The Pilgrim Fathers were a group of about 100 people who fled from religious persecution in England to colonise what is now New England in America.
Although it was hoped that the accession of King James I in 1603 would bring religious tolerance, Separatist Puritans were still persecuted, and in 1607 some thirty Separatists in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, fled to the Netherlands, settling ultimately in Leiden.
They had difficulty preserving their culture, however, and, attracted by the fishing and missionary work available in America, they negotiated a land patent with the London Virginia Company, which had established the first English colony at Jamestown in 1607. They joined other would be settlers in Plymouth, Devon, and on 16 September 1620, set sail in the 180 -ton Mayflower.
The ship was overcrowded and too small for an ocean crossing, and many settlers died of disease. Damaged and blown off-course, the Mayflower arrived, on 21 November, at Cape Cod- outside the Virginia colony. On 21 December, now commemorated as Forefather’s Day in the United States, forty-one of the surviving travellers drew up to the Mayflower Compact of government for the colony, founding the town of Plymouth, in modern-day Massachusetts. The first winter was harsh, but the aid of Native Americans, and the security afforded by the military leader MylesStandish, allowed them to survive and expand. In 1630, more English Puritans arrived and the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established. Boston became a major port and a wave of migration to the New World began.
Just recapping on my history lessons.