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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.09.15 15:55l 83 Lines 3992 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 67346_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Sep 16
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<JM1YTR<JE7YGF<VE3UIL<VA7DGP<W5MCC<N0KFQ
Sent: 150916/1448Z 67346@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.64
1620
Mayflower departs England
The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, bound for the New
World with 102 passengers. The ship was headed for Virginia,
where the colonists-half religious dissenters and half
entrepreneurs-had been authorized to settle by the British crown.
However, stormy weather and navigational errors forced the
Mayflower off course, and on November 21 the "Pilgrims" reached
Massachusetts, where they founded the first permanent European
settlement in New England in late December.
Thirty-five of the Pilgrims were members of the radical English
Separatist Church, who traveled to America to escape the
jurisdiction of the Church of England, which they found corrupt.
Ten years earlier, English persecution had led a group of
Separatists to flee to Holland in search of religious freedom.
However, many were dissatisfied with economic opportunities in
the Netherlands, and under the direction of William Bradford they
decided to immigrate to Virginia, where an English colony had
been founded at Jamestown in 1607.
The Separatists won financial backing from a group of investors
called the London Adventurers, who were promised a sizable share
of the colony's profits. Three dozen church members made their
way back to England, where they were joined by about 70
entrepreneurs-enlisted by the London stock company to ensure the
success of the enterprise. In August 1620, the Mayflower left
Southampton with a smaller vessel-the Speedwell-but the latter
proved unseaworthy and twice was forced to return to port. On
September 16, the Mayflower left for America alone from Plymouth.
In a difficult Atlantic crossing, the 90-foot Mayflower
encountered rough seas and storms and was blown more than 500
miles off course. Along the way, the settlers formulated and
signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that bound the
signatories into a "civil body politic." Because it established
constitutional law and the rule of the majority, the compact is
regarded as an important precursor to American democracy. After a
66-day voyage, the ship landed on November 21 on the tip of Cape
Cod at what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts.
After coming to anchor in Provincetown harbor, a party of armed
men under the command of Captain Myles Standish was sent out to
explore the area and find a location suitable for settlement.
While they were gone, Susanna White gave birth to a son,
Peregrine, aboard the Mayflower. He was the first English child
born in New England. In mid-December, the explorers went ashore
at a location across Cape Cod Bay where they found cleared fields
and plentiful running water and named the site Plymouth.
The expedition returned to Provincetown, and on December 21 the
Mayflower came to anchor in Plymouth harbor. Just after
Christmas, the pilgrims began work on dwellings that would
shelter them through their difficult first winter in America.
In the first year of settlement, half the colonists died of
disease. In 1621, the health and economic condition of the
colonists improved, and that autumn Governor William Bradford
invited neighboring Indians to Plymouth to celebrate the bounty
of that year's harvest season. Plymouth soon secured treaties
with most local Indian tribes, and the economy steadily grew, and
more colonists were attracted to the settlement. By the mid
1640s, Plymouth's population numbered 3,000 people, but by then
the settlement had been overshadowed by the larger Massachusetts
Bay Colony to the north, settled by Puritans in 1629.
The term "Pilgrim" was not used to describe the Plymouth
colonists until the early 19th century and was derived from a
manuscript in which Governor Bradford spoke of the "saints" who
left Holland as "pilgrimes." The orator Daniel Webster spoke of
"Pilgrim Fathers" at a bicentennial celebration of Plymouth's
founding in 1820, and thereafter the term entered common usage.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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