The Mayflower
The Mayflower, with a crew of roughly 30 men, set sail from Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620. She carried 102 passengers, many fleeing the oppressive rule of the Church of England. Having formed a separatist church in England, they were vulnerable to prosecution. For a dozen years, many separatists lived in exile in Leiden, Holland, where they were welcome to worship as they pleased. In their exile, however, the problem was too much freedom. William Bradford, a religious leader among them, wrote that the free-thinking Dutch were far too tolerant and able to lure away their next generation with “evil examples into extravagance and dangerous courses.” In his book Of Plymouth Plantation, Governor Bradford wrote that in setting their sights on the New World, “they had great hope, for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world.”
The voyage was beset by weather and tumult, wrote Bradford., “In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce and the seas so high, as they could not bear a knot of sail, but were forced to hull for divers days together.”
Incredibly, after 65 days at sea, on the 21st of November the Mayflower arrived at the tip of Cape Cod in Provincetown. This event, Bradford acknowledged with deep gratitude: “Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven.”
Aware of the Separatists’ fervent piety, writers and orators of the nineteenth century came to naming the Mayflower Separatists as “Pilgrims”. This was picked up from Bradford’s words on their departure from Leiden. “So they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place near twelve years; but they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits.” Found in Of Plymouth Plantation, this is a reference to Hebrews 11: 13, where believers are described as exiles or pilgrims on earth, seeking heaven. By a sometimes awkward extension, all of the Mayflower passengers are called Pilgrims.