page_title: Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)
section_title: Leiden
hierarchical_section_title: Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) / History / Leiden
caption_attribution_description: English: Permission from the city counsel (signed by Jan van Hout secretary) for the Pilgrims (around 100 men and women) to settle in Leiden, February 12th 1609 (Gerechtsdagboek G, folio 32v, Erfgoed Leiden en omstreken). Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, The Netherlands. Photgraph taken during exhibit 'Pilgrims to Amerika - and the limits of freedom (2020). Nederlands: Toestemming van het stadsbestuur (getekend door Jan van Hout secretaris) voor de Pilgrims (circa 100 mannen en vrouwen) om zich in Leiden te vestigen, 1 februari 1609 (Gerechtsdagboek G, folio 32v, Erfgoed Leiden en omstreken). Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. Gefotografeerd tijdens de tentoonstelling 'Pilgrims naar Amerika - en de grenzen van vrijheid' (2020).
context_page_description: The Pilgrims were the English settlers who came to North America on the Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts named after the final departure port of Plymouth, Devon. Their leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownists, or Separatist Puritans, who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands.
  They held Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs but, unlike most other Puritans, they maintained that their congregations should separate from the English state church. They eventually determined to establish a new settlement in the New World and arranged with investors to fund them. They established Plymouth Colony in 1620, which became the second successful English settlement in America, following the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. The Pilgrims' story became a central theme in the history and culture of the United States.
context_section_description: The Pilgrims moved to the Netherlands around 1607/08. They lived in Leiden, Holland, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, residing in small houses behind the "Kloksteeg" opposite the Pieterskerk.
  The success of the congregation in Leiden was mixed. Leiden was a thriving industrial center,
  and many members were able to support themselves working at Leiden University or in the textile, printing, and brewing trades. Others were less able to bring in sufficient income, hampered by their rural backgrounds and the language barrier; for those, accommodations were made on an estate bought by Robinson and three partners. Bradford wrote of their years in Leiden:
  For these & other reasons they removed to Leyden, a fair & bewtifull citie, and of a sweete situation, but made more famous by ye universitie wherwith it is adorned, in which of late had been so many learned man. But wanting that traffike by sea which Amerstdam injoyes, it was not so beneficiall for their outward means of living & estats. But being now hear pitchet they fell to such trads & imployments as they best could; valewing peace & their spirituall comforte above any other riches whatsoever. And at length they came to raise a competente & comforteable living, but with hard and continuall labor.
  William Brewster had been teaching English at the university, and Robinson enrolled in 1615 to pursue his doctorate. There he participated in a series of debates, particularly regarding the contentious issue of Calvinism versus Arminianism (siding with the Calvinists against the Remonstrants).
  Brewster acquired typesetting equipment about 1616 in a venture financed by Thomas Brewer, and began publishing the debates through a local press.
  The Netherlands, however, was a land whose culture and language were strange and difficult for the English congregation to understand or learn. They found the Dutch morals much too libertine, and their children were becoming more and more Dutch as the years passed. The congregation came to believe that they faced eventual extinction if they remained there.
caption: Permission from the city counsel of Leiden that the Pilgrims were allowed to settle there, dated February 12th 1609.
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