Plymouth Colony
The
Plymouth Colony was an
English colonial venture in
North America from 1620 until 1691. The colony contained roughly what is now
Bristol County,
Plymouth County, and
Barnstable County, Massachusetts.
The colony was founded by a group of people commonly known as the "Pilgrims", of which about 40% were
English religious separatists.
The core group, after separating from the Anglican Church, left England for the
Netherlands; then later sailed from the Netherlands to the New World and North America. The Pilgrim colonists obtained a land patent from the
London Virginia Company in 1619, but did not use it. They founded the colony in the grant area of the
Plymouth Council for New England (which was still in the process of being created before they left), and received a formal land patent in 1621.
The
Mayflower left
Plymouth (England) for a third time on September 6, 1620 without her sister ship
Speedwell, which had ultimately been deemed unseaworthy, and sailed for New England without a land patent prepared. They anchored at
Provincetown Harbor on
November 21, 1620 (
New Style). But having landed without a patent, some settlers wanted to abandon their obligations. Therefore, the first governing document of the colony, the
Mayflower Compact, was drafted and ratified by the first group of colonists aboard the ship, as it lay off-shore upon arrival. Their first landfall was near today's
Provincetown where they sought firewood and fresh water. After surveying the area, the colonists settled in December on
Plymouth, on the western shore of
Cape Cod Bay, in southeastern
Massachusetts.
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Rehoboth was a pastoral community. Due to the surrounding marshy terrain and hills, farming was never an agricultural community. Based on the Palmer River, much food was obtained from river fishing and herring runs. The first settlement of the town was about 1652 on the southern portion of the river. The colony suffered a good deal of damage in the
King Philip's War, but many houses still exist today. The town would exploit in later years (1700's) the nearby Palmer River to become both a sawmill, cotton spinning, and iron forging center.
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Taunton was a major bog iron and silversmithing hub. Called Cohanet before being incorporated in 1639, it had a ready supply of iron from nearby swamps. Robert Treate Paine, a signer of the Declaration was from this town.
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Duxbury*
Plymouth was the first and most well known of the settlements. It was a shipbuilding and fishing center, as well as a rope and cordage producer.
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Provincetown*
Barnstable*
Yarmouth |
Seal of Plymouth Colony. Still used by the Town of Plymouth, its origins are obscure. The original seal was lost and its appearance recovered during the short-lived Dominion of New England. It depicts four figures within a shield bearing St George's Cross, apparently in Native style clothing, each carrying the burning heart symbol of John Calvin. The seal was also used by the County of Plymouth until 1931. |
The first settlement of the colony was "New Plymouth", later
Plymouth, Massachusetts. The site, known to the Wampanoag as Patuxet, had recently been abandoned following an
epidemic. The colonists chose it because it had a reliable supply of fresh water and the land had already been cleared. By the end of the first winter, almost half of the settlers were dead, from
scurvy contracted while in transit and other diseases. Thus began one of the best-intended, historically renowned, and yet ill-fated colonial ventures in America (after the
Roanoke Island Settlement and
Jamestown).
William Bradford became governor in 1621 upon the death of Carver, served for eleven consecutive years, and was elected to various other terms until his death in 1657.
On March 22, 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with
Massasoit of the
Wampanoags. As the Pilgrims arrived without agricultural skills, the Wampanoag's knowledge of corn and bean cultivation were likely essential for their survival.
The second group of settlers sailed on the
Fortune, which arrived November 10, 1621. The third group arrived on the
Anne and the
Little James in August 1623. The fourth group arrived in June of 1629 on six ships and landed at Naumkeag (
Salem, Massachusetts) The fifth group arrived June 1, 1630. They landed at
Nantasket and settled
Mattapan, which they called
Dorchester, after their native city in England.
On June 12, 1630, the
Arbella and 15 other vessels arrived at Salem, Mass. with 800 to 900 people, being the Massachusetts Company under Governor John Winthrop and went to
Boston.
The patent of Plymouth Colony was surrendered by Bradford to the
freemen in 1640, minus a small reserve of three tracts of land.
Plymouth ended its history as a separate colony with the 1691 formation of the
Province of Massachusetts Bay(Describing the Pilgrims safe arrival at Cape Cod aboard the Mayflower)
"Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast & furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries therof, againe to set their feete on ye firme and stable earth, their proper elemente. And no marvell if they were thus joyefull, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing a few miles on ye coast of his owne Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather remaine twentie years on his way by land, then pass by sea to any place in a short time; so tedious & dreadfull was ye same unto him.But hear I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition; and so I thinke will the reader too, when he well considered ye same. Being thus passed ye vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembred by yt which wente before), they had now no friends to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weatherbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for succoure. ..
Let it also be considred what weake hopes of supply & succoure they left behinde them, yt might bear up their minds in this sade condition and trialls they were under; and they could not but be very smale. It is true, indeed, ye affections & love of their brethren at Leyden was cordiall & entire towards them, but they had little power to help them, or them selves; and how ye case stode betweene them & ye marchants at their coming away, hath already been declared. What could not sustaine them but ye spirite of God & his grace? May not & ought not the children of these fathers rightly say : Our faithers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this willdernes; but they cried unto ye Lord, and he heard their voyce, and looked on their adversitie…"
Plymouth was the second permanent English settlement in the Americas, the first being
Jamestown, Virginia. Early, abandoned settlements include the
Popham Colony (present-day
Maine), the "Lost Colony" of
Roanoke Island (present-day
North Carolina), and
Cuper's Cove and
Bristol's Hope in present-day
Newfoundland.
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European colonization of the Americas*
British colonization of the Americas*
British Empire*
Colonial America*
Thanksgiving*
List of Mayflower passengers who died in the winter of 1620 - 1621*
Plimoth Plantation, a re-enactment of the original Plymouth plantation.
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Plantation (settlement or colony)
