Mayflower: A History From Beginning to End
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About this ebook
The story of the Mayflower is one of adventure, courage, and destiny. The Mayflower was the ship that launched a nation. She left from England in September of 1620, carrying 102 English Separatists to a new life, one that came with the freedom to practice their religious beliefs as they saw fit. These Pilgrims had the courage of their convictions. They had already potentially faced execution for practicing their beliefs and now they were willing to uproot their lives, their families, and their homes, to sign contracts of indentured servitude for them and their children - all to find what they called freedom in a foreign land.
Inside you will read about...
✓ How Religious Upheaval Shaped American Colonization
✓ The Ship that Launched a Nation's Future
✓ The Contract and the Crossing
✓ Arrival in America
✓ Early Life in the Colonies
✓ Pilgrims and Puritans
✓ The Ideology that Shaped a Nation
Their journey was one of courage and destiny as they forged ahead, crossing an ocean to settle in a harsh environment. They faced storms and dangerous adversaries to get to the New World. There, they built a life based on the values they held sacred, and those values would form the foundation of a new nation almost a century later. This eBook tells the story of their adventure in a concise yet thorough manner that is packed with historical detail and enjoyable to read.
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Reviews for Mayflower
6 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reality as it was, to mention the discrimination of the Native Indians isn’t sidelined. Good easy read.
Book preview
Mayflower - Hourly History
Introduction
What prompts a group of people to undertake a dangerous journey to an unknown destination? It sounds like the opening line of an adventure novel, but instead, it is history: in 1620, a group of people left their homes, and their country, to cross an ocean so that they could live in the way their beliefs dictated. So strong was their conviction that they were willing to risk everything; indeed, many of them would pay the ultimate price the first winter in their new land⁵,⁶,⁸. This is the story of the earliest American colonists, the Pilgrims, and their journey on the Mayflower to a new home.
The Pilgrims were English Protestant Separatists. Protestants believed that the bureaucracy created by the Catholic Church was an unnecessary middleman between the believer and salvation. The initial break with the Catholic Church was instigated by Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who, like other protestors before him, believed that the only authority was Scripture. He called for an end to many of the Roman Catholic practices, such as the selling of indulgences and the conducting of mass in Latin. He also questioned the divine authority of the Pope. His relationship with Catholicism was clearly not a match made in Heaven; Luther excommunicated himself and proceeded to translate the Bible into German. That set off a religious firestorm that would take centuries to put out¹,⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹⁵.
By the time the English Separatists were considering their journey, there had been numerous conflicts between Catholicism and Protestantism. The undermining of Catholic authority in England had been initiated for different reasons, but it too had resulted in an unsatisfactory environment for the Separatists. Henry VIII, who just wanted to divorce his wife, formed a new church after the Catholic Church refused him an annulment. He had himself declared the new pope of his church, the Anglican Church - or Church of England. His first act was to grant himself a divorce. While the reasons for the break with Catholicism were secular, genuine theological differences were quick to emerge. What followed in England was a long period of religious flip-flopping between Catholicism and Protestantism, but the Protestantism of the Anglican Church, with its ambiguous theological foundation, was not ultimately satisfactory to the Separatists. They finally decided they had to move, initially to Holland and later to America¹,⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹⁵.
The Pilgrims were so firm in their resolve that they were willing to enter into a contract of indentured servitude in order to pay for their passage. This was arranged with the London Company and other investors, including Thomas Weston’s Merchant Adventurers. With the contract signed, the Pilgrims hired a merchant ship, the Mayflower, to take them across the Atlantic. The crossing was difficult. The passengers resided in cramped conditions with no sanitary bathroom facilities, little food, and little to do save care for those who suffered from seasickness. They weathered several storms that battered the small ship and even damaged one of the main beams supporting the hull. Two people died during the crossing, and one baby was born²,³,¹⁶.
The Pilgrims arrived in their new land on November 9, 1620, but it was an inhospitable environment in which they found themselves. They were unprepared for the bitterly cold conditions, and their