had landed outside of the Viginia Colony. Some accounts explain what happed as does this one from History.com's article, "Did the Pilgrims intend to land at Plymouth?"

During their years in exile in Holland, the Pilgrims had heard favorable reports of the lands around present-day New York City visited by Henry Hudson on his Dutch-sponsored voyage in 1609. They sailed from England with a royal patent to settle the region, which skirted the 41st latitude and marked the northernmost point of land chartered by the Virginia Company of London. Since the Pilgrims lacked royal authority to settle in New England, however, some Mayflower passengers threatened to abandon the colony. To ensure the colonists continued to respect the rule of law, 41 of the men aboard the ship signed the Mayflower Compact, which outlined the governing principles of the Plymouth Colony.

Hmm. The Separatists were coming from Holland to a place that would shortly be claimed by the Dutch but the majority of the passengers were contracted with the Viginia Colony. I am guessing there was a lot more going on than the simple story that these people came to America for religious freedom. Could the English merchants have been trying to beat the Dutch to New York? 

Twenty of the 104 passengers (or 102 depending where you get your information) were indentured servants. Obviously, this group did not come to America either voluntarily or for religious reasons. The Plymouth Colony Archive Project article, "Servants and Masters in the Plymouth Colony" has this explanation. 

The success of Plymouth Colony depended on hard work and cheap labor. For the Colonists in Plymouth, cheap labor came in the form of indentured servants. Twenty of the 104 Pilgrims to arrive on the Mayflower were servants (Stratton 1986: 179). Within the first year of the settlement twelve of these servants had died. In addition to the servants who died, almost half of the non-indentured population perished during the first year in Massachusetts. By the spring of 1621, the surviving Colonists were faced with the daunting task of designing and building a stable, long-lasting Colony.

You may want to read the entire article as it also explains the existence of slavery in the colony. 

The last group of people were the contracted Mayflower sailors. Only a very few of the crew of the Mayflower can be identified from contemporary records. Caleb Johnson's MayflowerHistory.com website lists only 13 identified sailors which include the famous, John Alden, who was a cooper or barrel-maker. Only three of the sailors, including John Alden, survived the first winter. 

Given this makeup of the passengers and crew of the Mayflower, I assume that the story of what happened was far more complicated than the simple history of America's First Thanksgiving. 

By the way, when they arrived, they found a country whose inhabitants had been decimated by a huge European disease epidemic. That is probably the main reason that the Eurpean colonists were not summarily killed or pushed back into the ocean. As it was, only about 30 of the Separatists survived the first year but by then, they were the majority, and William Bradford, a Separatist, wrote the history.