🦃 More Than Just Names: The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving Think of what they had done and endured. With many of them seeking escape from England’s harsh religious codes of the time, 102 passengers boarded a small English ship in Southampton on Sept. 26, 1620, sailed the rough Atlantic seas for 66 days, missed their intended destination by several hundred miles, and selected the place they deemed suitable for settlement just as the bitter New England winter was setting in. Before their Thanksgiving feast a year later, half of this company would die of disease, exposure to the elements, and malnutrition. So, who were these people who had traveled so far from the familiarity of their native land? Read more ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/eD-VYwem
The passengers of the Mayflower were not a single unified group, but two distinct communities bound together by necessity and hope. About half were Separatists—English men and women who had broken away from the Church of England and sought the freedom to worship as they believed God intended. They had spent years living in exile in Leiden, Netherlands, before deciding to risk the Atlantic crossing to build a new life. The others were “Strangers,” as the Separatists called them: skilled tradesmen, laborers, indentured servants, and a handful of hired specialists recruited by the London investors who financed the voyage. These individuals were not driven primarily by religion but by opportunity—land, employment, or the chance for a fresh start in a distant colony. They became known collectively as the Pilgrims—not because they viewed themselves as founders of a mythic holiday, but because they saw their lives as a sacred journey, a pilgrimage toward religious liberty and a better future