Pilgrim Fathers

Following its discovery by Europeans, the American continent was inhabited in the 1500s by both white settlers and American Indians. In the USA today, this racial mix is remembered at Thanksgiving, originally celebrated, as in this illustration, with a meal of local foods.

Settlers who sailed from Plymouth, Devon, England, in the Mayflower on 16 September 1620 to found the first colony in New England, North America, at New Plymouth, Massachusetts. Of the 102 passengers about a third were Puritan refugees.

The Pilgrims originally set sail for Virginia in the Mayflower and Speedwell from Southampton on 5 August 1620, but had to put into Dartmouth when the Speedwell needed repair. Bad weather then drove them into Plymouth Sound, where the Speedwell was abandoned. They landed at Cape Cod in December and decided to stay, moving on to find New Plymouth harbour and founding the Massachusetts colony. Considerable religious conflict had erupted between the 35 Puritans and the other, largely Anglican, passengers. Open mutiny was averted by the Mayflower Compact, which established the rights of the non-Puritans. About half the Pilgrims died over the winter before they received help from the Indians; the survivors celebrated the first Thanksgiving in the autumn of 1621.