Plimoth Plantation is a common destination for school field trips, which encourage visitors to learn by interacting with the staff and exploring the recreated landscape. On Monday, the Washington, D. Adding more homesites would allow for broader representation, Weedan says. He also emphasizes the need for discretionary authority over programming, fair and equal wages, and equal budgeting for programs. Theresa Machemer is a freelance writer based in Washington DC. In September , during the reign of King James I, a group of around English men and women—many of them members of the English Separatist Church later known to history as the Pilgrims—set sail for the New World aboard the Mayflower.
Two months later, the three-masted merchant ship landed on the shores of Cape Cod, in present-day Massachusetts. In late December, the Mayflower anchored at Plymouth Rock, where the pilgrims formed the first permanent settlement of Europeans in New England.
Though more than half of the original settlers died during that grueling first winter, the survivors were able to secure peace treaties with neighboring Native American tribes and build a largely self-sufficient economy within five years. Plymouth was the first colonial settlement in New England.
Among the group traveling on the Mayflower in were close to 40 members of a radical Puritan faction known as the English Separatist Church. Feeling that the Church of England had not sufficiently completed the necessary work of the Protestant Reformation, the group had chosen to break with the church altogether.
The Separatists had sought religious freedom before, fleeing England in and to settle in the Netherlands, first in Amsterdam and later in the town of Leiden, where they remained for the next decade. Wanting to secure their English language and heritage, and seeking more economic opportunity, the group—later known as the Pilgrims —laid plans for a voyage to the New World aboard the Mayflower.
The Pilgrims had originally signed a contract with the Virginia Company to settle near the Hudson River, but rough seas and storms prevented the ship from reaching its initial destination.
After 66 days, it reached the shores of Cape Cod, anchoring at the site of Provincetown on November The settlers decided the name was appropriate, as the Mayflower had set sail from the port of Plymouth in England. For the next few months, many of the settlers stayed on the Mayflower while ferrying back and forth to shore to build their new settlement.
In March, they began moving ashore permanently. More than half the settlers fell ill and died that first winter, victims of an epidemic of disease that swept the new colony. Soon after they moved ashore, the Pilgrims were introduced to a Native American man named Tisquantum, or Squanto, who would become a member of the colony.
In the Fall of , the Pilgrims famously shared a harvest feast with the Pokanokets; the meal is now considered the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday. It took place over three days between late September and mid-November and included feasting as well as games and military exercises. Most of the attendees at the first Thanksgiving were men; 78 percent of the women who traveled on the Mayflower perished over the preceding winter.
Of the 50 colonists who celebrated the harvest and their survival , 22 were men, four were married women and 25 were children and teenagers. Winslow records eating venison from five deer killed by the Native Americans along with chestnuts, cranberries, garlic and artichokes—all native wild plants the English were learning to use. Turkey was potentially served as well. By the late s, Thanksgiving had become an annual fall tradition.
It was written after a near mutiny on board the Mayflower. We have been known to close early because of a hurricane or two. Please dress appropriately for the weather, and you should have an enjoyable time. On rainy days the rhythm of the 17th-Century English Village changes.
Much of the outdoor work cannot be done, so the role players can be found inside their houses and sheltered workplaces. Guests tell us that these rainy days have their own cozy charm.
On extremely hot summer days, you will see less activity in the town as everyone, role players and guests alike, heads for the shade. This is not just a concession to modern comfort, however. Under such conditions the English colonists were likely to limit hard work to the cooler early morning and evening hours. The English colonists did not specifically label themselves in the letters, books and documents they wrote.
Sometimes they referred to themselves as Planters colonial farmers to distinguish themselves from the Adventurers men and women who financed the colony. More than 20 years after the arrival of Mayflower , William Bradford wrote about the church's departure from Leiden, Holland to America. Referring to Scripture, as he often did, he wrote; "they knew they were pilgrims ," in reference to Hebrews xi.
Then, as now, a pilgrim is someone on a journey with a religious or moral purpose. Bradford did not repeat the reference nor did he use "Pilgrim" as a label or title for the English in Plymouth Colony.
More than years later, this quotation was applied to everyone in Plymouth Colony, including those who were not part of the Leiden congregation. The name gained popularity in the s and remains in common usage today. Museum guests often question the unusual spelling of Plymouth in Plimoth Patuxet. Plimoth is an old-fashioned spelling used by Governor William Bradford within his history of the colony, Of Plymouth Plantation.
This spelling was adopted to differentiate the Museum from the modern town of Plymouth.
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