Plymouth Colony

[[File:Landing-Bacon.PNG|right|thumb|165px|The Pilgrims arrive at Plymouth, as imagined by Henry A. Bacon some 250 years later. Not pictured: fighting over the ship's remaining store of beer.]]
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The '''Plymouth Colony''', founded in 1620 in what is now southeastern [[Massachusetts]], was one of the first [[English]] ventures at overseas colonization, only being beaten by {{wpl|Jamestown}} and {{wpl|Roanoke}} in age. It was disestablished in 1686.

==Origins==
The Pilgrims left England in the first place to escape religious persecution at the hands of the [[Anglicans]]; they believed that the Church of England was still too [[Catholic]] in its practices and wanted a complete overhaul of the entire English church.<ref name="VictorianWeb">"[http://victorianweb.org/religion/puritan.html Puritanism in England]"</ref> More will be said about their beliefs in the Puritan section of this article. The Pilgrims left England in the year of 1609 as refugees fleeing to the relatively welcoming [[Netherlands]], the Dutch being fellow [[Calvinists]] at the time.<ref>Addison, Albert Christopher. ''[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36756/36756-h/36756-h.htm The Romantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims And Its Place in the Life of To-day]''. Published 1911.</ref> However, when they arrived they found the Netherlands to be a strange place: their hometown of Scrooby was rural, while the city of {{wpl|Leiden}} was a big trade center at the time. Their children began adopting Dutch customs and the Dutch [[language]], even enrolling in the Dutch army. However, even here they were not safe from the ravages of the Anglican Church, as in 1618 English authorities came to arrest {{wpl|William Brewster}} for publishing content critical of the English crown and the Anglican Church. Brewster escaped, but they realized even in the Netherlands they weren't safe, and so they endeavored to get as far away from England as humanly possible.<ref name="Philbrick" /> 

They managed to obtain a land patent from the {{wpl|Plymouth Company}} in 1619 to settle in the New World. They declined the opportunity to settle south of Cape Cod in {{wpl|New Netherland}} because of their desire to avoid Dutch influence.<ref name="rothbard">{{cite book|last=Rothbard|first=Murray|title=Conceived in Liberty|year=1975|volume=1|chapter="The Founding of Plymouth Colony"|publisher=Arlington House Publishers}}</ref> This patent allowed them to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River. They financed their venture from a group of businessmen called the "{{wpl|Merchant Adventurers}}" who saw the colony as an opportunity to make a profit. Upon arriving in America the Pilgrims began to pay off their debts to the merchants in question.<ref name="Philbrick" /><ref group="note">However, they didn't fully pay off their debts until 1648, in part due to the colony's troubled early years as well as corruption and incompetence among the colony's leaders.</ref>

When the Pilgrims arrived at Cape Cod they realized they had no "patent" to settle there, which in the eyes of some of the colonists provided no legal basis for the colony to begin with. In response to these rumors and suspicions, the leaders of the colony drafted and signed the {{wpl|Mayflower Compact}}, which retroactively served as the legal backing for the colony. The Compact itself guaranteed little other than that the colony would be governed just like any other English town, but it served as a morale boost because it alleviated many of the concerns the colonists had about the questionable legal authority for their little venture.<ref name="Philbrick /><ref group="note">The Compact also served essentially as the first [[constitution]] in the area that would eventually become the [[United States]].</ref>

==The Colony itself==
===The First Winter===
Once at the colony things got off to a rocky start; the first winter was especially terrible. At first women, children, the elderly, and the infirm had to stay on the ship because the first structure of the colony, a simple {{wpl|wattle and daub}} hut, was in the process of being built. Many fell to diseases such as {{wpl|scurvy}} as well as to the bitter cold itself. Roughly half of the colonists died at this time, and fortifications were built due to repeat skirmishes with the local [[Native Americans]]. By January enough of the settlement had been built to begin offloading provisions from the ship, which helped matters immensely.<ref name="rothbard" />

On March 16, 1621, the first formal contact with Native Americans ensued. {{wpl|Samoset}}, an Eastern {{wpl|Abenaki}} ''{{wpl|sagamore (title|sagamore}}'' who spoke some [[English]] he had learned from English whalers and fishermen camping in Eastern [[Maine]], barged into the settlement and shouted "Hello, Englishmen!" Samoset stayed the night and in good spirits asked for some [[beer]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Samoset.html|title=Samoset Biography|publisher=}}</ref> It was here that the pilgrims learned what had happened to the previous residents of {{wpl|Patuxet}}, the {{wpl|Wampanoag}} name for Plymouth Rock: they had all died of [[smallpox]]. Samoset in return agreed to arrange a meeting with {{wpl|Massasoit}}, the ''{{wpl|sachem}}'' of the local Wampanoag tribe, and they ''also'' learned about {{wpl|Squanto}}, or ''Tisquantum'', who spoke good English.<ref name="Philbrick">{{cite book |last=Philbrick |first=Nathaniel |title=Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War |publisher=Penguin Group |year=2006 |location=New York |isbn=0-670-03760-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/mayflowerstoryof00phil}}</ref>

Massasoit and the Puritans agreed to what was essentially a {{wpl|mutual defense treaty}}, with both groups agreeing to not harm the other and to come to each other's defense in times of [[war]].<ref name="Philbrick" /> The ''Mayflower'' finally set sail for England on April 5, 1621, after being anchored for almost five months in {{wpl|Plymouth Harbor}}.<ref name="Philbrick" />

===Thanksgiving===
The first [[Thanksgiving]] was actually a rather solemn ceremony dedicated to [[God]] for the colony's "good fortune" when additional colonists and supplies arrived, and it was probably celebrated sometime in July. There was most likely very little revelry and merrymaking in light of the Pilgrims' Puritan beliefs.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20070701155555/http://plimoth.org/discover/thanksgiving/fastandthanks.php Fast and Thanksgiving Days of Plymouth Colony]"</ref> The event we typically remember as the First Thanksgiving is more properly called a "{{wpl|harvest festival}}." The event was celebrated by all 53 colonists and by Massasoit and 90 of his men, featuring waterfowl, corn, and several deer brought by the Wampanoag.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20081104050809/http://www.pilgrimhall.org/1stthnks.htm First Thanksgiving - Primary Sources]"</ref>

===Puritanism===
As mentioned before, the Pilgrims fled England to escape religious persecution, but when they arrived in the New World they proceeded to do the exact same thing here they fled from over there, leading to the minister and dissident {{wpl|Roger Williams}} to flee Plymouth and set up the colony that would eventually become [[Rhode Island]], Williams argued for religious tolerance and was an anthropologist who recognized the Natives as equals rather than as inferior heathens to be converted or slain, even preserving some of their language for posterity, he was also an advocate of the [[separation of church and state]] and was one of the world's first abolitionists.<ref>"[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/god-government-and-roger-williams-big-idea-6291280/ God, Government, and Roger Williams' Big Idea]" - ''Smithsonian Magazine''</ref>

The Puritans in [[New England]] were even more [[fundamentalist]] than their Puritan brethren in England proper, and the last vestiges of Puritanism in New England only died out in the 19th century, some two centuries after the Pilgrims first arrived at Plymouth Rock.<ref>"[http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/puritan2.html Puritanism in New England]"</ref>

===Pequot War===
The first major military struggle that involved the Plymouth Colony was the {{wpl|Pequot War}} of 1637, which essentially started due to a mutual attempted land grab of {{wpl|Pequot}} territory by both the Dutch and English settlers of New Amsterdam and Plymouth Rock respectively. The war was a huge clusterfuck, effectively serving as a sign of [[American Indian Wars|things to come]] with the {{wpl|Narragansett people}} and the {{wpl|Mohegan}} siding with the English, both of whom were the traditional enemies of the Pequot; the Dutch for their part sided with the Pequots, but it did shit for them in the end. 

Formal hostilities began with the raiding of a boat and the murder of its captain, a Mr. John Oldham, which was blamed on the Pequot and their allies. The English raided a Pequot village in retaliation, to which the Pequot responded with a raid on Plymouth that led to the deaths of 30 English colonists. The response to this was quick and brutal, with the Englishmen {{wpl|John Mason}} and {{wpl|Captain John Underhill}} burning a Pequot settlement to the ground and massacring around 300 Pequot people.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20070315215644/http://www.dowdgen.com/dowd/document/pequots.html Perspectives: The Pequot War]"</ref>

The war would otherwise be a minor footnote in history if it weren't for the fact that it led to a mutual defense pact being formed among the then-nascent New England colonies, the "{{wpl|United Colonies of New England}}". This union served as a pivotal cornerstone in the development of the {{wpl|Thirteen Colonies}} and eventually the United States itself. [[John Adams]] credited this union as the first attempt at a national government in American history, which would eventually lead to the [[Articles of Confederation]] and more importantly the damn [[United States Constitution]] itself.<ref name="Philbrick" /> How's that for a cool history lesson?

==See also==
*[[Colonialism]]
*[[American Indian Wars]]
*[[Thirty Years War]]
*[[Protestant Reformation]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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