![]() One of their main goals was to convert the Native people to Christianity. It’s also worth noting that, while the Pilgrims wanted the freedom to practice their religion, that freedom did not extend to anyone else. They secured a charter from The London Company to start a colony in America - England’s second, after Jamestown in Virginia - and began gathering a group of people to travel with them, mainly servants, explorers and sailors. But they found it difficult to find jobs to support themselves and were worried their children were being too influenced by Dutch culture and morals. After splitting off from the Church of England near the turn of the 17th century, the congregation fled to Holland, which allowed for more religious freedom. The main reason they came to America was to maintain their English culture and to make money. Puritans made up less than half of the more than 100 people who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower and settled what would eventually become Plymouth, as detailed in William Bradford's "Of Plimouth Plantation." The group we most often associate with the Pilgrims - the Puritan congregation that separated from the Church of England - did, at least partially, come to America looking for a place where they could practice their religion without persecution. Myth: The Pilgrims came to the New World seeking religious freedom. Samoset, Tisquantum, or “Squanto,” and Epenow, all spoke English and played important roles in burgeoning relations between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags, as detailed by historian and author David Silverman in his book, "This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving." ![]() In fact, several Native Americans in the area spoke English by the time the Pilgrims arrived in 1620, picked up either through trading encounters or by previously being taken into slavery by the English but they either escaped or were returned to the area. The first documented European to make contact with either the Narragansetts or the Wampanoags in Southern New England was Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazano, who, in 1524, while sailing for the French, traveled up Narragansett Bay and traded with the Native people he found there. ![]() According to historic accounts, however, Europeans had been visiting New England since at least the late 1400s. The Basques, English and French had a thriving fishing industry off the coast of Maine and New England. The commonly told version of the 1620 Mayflower landing is that the Pilgrims were the first Europeans to step onto the shores of Massachusetts. Myth: The Pilgrims were the first Europeans to land in Southern New England and to interact with the Native people.
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