Pilgrims

Pilgrims, early English settlers who founded Plymouth Colony, the first permanent European settlement in New England. They were originally known as the Forefathers or Founders; the term Pilgrim was first used to describe them in the writings of colonist William Bradford, although it was a common self-description among 17th-century Puritans and other Nonconfomists, as can be seen from The Pilgrim's Progress (1678; 1684) by John Bunyan.

Among the early Pilgrims was a group of Separatists, members of a radical religious movement that broke from the Church of England during the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1606 William Brewster led a group of Separatists to Leiden, the Netherlands, to escape religious persecution in England. After living in Leiden for more than ten years, some members of the group voted to emigrate to America. The voyage was financed by a group of London investors who were promised produce from America in exchange for their assistance. On September 16, 1620, these Separatists were part of a group numbering 101 men, women, and children who left Plymouth, England, for America on the Mayflower. On November 21, the Mayflower dropped anchor in the sheltered harbour off the site of present-day Provincetown, Massachusetts. They landed on the site of Plymouth Colony the following December 21, a date that is celebrated in New England as Forefathers' Day. The Pilgrims established a government and created the Mayflower Compact, the first constitution written in America.