On September 16, 1920, a new type of colonizer sailed from England for America.  Late that year, the Mayflower dropped anchor off Cape Cod. On board were fifty men, twenty women and a number of children, thirty-four in all, known either as Saints or Strangers.  The Saints were the Pilgrims and the Strangers were recruited in and around London by the merchant adventurers who financed the voyage.

The Pilgrims were looking for freedom of religion and a place to escape poverty, where they might live more easily by farming and fishing.  The Strangers could care less about freedom of religion, belonging to the Anglican Church, the established Church of England and were content with it. They were seeking free land and a place to better improve their lifestyle, and as long as they were willing to work hard, the merchant adventurers were not concerned with religion. 

The Saints, however, concerning religion said, “It’s our way or no way.”  The very bondage they were fleeing, the Church of England, they were imposing on these Strangers.  (The fight for freedom of religion was won generations later when the Quakers, Baptists, Anglicans and others broke the one Church rule of the Saints.) 

Mutiny was brewing among the Strangers as the Mayflower dropped anchor. To preserve unity, the Saints (Pilgrims) drew up an agreement, now known as the Mayflower Compact, and had all sign it.  This compact was the first form of Democracy, where all, both Saints and Strangers, were ruled by just and equal laws.  This was the beginning of America, as we know it today. Both saints and sinners all have the same rights to be equal, based on the Constitution. 

The Pilgrims formed a commonwealth, choosing a governor, Deacon John Carver, the first governor of the New World.  The Pilgrims maintained a free spirit from the beginning, resisting all who would deny their self-governing ways.

Unlike the first settlers of Virginia, the Pilgrims developed a friendly relationship with the Indians, and were adopted by a local Indian, Squanto, who served them as guide, interpreter, and counselor.  He taught them how to live off the land, by teaching them how to build traps, plant and tend corn, stalk game in the woods and introduced them to the beaver trade, which became a main source of their economy.   Without Squanto, all would have perished.

In 1621, the Pilgrims, even though their crops produced little, decided to hold a festival of Thanksgiving with the Indians.  Times were extremely lean for the Pilgrims, yet they continued to work hard as others arrived from England, now with even more mouths to feed on the same crops.  Doing what they needed to survive, they gathered acorns, wild roots and berries, caught clams and other shellfish from the sea, yet times grew worse. 

By 1623, two more ships arrived from England with ninety more newcomers.  To them the first settlers looked like skeletons clad in rags.  There seemed no hope for any of them, for a severe summer drought was burning up their fields and gardens.  Yet the Saints still had faith, praying fervently, said, “Behold another providence of God”.  Presently, it began to rain and gentle showers continued for weeks, reviving their crops and spirits.  Reaping a bumper harvest that year, Plymouth never again had any general want or need.

Within three years, the Pilgrims and Strangers, through hard work, had extraordinarily established themselves in an inhospitable land, having in common a strong bond and will to succeed. 

Plymouth, a village of two hundred people, remained the metropolis of New England until 1630, when the great Puritan migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony began.  The Puritans were still under the Church of England, but were more and more critical of her ways, not having the courage to defy the law, and separate themselves. 

The Pilgrims encouraged them to renounce the bondage of the Church of England, and adopt the Pilgrim Church doctrine, which was self-governing in each congregation. The Pilgrims believed in a self-governing republic, where each church chose its own pastor and other officers, with the Scriptures being the governing law in all things.

Although Plymouth, the seat of the Pilgrims, soon faded into the glory of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as more and more Puritans came to the New World, and was never the center of attraction again, its glory lives today as being the beginning germ of democracy in church and state.

References taken from the writings of Historian, George R. Willison, Author and Teacher.