Squanto, another English-speaking Indian, acted as guide and interpreter, and with his help the colonists learned to plant corn, catch fish, and gather fruit. The Pilgrims invited the Indians to celebrate their first harvest in , an event now celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. After Massasoit's death, the Wampanoag joined a tribal coalition to eliminate English settlers, but in the ensuing King Philip's War the Wampanoag were nearly exterminated.
The colony gradually grew in size, and the original settlement known as the Plimoth Plantation expanded as settlers built houses in the area. Plymouth Colony retained its independence for over 70 years, and by its population exceeded 7, Covenant A binding agreement or compact; in the Bible, God's promise to the human race.
Here are some topics to explore that relate to the Plymouth Colony. Looking at the articles, images, and other materials in this Research Starter may give you more ideas. Each topic has one or more articles to start you on your research, but remember that it takes more than one article to make a research paper.
Continue your research with our list of articles below. The reasons the Pilgrims emigrated from England. England, Church of. The voyage of the Mayflower. Mayflower Compact, The document. The impact of the colonists on the lives of the Indians. When the pilgrims arrived they landed at an abandoned Native-American village, called Patuxet, whose inhabitants had died in the infamous disease epidemic of There they found abundant cornfields planted by the Patuxet years ago and many areas, which had already been cleared by the Patuxet, where they could build their homes.
When the pilgrims landed in Plymouth, many of them were already weak from disease and a lack of food. The voyage had been long and they were short on supplies.
Over the course of the winter, the colony lost almost half of its people due to disease and starvation. So there died some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that of and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. John Allerton, Mayflower crewmen, died sometime during the winter Mary Norris Allerton, separatist and wife of Isaac Allerton, died February 25, Dorothy May Bradford, separatist and wife of William Bradford, drowned after she fell overboard at Provincetown Harbor on December 7, William Butten, servant, died November 6, on board the Mayflower Richard Bitterridge, non-separatist, died December 21, Robert Carter, servant, died sometime during the winter Richard Clarke, non-separatist, died sometime during the winter James Chilton, separatist, died December 8, Mrs.
James Chilton first name unknown , separatist and wife of James Chilton, died sometime during the winter John Crackstone, separatist, died sometime during the winter Sarah Eaton, non-separatist and wife of Francis Eaton, died sometime during the winter Thomas English, Mayflower crewmen, died sometime before the Mayflower returned to England in April Moses Fletcher, separatist, died sometime during the winter Edward Fuller, separatist, died sometime during the winter Mrs.
Thomas Tinker, separatists and wife of Thomas Tinker, died sometime during the winter Son of Thomas Tinker name unknown , died sometime during the winter Edward Thompson, servant, died December 4, John Turner, separatist, died sometime during the winter Both sons of John Turner names unknown , died during the winter William White, separatist, died February 21, Thomas Williams, separatist, died sometime during the winter Roger Wilder, died sometime during the winter Elizabeth Barker Winslow, separatist and wife of Edward Winslow, died March 24, Rose Standish, separatist and wife of Miles Standish, died January 29, Two more people, Governor John Carver and his wife Katherine, died in the spring and summer of that year.
Historians believe that most of the colonists were suffering from diseases and illnesses such as scurvy, which is caused by a lack of vitamin c found in many fruits and vegetables, and pneumonia, which was probably caused by the damp, cold weather.
In addition, the lack of food made them weak and more susceptible to disease. Bradford describes how seven of the colonists cared for the sick at great risk to their own health by fetching them wood, dressing and feeding them, washing their clothes and etc. Another settler Phineas Pratt, who arrived in Plymouth in , later told a disturbing story about what had been done with the sick men in the colony that winter. Pratt testified in a court deposition in that the pilgrims told him they had dragged their sick men into the woods and propped them up against trees to serve as a decoy defense system against the Native-Americans:.
The disease began to fall amongst them also, so as almost half of their company died before they went away, and many of their officers and lustier men, as the boatswain, gunner, three quartermasters, the cook and others.
At which the Master was something strucken and and sent to the sick ashore and told the Governor he should send for beer for them that had need of it, though he drunk water homeward bound. Historians think the reason they were buried in unmarked graves was to avoid letting the local Native-Americans know how many of them had died and to avoid having their graves disturbed.
On April 5, , the Mayflower and her crew departed Plymouth and returned to England. Around March 16, Bradford says that an Indian approached them and spoke to them in broken English, which amazed the pilgrims. The Indian identified himself as Samoset and told them much about the native people of the area and said there was another Indian named Squanto who had been to England and could speak better English them himself.
Interview of Samoset with the Pilgrims, illustration, circa Samoset arranged for the pilgrims to meet their leader, Massasoit, who arrived about four or five days later with Squanto and many others accompanying him. Squanto was the sole survivor of the Patuxet tribe and had only survived the disease epidemic that wiped out his tribe because he had been captured by an English sea captain a few years earlier in and had been taken to Europe as a slave.
He returned a few years later in with an English explorer to find his village wiped out. Squanto then came across Massasoit and the Pokanoket tribe, which, like the Patuxet, were one of many tribes that made up the Wampanoag Nation, and they made Squanto their slave. If the effort proved successful and the colony survived for five or seven years, the Company agreed to give the investors a number of acres for each adult that emigrated and stayed for at least a year or died there , plus more property for public use.
At the end of the agreed term, the investors could total up the numbers and apply for a charter which would give them legal title to as much land as they were due under the agreement. When the Pilgrims landed, they found themselves just outside of the territory in which their patent was valid.
Degrees of latitude are about 69 miles apart, and the 42nd parallel runs across the northern northerly side of Plymouth harbor, so they were about 65 miles north of where they should have been. They drew up the Mayflower Compact as a temporary measure to keep the settlement together until they could get a new charter that would legalize their situation. This meant that although they were now legal residents of New England, they did not actually own the property they were on. It was not until they received their confirming charter signed by the Earl of Warwick in that they became the lawful owners of Plymouth Colony.
All this property was under the political jurisdiction of Plymouth Colony, as far as the laws of England were concerned, although the ownership might still be held by the native inhabitants or granted to later-arriving colonists. The rights of native land owners, whether Wampanoag or Massachusett, were recognized by the colony.
Any land they might sell or alienate had to be the colonial government for its own use or to approved groups of proprietors — private transactions were not allowed. Some commons were issued to the Plymouth purchasers and their heirs as further dividends they were still receiving property dividends in south Plymouth in the early 18th century , including reserved lots at what is now Tiverton and Little Compton in Rhode Island or between Yarmouth and Eastham.
Other parcels were granted to groups of subsequent settlers, who then became administrators of their own communities and could grant land to themselves and others, Scituate and Sandwich being examples of this. 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. The Mayflower Compact set down laws for all Mayflower passengers to follow. Born in England, he escaped with the Separatists to the Netherlands in when he was still a teenager to avoid persecution. It is considered one of the most important firsthand accounts of early New England. With peace secured thanks to Squanto, the colonists in Plymouth were able to concentrate on building a viable settlement for themselves rather than spend their time and resources guarding themselves against attack.
Squanto taught them how to plant corn, which became an important crop, as well as where to fish and hunt beaver. Though Plymouth would never develop as robust an economy as later settlements—such as Massachusetts Bay Colony—agriculture, fishing and trading made the colony self-sufficient within five years after it was founded. By that time, the ideal of Plymouth Colony—conceived in the Mayflower Compact as a self-contained community governed by a common religious affiliation—had given way to the far less lofty influences of trade and commerce.
The devout Pilgrims, meanwhile, had fragmented into smaller, more self-serving groups. Still, the original concept served as the foundation for many later settlements.
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