More than 30 million people can trace their ancestry to the 102 passengers and 30 crew aboard the Mayflower when it landed in Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts in the harsh winter of 1620. On board were men, women and children from different walks of life across England and the city of Leiden in Holland. But why did the Pilgrims leave their old lives behind in the first place, chancing it all to cross the treacherous Atlantic and settle a strange alien land?In today's episode Don is joined by Dr Anna Scott, heritage consultant and public historian at the University of Lincoln in the UK, to learn more about this 400-year-old tale of religious persecution, financial opportunity and a Puritanical fight for freedom that helped sow the seeds of a fledgling nation.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey at https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK.All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.
Chapter 1: What led the Pilgrims to leave England?
It's mid-September, 1620, in Plymouth, England. The wheels of a cart rattle along the narrow cobblestone street leading down to the harbor below. Overhead, in the bay window of a weathered Elizabethan house, a woman beats a dusty blanket as screeching gulls circle the sky. It is an unremarkable autumn day here in this seaside village.
Life as usual, except for the recent arrival of a weary group of travelers, religious separatists in search of refuge. One of their two ships, the Speedwell, is in dire need of repair. But on this day, they've made the fateful decision to abandon her and crowd 102 passengers and 30 crew onto the other ship, the Mayflower.
And so, the treacherous late-season passage will commence, crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean in cramped, unsanitary conditions, searching for freedom on the shores of a strange new world. So, who are these people? These separatists? These pilgrims? What have they separated from? And what do they possibly hope to find? Music Greetings, listeners. Nice to be with you.
I'm Don Wildman, your host here at American History Hit. And hey, it's another helping of the holidays. The season is upon us. Now that the temperatures finally dipped below 75 in November here in the Northeast, that was weird. We are back on track. The leaves off the trees, a fresh chill in the air, and everyone's made their plans for the day of dining.
Past the gravy and the cranberry sauce, it's time to plumb some delicious pilgrim history. This year, we've approached this subject before, see past episodes, we're breaking the story down to the savory side dishes that really make the meal. The Pilgrim story, of course, was never the simple fable we were taught in grade school.
The odyssey of these religious sojourners had different phases lasting years, hard struggles, insecurity, and terrible tragedy. At any time, they could have pitched the whole idea and given up on their mission to find safe haven. Alas, they did not. They finally made it to the promised land.
And we celebrate that achievement every year with a meal in their honor that's evolved into a day of gathering for friends and families to mark the beginning of the holidays. This episode will tell part one of the story and track the Pilgrims' progress from the shores of England to the harbors of the Netherlands and back again, finally to embark into a great unknown.
But I know who's here to help, and it is Anna Scott, researcher at the University of Lincoln in England, who has written extensively on the Pilgrims, featuring prominently in the history hit TV documentary we produced for Mayflower 400, the 400th anniversary of the voyage.
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Chapter 2: Who were the key figures in the Pilgrim movement?
Hello, Anna. Nice to have you. Thank you. It's great to be here and be invited back again.
First, the basics. A quick factoid why this really matters. There are 30 million Americans today who can directly trace their bloodlines straight to the 102 passengers and 30 crew on the Mayflower. The Pilgrims are an essential building block of America and not just the Patriot fans. Why do we call them Pilgrims? This was not the name they gave themselves, was it?
There is actually a reference to them calling themselves pilgrims, and the reason we know so much about the story is because of the main guy, if you like, William Bradford, who became the governor of the colony in Plymouth once the pilgrims reached America. He was instrumental in telling their story.
He told the story of what their life was like in the colony once they arrived, but he also told lots of details about pilgrims
the story of what happened to them before the Mayflower reached the shores of America, where they came from in England, their trials and tribulations, what happened to them when they went over to Holland, and some of the reasons why they decided in the end to make that journey, to make that massive leap and travel over on the Mayflower to America.
I understand, though, that they named themselves the Saints, a group within the general separatist movement of England. It's probably important to give some broad context here for the times. I mean, we're coming out of the 1500s, which is the time of the Church of England being formed by Henry VIII. That is in the broader context of the Reformation happening all over Europe at the time.
Within all of this, especially in a pushback against the Church of England, are these separatist movements. There's a long list of them, from Anabaptists to the Quakers, all opposed to the corruption and doctrine of the Church of England. These particular people are found around the English village of Scrooby, which is a great name. I love that name. In Nottinghamshire, just south of Leeds.
Population in 2001, 329. This is a tiny farming place. Tell us about that movement that they are part of, and particularly the man named Robert Brown. They are Brownists, aren't they?
Yeah, that's one of the names that were given to the people at the time. So you're right there talking about the Church of England. So previously there'd been the Catholic Church. There was a big split under Henry VIII for lots of reasons. And I'm sure you've got an episode that covers that somewhere in the History Hit umbrella. Yes, indeed.
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Chapter 3: What was the environment like in England during the Pilgrims' time?
And eventually they didn't believe that they could reform the church from within like the Puritans did. They wanted to separate from the church entirely. So this is another reason why we call them separatists. They wanted to form their own churches and they wanted to worship together in congregations so that they effectively could manage their own churches.
But at that time, that was a really dangerous thing to do because you've got the king who is the head of state, but he is also the head of the church. And so for you to want to break away from the church is really putting your odds with the state and with the king. And at that time, that was something that you would risk your life potentially by doing.
You'd definitely be in trouble with the church courts. They all had...
courts and they would hear different offences if you like in those courts and they included things like you had to go to church in the village where you lived you weren't allowed to even travel to other churches for services and things like that so it was very strict you weren't allowed to preach in the church unless you were ordained to do that and
And there were lots of rules about things like baptism and making the sign of the cross and the robes that they had to wear. So there were particular leaders in the churches at the time that were pushing back against a lot of those rules. These were the Puritan-leaning ministers, but they eventually broke with the church and separated.
So they were sacked from their jobs, they were rejected from the church, and that was happening in and around Scrooby at that time. there were actually two congregations of separatists, one based in Scrooby and one based in Gainsborough. And they were starting to feel threatened and were starting to think about how they could improve their lives and where could they go.
And they had heard about Amsterdam and Holland and they had a sense that over there churches were allowed to practice more freely And there was more tolerance, the views that were different to the authoritarian rules of the state church. And so they thought that it might be better for them to leave the country entirely. And so this put them on a path to what was to come.
Anna, I just need to paint the picture of England in those days, the general environment in which this separatist movement sprouts. Tell me how life was like for these people in those days.
Okay, so in England, let's have a think about that. The pilgrims who we've talked about living in Holland were in England before that, and they were from rural Nottinghamshire and rural Lincolnshire area. So they would have been familiar with farming, husbandry, those types of rural activities, and the jobs that go with those, so labouring, farming, those types of things. They weren't all...
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Chapter 4: How did the Pilgrims find refuge in the Netherlands?
I want to define how hard this was for many of these groups, including this one. When you were trying to practice as you saw fit, the various punishments that could happen were as bad as they could get, right? I mean, people were put to death. They were certainly jailed. They were in miserable conditions. Communities turning against themselves.
I mean, all of the stuff that we've seen in so many different periods of unrest throughout the world is exactly what's going on here, but it has to do specifically with religion, which was so much a bigger part of people's lives in those days.
Yes, absolutely, because I think there wasn't the type of scientific reasoning for things at that time. God was your reference point for explaining all of these things that were happening in the world. And although we tend to think, yes, there's a really strong religious reason for all of these things, there were economic reasons as well.
But the economic reasons are often related to God or to religion. So there was plague around at that time. There had been a series of poor harvests. There was some enclosure of land going on so that rurally people that had owned land or had access to land, that was lost to them.
And so it was affecting people's jobs and consequently affecting their prospects, affecting their wealth or their ability to earn money. And some of those types of things were at the time blamed on retribution from God or needing to change things to try and respond to why things were going badly. And that's how people would explain things to themselves.
So in the context of England at that time, there were reasons why people perhaps came to the conclusion that it would be better to move on. And this applied to the pilgrims that we're talking about and, as we'll hear later on in the story, to some of the other people who were on the Mayflower ultimately.
At the same time, just across the channel, you've already mentioned that in the Netherlands, a whole other kind of life is happening. It's important there to understand that it's not like today. There's not one country. Half of what we know as the Netherlands was actually under Spanish control. The northern part of the Netherlands was under the Dutch control. That's what we're talking about here.
And particularly, we'll get to a town called Leiden. But on the way there, it's Amsterdam. What would they have known about Holland in those days and what kind of refuge that would give them?
So we might think, okay, they'd heard about Amsterdam. They'd heard about these churches maybe by accident, but there was a connection. There was a connection with the place. And that's through one of the leading pilgrims, one of the most famous pilgrims, William Brewster. And he's the man who lived in Scrooby, in the manor at Scrooby.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did the Pilgrims face in Amsterdam?
so that was a challenge for them but yeah when they got there i think it's useful to understand the context of the fact that over in england they'd been debating the rights and wrongs of how to organize themselves into a church and these debates didn't stop when they got to the netherlands When they got over to Amsterdam, they were actually, I guess you could say they were falling out.
The debates were challenging for them. And so the man who had led them to Amsterdam, the preacher Richard Clifton, who had been the minister at a church in a village called Babworth, not far from Scrooby, before he was sacked, he had taken them across there. But then there was a rift, there was a break, and there was disagreements among the elders.
And so the group we know became the Pilgrims on the Mayflower moved to Leiden under the supervision of John Robinson, who had been Clifton's assistant.
How many people are we talking about? How big is this group?
That's a difficult question to answer. There are some catalogues of names of people at the time who they knew were from England. They were families, so there were a fair few people. And when the group escaped from England on a boat that had come from Gainsborough up the River Trent out into the Humber, there were a few people that got on the boat in Gainsborough. about 12 people.
And then by the time they got to their rendezvous in the Humber, there were 80 of them. So they'd pick people up on the way. So we know that that's how many people there were in that particular escape attempt. So I would think some of those people then were the ones who moved with Robinson, who had come from some of the villages around here. And a lot of the people were related here.
At most, we're talking about 100 to 150 people are going to comprise this church that they're going to found in Holland. That does not work out in Amsterdam for them. It's too big a town, a little too racy, perhaps. So the whole effort is switched to Leiden, which is a university town to this day. Very high-minded folks down there. A little simpler life for these folks.
And this is where they're going to plant themselves. And by the way, this is 1608 we're talking about right now. There was a concerted effort to find home, to make a foundation in Holland. They had no plans necessarily to go to this wild new world. That comes later. And so this is a very interesting chapter in this time. So when they moved to Leiden, they put down roots, right? Yeah.
They did. And so when you say how many people were there, it's different to the number when you get towards 16, 20, a bit later on, because they're having children. And so, you know, the more of them, it would have grown, that group would have grown. And they were quite young families, a lot of the people at the time escaping from England. So...
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Chapter 6: Why did the Pilgrims move from Amsterdam to Leiden?
And all of that was contributing to the prosperity of this place and probably the looseness of it because, you know, things are going well there. All of that is this very interesting emerging quality to their realization that in order to make this thing work, they're probably going to have to figure out how to combine those two themes, don't they?
This is very much a result of the backdrop of Holland at the time.
Yes, that's right. I think the pilgrims weren't as savvy in terms of the economics of things, perhaps, as some others during that period and in the years that followed. They were duped quite often, you know, in terms of their financial dealings.
And although the finance was there for colonisation and those voyages to explore and establish themselves in other places, the Dutch did invite the pilgrims to do that with them. But at the end of the day, they went to London to finance what they did and they didn't do it in partnership with the Dutch.
It's a fascinating shift that's happening in the world that will, of course, lead to everything that happens in the new world, so-called. It's already happening for hundreds of years. The Age of Discovery is about colonialism. And so the Pilgrim story kind of sidles up against that. And these folks who are really looking for religious haven are actually part of this larger movement.
That has to do with colonialism, as we are about to find out. And all kinds of things happen, you know, not the least of which is slavery. The Dutch are very much a part of putting that together. It's also why New York eventually becomes the capital of finance, because it's the Dutch. All these things are so interesting when you pin them down in the timeline of history.
But it also creates economic incentive, and that's what's going to take the saints to America. That's what's going to really drive the ship. Of course, they are still pushed by their desire for Christianity, but it also is a desire to make money. Let's talk about the Virginia Company, where this falls in all of this.
This was the English commercial enterprise that was in charge of America at this time.
Yeah. And as you say, Virginia. So they were interested in a particular area. And as you will know, as we'll find out, that's not exactly where the Pilgrims ended up.
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Chapter 7: How did the Pilgrims establish their community in Leiden?
It amazes me how much they did know and how many letters went backwards and forwards across the ocean in the period, particularly after they'd got there, but also in the period before. There were accounts of voyages and what had happened. But you're absolutely right when you think about how crazy it was, because one of the people on the ship, he was called Robert Cushman,
He didn't actually go on the final voyage, partly because of the stress of it, but he had heard about a terrible account of, I think, 180 people who had gone on a voyage and I think 130 of them had died in a fairly...
horrific way from disease you know as a consequence of it wasn't a healthy place to be a ship going that far for that long and many people didn't make it so you do find yourself asking why on earth would they do it and so one of the recurring themes whenever things go wrong for them or there's something exceptionally challenging is to think about what they've written about their belief in God's providence
So this idea of providence that God will provide for them, God will save them, God will support them. I think that has got to be at the core of why they were doing what they were doing.
I think real estate is at the core. I mean, when you see what happens when the Dutch come into New York area, what becomes New York eventually, and they create New Amsterdam, and these vast estates are created up and down the Hudson River, you get a clue as to what Europe was like in those days. Just everything was owned by the aristocracy in one form or another.
And then these little pockets of places where they could have their own little places. There's this land over there, this realm across the ocean where land is available. And when you have land, you have a new life and you have power and you can start to make a world. It's a fascinating change at this time. This is where it becomes an economic concern as well.
This group of religious sojourners actually become very useful to the merchants who are seeking out basically labor who can go across and plant a settlement in this world, aren't they?
Yes, although there are caveats around that. So when they want to go over to America, they don't go on their own. There are two ships. And the separatists are on one ship, a ship that they purchase called the Speedwell. And spoiler alert, the Speedwell doesn't speed very well. And then there's a second ship, the Mayflower. And on the Mayflower, there are people who...
you could call economic migrants. They're the people that are going in search of a better life, possibly escaping the famine or the plague or the bad harvest or the lack of jobs in England, looking for, as you say, economic opportunities, land for themselves in that, what was called a new world, not a new world to the people that had lived there for decades,
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Chapter 8: What ultimately prompted the Pilgrims to sail to America?
So when somebody died or they thought they were imminently going to die... they would write out all of their property and what they wanted to have happen with it. And it included their furniture and also their clothes. And often the pilgrims had a lot of books as well.
So you can tell a lot from the people based on what they listed as their property, what they were reading at the time and that kind of thing. And some of the clothes were different colours. They weren't all black, for example.
They like big buckles. I know that much.
Well, did they? Yeah, I mean, that's a bit like Vikings with horns on the helmets. It's one of those myths that gets carried around.
We'll get into that more detail in the second episode that we're going to do about this, but I just want to understand the basics of how they embark. So this is a commercial enterprise run by a firm out of England called the Merchant Adventurers. We haven't talked about a primary person in this named Thomas Weston. who was really pursuing this contract with these folks.
The idea was that they would be set off and they were financed to do so to create this enterprise in America, doing work and creating product for this group back in England. That was the idea of the colonialism. This contract is signed. That's the deal. And this is what happens when they embark on July 22nd, 1620. They're off and running from Leiden, and that takes them to Southampton.
And in Southampton, they engage another vessel, which will be called the Mayflower, and they're off and running. That's basically where we're at when they head out in September of 1620, right?
Yeah, that's right. So they've made all of these preparations for the voyage. They've bought the food that they think they need. They know that they've got this debt to pay. They know that they're going to have to work hard. And you've got to remember as well, they don't know where they're going. They don't know what it's going to be like when they get there.
And the first thing that you've got to do is build your own village. I mean, where are they going to live? It's incredibly, the prospect of what they've got to do is incredibly difficult. in a land that they've never been to before. And they must have in mind that they may not make it. They've heard the stories of other people that have done it and it's gone really badly wrong.
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