Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of English Puritans who came to be known as the "Pilgrims". The core group (roughly 40% of the adults and 56% of the family groupings) were part of a congregation led by William Bradford. They began to feel the pressures of religious persecution while still in the English village of Scrooby, near East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In 1607, Archbishop Tobias Matthew raided homes and imprisoned several members of the congregation. The congregation left England in 1608 and emigrated to the Netherlands, settling first in Amsterdam and then in Leiden. In Leiden, the congregation gained the freedom to worship as they chose, but Dutch society was unfamiliar to them.
Origin
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony | Origin
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. Yes, a Militia organization. Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. Yes, the militia companies
which group of english immigrants first settled in plymouth in 1620
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Puritan Separatists
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when did they start their journey to this place?
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End of July 1620
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what was the name of the ship they traveled on?
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"Mayflower"
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was there a company formed?
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The Plymouth Company was an English joint-stock company founded in 1606 by James I of England. It was a company of Knights, merchants, adventurers, and planters of the cities of Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth. Its purpose was establishing settlements on the coast of North America, between 38 and 45 degrees north latitude, within 100 miles of the seaboard. The merchants agreed to finance the settlers’ trip in return for repayment of their expenses plus interest out of the profits made. In 1620, after years of disuse, the company was revived and reorganized as the Plymouth Council for New England. With a new charter, the New England Charter of 1620.
Plymouth Company | Introduction
The Plymouth Company was permitted to establish settlements between the 38th and 45th parallels, roughly between the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay and the U.S.-Canada border. On August 13, 1607, the Plymouth Company established the Popham Colony along the Kennebec River in Maine. However, it was abandoned after about a year and the Plymouth Company became inactive. A successor company eventually established a permanent settlement in 1620 when the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, aboard the Mayflower.
Virginia Company | The Plymouth Company
On May 31, 1607, about 100 men and boys left England for what is now Maine. Approximately three months later, the group landed on a wooded peninsula where the Kennebec River meets the Atlantic Ocean and began building Fort St. George. By the end of the year, due to limited resources, half of the colonists returned to England. Late the next year, the remaining 45 sailed home, and the Plymouth company fell dormant.
Colony of Virginia | Popham colony and Plymouth company
The Plymouth Company had 40 patentees at that point, and established the Council for New England to oversee their efforts, but it stopped operating in 1624; that was when these former plantations were dissolved and became Royal Colonies.
Plymouth Company | Introduction
The Plymouth Company ships arrived at the mouth of the Kennebec River (then called the Sagadahoc River) in August 1607 where they established a settlement named Sagadahoc Colony, better known as Popham Colony (see symbol "Po" on map to right) to honor financial backer Sir John Popham. The colonists faced a harsh winter, the loss of supplies following a storehouse fire, and mixed relations with the local Native tribes. Colony leader Captain George Popham died, and Raleigh Gilbert decided to return to England to take up an inheritance left by an older brother—at which point, all of the colonists decided to return to England.
New England Colonies | Arriving in America
Meanwhile, the Plymouth Colony had settled outside the territory of the London company due to navigational difficulties. The Plymouth Company was reorganized as the Plymouth Council for New England, and given a new royal "sea-to-sea" charter for all North American territory from 40° North (just east between present-day Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey) and 48° N (thus including all of modern-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island). The Plymouth Colony was granted land patents between 1621 and 1630 from the Council to legitimize its settlement, though it maintained political independence under the Mayflower Compact. The Plymouth Council for New England made sub grants to various entities before it was surrendered to the crown in 1635 and ceased to operate as a corporate entity.
History of Massachusetts | Founding grants
After the failure of the Dorchester Company in founding a settlement on Cape Ann the settlers and shareholders of the company wished to form another colonial settlement this time further south. The colony was to be settled between the Charles River and the Merrimack River in New England. The Massachusetts Bay Company, like other colonial joint-stock companies, was to be a corporate entity as well as a governmental one. The first settlers of the colony were Puritans who sought to create a society based on their religious beliefs unfettered from the Royal Anglican government of the Kingdom of England. The settlers were to be shareholders, with all those wishing to emigrate to new England required to buy shares.
Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company | History
During 1606, each company organized expeditions to establish settlements within the area of their rights. The London company formed Jamestown in its exclusive territory, whilst the Plymouth company formed the Popham Colony in its exclusive territory near what is now Phippsburg, Maine.
Colony of Virginia | Charter of 1606 – creation of London and Plymouth companies
Founded by a group of Separatists and Anglicans, who together later came to be known as the Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony (in Massachusetts) was founded in 1620 by those who sailed aboard the Mayflower. The colony was one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America, and the first sizeable permanent English settlement in what is now the New England region. Soon other colonies were established in New England. A Puritan minister named John Davenport led his flock from exile in the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637.
Thomas Powell (1641–1722) | Historical background
In 1838 the New Zealand Company was formed in England with the purpose of facilitating and encouraging migration from overcrowded cities to New Zealand, selling land to settlers who would work as farmers and labourers. A separate enterprise, the Plymouth Company, was established in Plymouth in February 1840, where it was run under the guidance of agent Thomas Woolcombe. (Many streets in New Plymouth bear the names of the company's directors, including Woolcombe, the Earl of Devon, Thomas Gill, Sir Anthony Buller, Lord Eliot, George Leach, Sir Charles Lemon, Edward St Aubyn, E.W.W. Pendarvis, Lord Courtenay and Hussey Vivian.) The company merged with the New Zealand Company in April 1841 after suffering financial losses through the collapse of its bank.
History of New Plymouth | 1838-1840: New Zealand Company’s first land purchases
The London Company made landfall on 26 April 1607, at the southern edge of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, which they named Cape Henry, near present-day Virginia Beach. Deciding to move the encampment, on 4 May 1607, they established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River about upstream from its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay. Later in 1607, the Plymouth Company established its Popham Colony in present-day Maine, but it was abandoned after about a year. By 1609, the Plymouth Company had dissolved. As a result, the charter for the London Company was adjusted with a new grant that extended from "sea to sea" of the previously-shared area between the 38th and 40th parallel.
London Company | Introduction
In 1607, the Plymouth Company was granted a coastal charter for all "coastal" territory up to a certain distance from the eastern shoreline of North America, from 38°N to 45°N. The northern boundary was thus slightly farther north than the current Maine–New Brunswick border, and the southern border intentionally overlapped with the Virginia Company of London ("London Company") from the 38th parallel (near the current Maryland–Virginia border) to the 41st (near the current Connecticut–New York border in Long Island Sound). Neither colony was allowed to settle within 100 miles of the other. The Plymouth Company's patent fell into disuse after the failure of the Popham Colony in what is now Maine.
History of Massachusetts | Founding grants
The New Zealand Company was a 19th-century English company that played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles of systematic colonisation devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one day buying land with their savings. The New Zealand Company established settlements at Wellington, Nelson, Wanganui and Dunedin and also became involved in the settling of New Plymouth and Christchurch.
New Zealand Company ships | Introduction
The Plymouth Colony originated as a land grant issued by the London Virginia Company to a group of English separatist Puritans who had fled to Holland to avoid religious persecution. Their migration to the New World in 1620 aboard the "Mayflower" was funded by the Merchant Adventurers, who sent additional settlers to engage in profit-making activities in the colony. The settlers had intended to establish a colony near the mouth of the Hudson River, within the bounds of the London Virginia Company's territory, but weather conditions on their arrival led them to establish it instead on the shores of Cape Cod Bay at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
List of colonial governors of Massachusetts | Plymouth Colony: 1620–86, 1689–92
King James granted a proprietary charter to two competing branches of the Virginia Company, which were supported by investors. These were the Plymouth Company and the London Company. By the terms of the charter, the Plymouth Company was permitted to establish a colony of square between the 38th parallel and the 45th parallel (roughly between Chesapeake Bay and the current U.S.–Canada border). The London Company was permitted to establish between the 34th parallel and the 41st parallel (approximately between Cape Fear and Long Island Sound), and also owned a large portion of Atlantic and Inland Canada. In the area of overlap, the two companies were not permitted to establish colonies within one hundred miles of each other.
Colony of Virginia | Charter of 1606 – creation of London and Plymouth companies
A second ship arrived in November 1621 named the "Fortune", sent by the Merchant Adventurers one year after the Pilgrims first set foot in New England. It arrived with 37 new settlers for Plymouth. However, the ship had arrived unexpectedly and also without many supplies, so the additional settlers put a strain on the resources of the colony. Among the passengers of the "Fortune" were several of the original Leiden congregation, including William Brewster's son Jonathan, Edward Winslow's brother John, and Philip Delano (the family name was earlier "de la Noye") whose descendants include President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The "Fortune" also carried a letter from the Merchant Adventurers chastising the colony for failure to return goods with the "Mayflower" that had been promised in return for their support.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
In 1628 Dudley and other Puritans decided to form the Massachusetts Bay Company, with a view toward establishing a Puritan colony in North America. Dudley's name does not appear on the land grant issued to the company that year, but he was almost certainly involved in the formative stages of the company, whose investors and supporters included many individuals in the Earl of Lincoln's circle. The company sent a small group of colonists led by John Endecott to begin building a settlement, called Salem, on the shores of Massachusetts Bay; a second group was sent in 1629. The company acquired a royal charter in April 1629, and later that year made the critical decision to transport the charter and the company's corporate governance to the colony.
Thomas Dudley | Massachusetts Bay Colony
The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620 when the charter of the Plymouth Company was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint stock company established to colonize and govern the region. In December 1620, the permanent settlement of Plymouth Colony was established by the Pilgrims, English Puritan separatists who arrived on the "Mayflower". They held a feast of gratitude which became part of the American tradition of Thanksgiving. Plymouth Colony had a small population and size, and it was absorbed into Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.
History of New England | Plymouth Colony (1620–1643)
The Susquehanna Company and early settlement The origins of Plymouth (also known as Shawnee and Shawneetown) date back to the creation of the Susquehanna Company in Windham, Connecticut, on June 18, 1753, formed to promote the settlement of certain lands along the Susquehanna in what is now northeastern Pennsylvania. This place, called "Wyoming", fell within the bounds of the charter issued in 1662 by Charles II to the Connecticut Colony. It also fell within the bounds of the charter issued by the same king in 1681 to William Penn, thus setting the stage for a conflict between the two colonies.
History of Plymouth, Pennsylvania | The Yankee era (1753–1856)
Merchants named as founding members were from the following English ports and towns (number of members in brackets), in order listed in the charter:
Spanish Company | Ports & towns of origin of merchant members
A new company, formed partly of members of the first company, obtained, about 1627, a grant from the Council for New England. The grant was confirmed and a Royal Charter to form the Massachusetts Bay Company was given on 4 March 1629. Sir Henry Rosewell's name appears first on the list of grantees and he may have been a director or governor (perhaps in name only). Sir Henry had family connections with those involved in both the Dorchester and Massachusetts Bay companies but it is doubtful whether he took an active part in either venture. He was High Sheriff of Devon in 1629 and Justice of the Peace (listed 1630, 1647 and 1653).
Henry Rosewell | Activities
They named their settlement "Plimouth" (sometimes spelled "Plimoth") after the major port city in Devon, England from which the "Mayflower" ultimately sailed.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Colonial era
On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, which comprised the London Company and the Plymouth Company. These two privately funded ventures were intended to claim land for England, to conduct trade, and to return a profit. In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived on the "Mayflower" and established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, beginning the history of permanent European colonization in New England. With the arrival of colonists, many Native Americans were kidnapped for enslavement. English sailors— like George Waymouth in 1605 and Harlow in 1611—captured and enslaved Native peoples. Up until 1700, Native American servitude comprised a majority of the nonwhite labor present in New England.
New England | Colonial period
By the terms of the charter, the London Company was permitted to establish a colony of 100 miles square between the 34th and 45th parallels, approximately between Cape Fear and Long Island Sound. It also owned a large portion of inland Canada. The company established the Jamestown Settlement on May 14, 1607 about 40 miles inland along the James River, a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. In 1620, George Calvert asked King James I for a charter for English Catholics to add the territory of the Plymouth Company. Also in 1609, a much larger Third Supply mission was organized.
Virginia Company | London Company
"Speedwell" was re-rigged with larger masts before leaving Holland and setting out to meet "Mayflower" in Southampton, England, around the end of July 1620. The Mayflower was purchased in London. The original captains were Captain Reynolds for "Speedwell" and Captain Christopher Jones for "Mayflower". Other passengers joined the group in Southampton, including William Brewster, who had been in hiding for the better part of a year, and a group of people known to the Leiden congregation as "The Strangers." This group was largely made up of people recruited by the Merchant Adventurers to provide practical assistance to the colony and additional hands to work for the colony's ventures.
Plymouth Colony | "Mayflower" voyage
Interest by London merchants in establishing and managing colonial settlements in North America waned after the 1624 failure of the London Company and the subsequent conversion of the Colony of Virginia into a Crown colony. Cradock was a notable exception; a Puritan, in 1628 he made a major investment in the New England Company, formed by a group of Puritan religious and business leaders to take over the assets of the failed Dorchester Company and make new ventures in the colonisation of North America. Cradock was elected the company's first governor on 13 May 1628. Not long after, the company acquired a grant of land on Massachusetts Bay from the Plymouth Council for New England, and sent John Endecott with a small group of settlers to begin the process of establishing a colony at a place now called Salem, Massachusetts.
Matthew Cradock | Massachusetts Bay Company
As the settlements which followed the landing at Plymouth increased and spread, there was no organized military force for protection - only local volunteer companies, which lacked the capacity for joint action or any centralized authority. The English Government had no standing army, with the only permanent force (other than Royal bodyguards) being the locally organised Militia, in which all able males between 16 and 60 were liable to serve as required for home defence. This part-time force was extended to the New World colonies following the settlement of Virginia in 1607 and its offshoot Bermuda in 1609–1612, and to other colonies as they were established.
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts | History
The Virginia Company refers collectively to two joint-stock companies chartered under James I on April 10, 1606 with the goal of establishing settlements on the coast of North America. The two companies are referred to as the "Virginia Company of London" (or the London Company) and the "Virginia Company of Plymouth" (or the Plymouth Company), and they operated with identical charters in different territories. The charters established an area of overlapping territory in North America as a buffer zone, and the two companies were not permitted to establish colonies within 100 miles of each other. The Plymouth Company never fulfilled its charter, but its territory was claimed by England and became New England.
Virginia Company | Introduction
They had declined the opportunity to settle south of Cape Cod in New Netherland because of their desire to avoid the Dutch influence. This land patent allowed them to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River. They sought to finance their venture through the Merchant Adventurers, a group of businessmen who principally viewed the colony as a means of making a profit. Upon arriving in America, the Pilgrims began working to repay their debts.
Plymouth Colony | Origin
Investors in the Virginia Company hoped to profit from the natural resources of the New World. In 1606 Captain Bartholomew Gosnold obtained of King James I a charter for two companies. The first, the Virginia Company of London (now known generally as the "London Company"), covered what are now Maryland, Virginia and Carolina, between Latitude 34° and Latitude 41° North. Gosnold's principal backers were Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Edward Wingfield and Richard Hakluyt. The second company, the Plymouth Company of London (today known as the "Plymouth Company"), was empowered to settle as far as 45° North, encompassing what are present day Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England.
London Company | Founding
Typically, a colonial militia company (or, as they were called in the early 1600s, "train bands") consisted of a captain, a lieutenant, an ensign, two to four sergeants, a variable number of corporals but probably equal in number to the sergeants, a clerk, a drummer, and as many able bodied men as were able to perform military duty in the town the company served. On October 2, 1658 the militia companies of the towns of Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Sandwich, Taunton, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Marshfield, Rehoboth, and Eastham, as the Plymouth Regiment under the command of Major (later Governor) Josiah Winslow. In June 1685, Plymouth Colony divided into three counties - Plymouth, Barnstable and Bristol.
Plymouth Colony | Militia organization
Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of English Puritans who came to be known as the "Pilgrims". The core group (roughly 40% of the adults and 56% of the family groupings) were part of a congregation led by William Bradford. They began to feel the pressures of religious persecution while still in the English village of Scrooby, near East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In 1607, Archbishop Tobias Matthew raided homes and imprisoned several members of the congregation. The congregation left England in 1608 and emigrated to the Netherlands, settling first in Amsterdam and then in Leiden. In Leiden, the congregation gained the freedom to worship as they chose, but Dutch society was unfamiliar to them.
Plymouth Colony | Origin
The Virginia Company's charter was revoked in 1624 and direct control of Virginia was assumed by the crown, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia. The London and Bristol Company was created in 1610 with the aim of creating a permanent settlement on Newfoundland, but was largely unsuccessful. In 1620, Plymouth was founded as a haven for Puritan religious separatists, later known as the Pilgrims. Fleeing from religious persecution would become the motive of many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage: Maryland was founded as a haven for Roman Catholics (1634), Rhode Island (1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions and Connecticut (1639) for Congregationalists.
British Empire | Americas, Africa and the slave trade
The "Mayflower" anchored at Provincetown Harbor on November 11, 1620. The Pilgrims did not have a patent to settle this area, and some passengers began to question their right to land, complaining that there was no legal authority to establish a colony. In response to this, a group of colonists drafted and signed the first governing document of the colony, the Mayflower Compact, while still aboard the ship as it lay off-shore. The intent of the compact was to establish a means of governing the colony, though it did little more than confirm that the colony would be governed like any English town.
Plymouth Colony | Landings at Provincetown and Plymouth
Popham was a project of the Plymouth Company, which was one of the two competing parts of the proprietary Virginia Company that King James chartered in 1606 to raise private funds from investors in order to settle Virginia. At the time, the name "Virginia" applied to the entire east coast of North America from Spanish Florida to New France in modern-day Canada. That area was technically under the claim of the Spanish crown, but was not occupied by the Spanish. The Plymouth Company was granted a royal charter and the rights to the coast between 38° and 45° N; the rival London Company was granted the coast between 34° and 41° N.
Popham Colony | Founding
The first Plymouth Company ship, "Richard", sailed in August 1606, but the Spanish intercepted and captured it near Florida in November. The next attempt was more successful. The expedition's mission was to find gold, the Northwest Passage, a river passage to China, to fish and hunt beaver for fur and to sell and prove that New World forests could build English ships. About 120 colonists (all men and boys) left Plymouth on May 31, 1607, in two ships. They intended to trade precious metals, spices, furs, and show that the local forests could be used to build English ships. George Popham was president of the colony and captain of "Gift of God".
Popham Colony | Colonists
The London Company proceeded to establish Jamestown. The Plymouth Company under the guidance of Sir Ferdinando Gorges covered the more northern area, including New England, and established the Sagadahoc Colony in 1607 in Maine. The experience proved exceptionally difficult for the 120 settlers, however, and the surviving colonists abandoned the colony after only one year. Gorges noted that "there was no more speech of settling plantations in those parts" for a number of years. English ships continued to come to the New England area for fishing and trade with the Indigenous population.
Massachusetts Bay Colony | History
On December 21, 1620, the first landing party arrived at the site of Plymouth. Plans to build houses, however, were delayed by bad weather until December 23. As the building progressed, 20 men always remained ashore for security purposes while the rest of the work crews returned each night to the "Mayflower". Women, children, and the infirm remained on board the "Mayflower", and many had not left the ship for six months. The first structure was a common house of wattle and daub, and it took two weeks to complete in the harsh New England winter. In the following weeks, the rest of the settlement slowly took shape.
Plymouth Colony | First winter
The company also became indirectly involved in the settlement of New Plymouth in 1841, through its links with the Plymouth Company, to which it sold a total of 60,000 acres, of indeterminate location, in mid-1840. The Plymouth Company sent a survey party to choose where the settlement would be located and in January 1841 that company's surveyor, Frederick Carrington, selected Taranaki. The Plymouth Company encountered financial difficulties that led to a merger of the two companies on 10 May 1841. In July 1843 the New Zealand Company issued a prospectus for the sale of 120,550 acres (48,000 hectares), divided between town, suburban and rural lots at a new settlement called New Edinburgh.
New Zealand Company | Further settlements
In 1606, King James I of England granted charters to both the Plymouth Company and the London Company for the purpose of establishing permanent settlements in America. The London Company established the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1607, the first permanently settled English colony on the continent. The Plymouth Company founded the Popham Colony on the Kennebec River, but it was short-lived. The Plymouth Council for New England sponsored several colonization projects, culminating with Plymouth Colony in 1620 which was settled by English Puritan separatists, known today as the Pilgrims. The Dutch, Swedish, and French also established successful American colonies at roughly the same time as the English, but they eventually came under the English crown.
Thirteen Colonies | British colonies
Additionally, 15 of those men (of 58 total) were included in a historic 1626 agreement regarding "Mayflower" and other debts owed by the colony to the Merchant Adventurers which were reorganized and taken over largely by the colony itself under a creditor group known as the “Purchasers” . In 1627 the debts and shares in the company were assigned in to 8 Plymouth colony leaders and 4 Merchant Adventurers, all known as “Undertakers.” Those 15 Purchasers are identified on the passenger list. And although Bradford notes that thirty-five persons were on "Fortune", only the names of twenty-eight persons are listed as receiving lots in 1623.
Passengers of 1621 Fortune voyage | Passenger count
At that time it was decided that each county would have its own regiment, with one or more companies from each of its towns. This was the organization of the colony's militia when Plymouth merged with Massachusetts in 1692.
Plymouth Colony | Militia organization
However, some investors (Cradock among them) did not want to emigrate to the colony, so a means to buy out those investors needed to be devised. After negotiating through the summer, an agreement was reached on 29 August 1629. It called for those shareholders who were emigrating to buy out those that remained in England after seven years; the latter would also receive a share of some of the colony's business activities, including the fur trade. John Winthrop, one of the shareholders who was emigrating, was elected the company's governor in October. Winthrop sailed to Massachusetts in 1630, and the fleet carrying the colonists included two of Cradock's ships, and agents and servants of his who were to see to his commercial interests.
Matthew Cradock | Massachusetts Bay Company
In 1609 John Vassall was recorded as a shareholder on the Second Charter of The Virginia Company. Anne Russell was John Vassall's second of three wives and with her had five children, William being the youngest. The GSMD (Mayflower Society) states that the building date and original owner of the ship "Mayflower" that came to Plymouth in 1620 is unknown. Additionally, the Society states that "Mayflower" was a common ship's name in the period and that the "Mayflower" captained by Christopher Jones from about 1609 has never been adequately researched prior to his time as ship's captain.
William Vassall | Vassall family and the "Mayflower"
Because of this, they chose to relocate to the New World, with their voyage being financed by English investors. In September 1620, 102 passengers set sail aboard the "Mayflower", eventually settling at Plymouth Colony in November. Of the passengers on the Mayflower, 41 men signed the "Mayflower Compact" aboard ship on November 11, 1620, while anchored in Provincetown Harbor. Signers included Carver, Alden, Standish, Howland, Bradford, Allerton, and Fuller. This story has become a central theme in the United States cultural identity. A number of English colonies were established under a system of proprietary governors, who were appointed under mercantile charters to English joint stock companies to found and run settlements.
English Americans | Early settlement and colonization
White himself never sailed to America. About 1623 he interested himself in sending out a colony of Dorset men to settle in Massachusetts, allowing nonconformists to enjoy liberty of conscience. The attempt by the Dorchester Company to plant a colony at Cape Ann with Thomas Gardner as Overseer, at what would become Gloucester, Massachusetts, did not prove at first successful; in the previous decade, only about 500 English colonists had established a foothold, and this Company was wound up by 1625. White then recruited emigrants from the western counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, who set sail a few years later as a better-supported expedition and organized church aboard the ship "Mary and John".
John White (colonist priest) | Massachusetts Bay Company
The Plymouth colony had made excursions along the Massachusetts coast including north to Cape Ann. Some records report that Cushman and Winslow of Plymouth had received a patent for Cape Ann (1623/24). Other reports suggest that salting structures had been built in the Cape Ann area to support fishing efforts. The Gardner group, who were to settle the area, did succeed in maintaining themselves after their landing, though the commercial goals of the Dorchester Company were not met. There were also disagreement between the Plymouth colonists and the Dorchester Company settlers, due to patent conflicts. Roger Conant, having first been at Plymouth, was probably instrumental in working out a compromise, part of which resulted in the Dorchester group moving to the Naumkeag area.
Old Planters (Massachusetts) | Plymouth involvement
Originally, two English joint-stock companies had been created to settle North America, then known as the Colony of Virginia. In June 1606, the London Company was granted a charter for a section of the continent south of that given to the Plymouth Company. Both companies established settlements in 1607 - the London Company in Jamestown, and the Plymouth Company in Plymouth. Soon, the term Virginia came to refer only to that part of North America covered by the London Company's original charters. The third charter, of 1612, extended its territory far enough across the Atlantic to include the Somers Isles (Bermuda), which the Virginia Company had been in unofficial possession of since the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture.
The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles | Background
In September 1623, another ship arrived carrying settlers destined to refound the failed colony at Weymouth, and they stayed temporarily in Plymouth. In March 1624, a ship arrived bearing a few additional settlers and the first cattle. A 1627 division of cattle lists 156 colonists divided into twelve lots of thirteen colonists each. Another ship arrived in August 1629, also named the "Mayflower", with 35 additional members of the Leiden congregation. Ships arrived throughout the period between 1629 and 1630 carrying new settlers, though the exact number is unknown; contemporaneous documents indicate that the colony had almost 300 people by January 1630.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
Following the failure of the previous colonisation attempts, England resumed attempts to set up a number of colonies. This time joint-stock companies were used rather than giving extensive grants to a landed proprietor such as Gilbert or Raleigh.
Colony of Virginia | Virginia Company (1606–1624)
It reached the peak of efficiency about 1841, encountered financial problems from 1843 from which it never recovered, and wound up in 1858. This list details the various ships used by the Company in establishing its settlements in New Zealand at Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth up to 1843.
New Zealand Company ships | Introduction
In 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region "New England". The name was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620, when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint-stock company established to colonize and govern the region. The Pilgrims wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact before leaving the ship, and it became their first governing document. The Massachusetts Bay Colony came to dominate the area and was established by royal charter in 1629 with its major town and port of Boston established in 1630.
New England | Colonial period
And although English ships bringing new colony settlers did not come out until the "Anne" and "Little James" arrived in the summer of 1623, Plymouth Colony was not entirely isolated. English fishing boats and some ships financed by colonization ventures did call at the colony from time to time. Edward Winslow recorded that in June or July 1622 two ships, the "Charitie" and "Swan", financed by Thomas Weston, came into Plymouth Harbor. The ships carried about fifty or sixty colonists scheduled to settle in areas outside Plymouth. About this time the "Sparrow" and a shallop were also involved in colonization efforts.
Fortune (Plymouth Colony ship) | Other ships visit Plymouth 1622–1624
The Company paid all the costs of establishing each colony, and in return controlled all land and resources there, requiring all settlers to work for the Company.
London Company | Founding
With personal and business matters agreed upon, the Puritans procured supplies and a small ship. "Speedwell" was to bring some passengers from the Netherlands to England, then on to America where it would be kept for the fishing business, with a crew hired for support services during the first year. The larger ship "Mayflower" was leased for transport and exploration services.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | Preparations
Plymouth played a very important role in American colonial history. It was the final landing site of the first voyage of the "Mayflower" and the location of the original settlement of Plymouth Colony. Plymouth was established in December 1620 by English separatist Puritans who had broken away from the Church of England, believing that the Church had not completed the work of the Protestant Reformation. Today, these settlers are much better known as the "Pilgrims", a term coined by William Bradford. The Mayflower first anchored in the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts on November 11, 1620. The ship was headed for the mouth of the Hudson River near Manhattan, which was part of the Colony of Virginia at the time, but it did not go beyond Cape Cod.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Colonial era
Established merchants of York, Boston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Hull who were already continually involved in such trade and were invested before 25 December 1567 were to be accounted free of the Fellowship and bound by its statutes. At this time Sir William Garrard and Sir William Chester were its Governors. It continued to be referred to as the Muscovy Company. Further English ventures led to the creation of the Levant Company in 1581, the Venice Company in 1583, East India Company in 1600, Virginia Company in 1609, and the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670.
Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands | Elizabeth's Charter of 1566
After so many failed colonizing attempts in the 16th Century such as the Roanoke Colony and with the ascension of King James to the throne of England on 24 March 1603 the effort to colonize was renewed, this time in the form of joint stock companies, which did not involve the public (King's) treasury thus from a Royal perspective a risk-free endeavor. Although a profit-driven enterprise, the King was motivated by international rivalry and the propagation of religion, and the individuals who undertook the risk of venturing to the new world were motivated by a chance to improve their economic and social standing.
London Company | Instructions for the Virginia Company
The General Society of Mayflower Descendants, or The Mayflower Society, is a genealogical organization of individuals who have documented their descent from one or more of the 102 passengers who arrived on the "Mayflower" in 1620. The Society, founded at Plymouth in 1897, claims that tens of millions of Americans are descended from these passengers, and it offers research services for people seeking to document their descent.
Plymouth Colony | The Mayflower Society
The original charter by King James in 1606 did not mention a Virginia Company or a Plymouth Company; these names were applied somewhat later to the overall enterprise. The Charter of 1609 stipulates two distinct companies: that they shoulde devide themselves into twoe collonies, the one consistinge of divers Knights, gentlemen, merchaunts and others of our cittie of London, called the First Collonie; and the other of sondrie Knights, gentlemen and others of the citties of Bristoll, Exeter, the towne of Plymouth, and other places, called the Second Collonie. The eastern seaboard of America was named Virginia from Maine to the Carolinas; Florida was under Spanish dominion.
Virginia Company | Differences between the two companies
Continuing westward, the shallop's mast and rudder were broken by storms and the sail was lost. They rowed for safety, encountering the harbor formed by Duxbury and Plymouth barrier beaches and stumbling on land in the darkness. They remained at this spot for two days to recuperate and repair equipment. They named it Clark's Island for a "Mayflower" mate who first set foot on it. They resumed exploration on Monday, December 11/21 when the party crossed over to the mainland and surveyed the area that ultimately became the settlement. The anniversary of this survey is observed in Massachusetts as Forefathers' Day and is traditionally associated with the Plymouth Rock landing tradition.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | Settlement
At 55 tons displacement, and about one-third the tonnage of the "Mayflower", the "Fortune" was tasked with delivering thirty-five new settlers to Plymouth Colony. Their leader was Robert Cushman who, in 1620, had been the Leiden agent in London for the "Mayflower" and "Speedwell". It is believed that the majority of the passengers of the "Fortune" were gathered together in London by Thomas Weston and his partner. And although William Bradford stated that there were thirty-five persons on board "Fortune", the names of only twenty-eight persons are noted as receiving lots credited to those arriving as noted in the 1623 Division of Land.
Fortune (Plymouth Colony ship) | Preparing for the voyage
A group of Puritans known as the Pilgrims arrived on the "Mayflower" from England and the Netherlands to establish Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, the second successful English colony in North America following Jamestown, Virginia. About half of the one hundred-plus passengers on the "Mayflower" died that first winter, mostly because of diseases contracted on the voyage followed by a harsh winter. In 1621, a Native American named Squanto taught the colonists how to grow corn and where to catch eels and fish. His assistance was invaluable and helped them to survive the early years of the colonization. The Pilgrims lived on the same site where Squanto's Patuxet tribe had established a village before they were wiped out from diseases.
New England Colonies | Establishing the New England Colonies
The London Company was incorporated as a joint stock company by the proprietary Charter of 1606, which granted land rights to this area. The company financed the first permanent English settlement in the "New World", Jamestown. Named for King James I, it was founded in May 1607 by Christopher Newport. In 1619, colonists took greater control with an elected legislature, later called the House of Burgesses. With the bankruptcy of the London Company in 1624, the settlement was taken into royal authority as an English crown colony. Life in the colony was perilous, and many died during the Starving Time in 1609 and the Anglo-Powhatan Wars, including the Indian massacre of 1622, which fostered the colonists' negative view of all tribes.
Virginia | Colony
The name draws from the Massachusetts Bay Company, the institution that founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston in 1628. The Massachusetts Bay Company was one of the first companies to carry their charter with them to America thereby enabling them to govern themselves locally.
Massachusetts Bay Trading Company | Name
The Pilgrim settlers realized that they did not have a patent to settle in the region, so they signed the Mayflower Compact prior to disembarking. They explored various parts of Cape Cod and eventually sought a suitable location for a permanent settlement to the westward in Cape Cod Bay. They discovered the sheltered waters of Plymouth Harbor on December 17, and the protected bay led to a site for the new settlement after three days of surveying. The settlers officially disembarked on December 21, 1620. It is traditionally said that the Pilgrims first set foot in America at the site of Plymouth Rock, though no historical evidence can prove this claim.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Colonial era
Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was an English colonial venture in America from 1620 to 1691 at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Puritan Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. It was the second successful colony to be founded by the English in America after Jamestown in Virginia, and it was the first permanent English settlement in the New England region.
Plymouth Colony | Introduction
Plymouth /ˈplɪməθ/ (historically known as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Plymouth holds a place of great prominence in American history and is typically the most well known of the Northern Settlements. Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, passengers of the famous ship the Mayflower. Before the arrival of the Mayflower earlier explorations killed between 90 and 95% of the local native inhabitants due to disease. The near disappearance of the tribe from the site not only left their cornfields and other cleared areas for the Pilgrims to take over, but also meant that the Indians were in no condition to disrupt the arrival of the colonists.
Indian commerce with early English colonists and the early United States | Plymouth and Northern Settlers
The charter was incomplete for the Plymouth Council for New England when the colonists departed England (it was granted while they were in transit on November 3/13). They arrived without a patent; the older Wincob patent was from their abandoned dealings with the London Company. Some of the passengers, aware of the situation, suggested that they were free to do as they chose upon landing, without a patent in place, and to ignore the contract with the investors. A brief contract was drafted to address this issue, later known as the Mayflower Compact, promising cooperation among the settlers "for the general good of the Colony unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." It organized them into what was called a "civill body politick," in which issues would be decided by voting, the key ingredient of democracy.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | The Mayflower Compact
The "Fortune" began its return to England laden with £500 worth of goods (equivalent to £ in 2010, or $ at PPP), more than enough to keep the colonists on schedule for repayment of their debt. However, the "Fortune" was captured by the French before she could deliver her cargo to England, creating an even larger deficit for the colony. In July 1623, two more ships arrived: the "Anne" under the command of Captain "Master" William Peirce and Master John Bridges, and the "Little James" under the command of Captain Emanuel Altham. These ships carried 96 new settlers, among them Leideners, including William Bradford's future wife Alice and William and Mary Brewster's daughters Patience and Fear.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
Hakluyt and seven other men formed a joint stock company aptly named the Virginia Company, and on April 10, 1606 received the First Charter of Virginia from King James I. The charter split the company into two separate groups, a London-based group known as the London Company (of which Hakluyt was a member) and a Plymouth-based group known as the Plymouth Company. The charter decreed the right upon both companies to “make habitation, plantation, and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people into that part of America commonly called Virginia” between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude.
History of the lumber industry in the United States | Colonial era
The Pilgrims were a small group of Puritan separatists who felt that they needed to distance themselves physically from the Church of England, which they perceived as corrupted. They initially moved to the Netherlands, but eventually sailed to America in 1620 on the "Mayflower". Upon their arrival, they drew up the Mayflower Compact, by which they bound themselves together as a united community, thus establishing the small Plymouth Colony. William Bradford was their main leader. After its founding, other settlers traveled from England to join the colony. More Puritans immigrated in 1629 and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony with 400 settlers.
Thirteen Colonies | New England
Abram and James rebuilt their company and managed to continue its success.
Nave &amp; McCord Mercantile Company | Company formed
The "Mayflower" passengers sighted land on November 9, 1620 after enduring miserable conditions for about 65 days, and William Brewster led them in reading Psalm 100 as a prayer of thanksgiving. They confirmed that the area was Cape Cod within the New England territory recommended by Weston. They attempted to sail the ship around the cape towards the Hudson River, also within the New England grant area, but they encountered shoals and difficult currents around Cape Malabar (the old French name for Monomoy Island). They decided to turn around, and the ship was anchored in Provincetown Harbor by November 11/21.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | Arrival in America
White made many trips to London from Dorchester, working to obtain a patent in 1628 for lands between the parallel lines south of the Charles River to north of the Merrimack River. He obtained the sponsorship of London merchants for a new colony in the New World. Concerned about conflicting claims to land given to several companies active in the north-east of the New World, the New England Company sought and was granted a Royal Charter on 4 March 1629, becoming the Massachusetts Bay Company. The Massachusetts Company had Richard Saltonstall as a chief shareholder. White was a member of the company, and on 30 Nov.
John White (colonist priest) | Massachusetts Bay Company
In 1623, the Plymouth Council for New England (successor to the Plymouth Company) established a small fishing village at Cape Ann under the supervision of the Dorchester Company, with Thomas Gardner as its overseer. This company was originally organized through the efforts of Puritan minister John White (1575–1648) of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. White has been called "the father of the Massachusetts Colony" because of his influence in establishing this settlement, even though he never emigrated. The Cape Ann settlement was not profitable, and the financial backers of the Dorchester Company terminated their support by the end of 1625.
Massachusetts Bay Colony | Cape Ann settlement
On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued two charters, one each for the Virginia Company of London (often referred to as the London Company) and the Virginia Company of Plymouth, England (often referred to as the Plymouth Company). The two companies were required to maintain a separation of , even where the two charters overlapped. The London Company was authorized to make settlements from North Carolina to New York (31 to 41 degrees North Latitude), provided that there was no conflict with the Plymouth Company's charter. The purpose of both was to claim land for England and to establish trade.
History of New England | Early British settlement (1607–1620)
White thought this could become a larger colony and a refuge for those suffering religious persecution. Bushrod and White formed the Dorchester Company together with other friends and traders. Bushrod acted as the company's representative in applying for a patent to settle a plantation in New England which was granted by the Council for New England on 18 February 1623.
Richard Bushrode | Work with the Dorchester Company
Philip Bell sailed to Providence in 1629, taking several Bermudians with him including whites and blacks. In November 1630 the Providence Island Company decided that Captain Daniel Elfrith was to be Governor until he returned, after which Captain Philip Bell would be sole Governor. Each adventurer (shareholder) was to obtain as many men and boys as were willing to serve, and the good ones were to be shipped next January In February 1631 Captain William Rudyerd was appointed commander of the settlers sailing from England to Providence Island in the "Seaflower" In April 1632 the Company learned that the "Seaflower" had arrived.
Providence Island colony | Origin of the colony
In 1628 he married Dudley's daughter Anne, when she was 16. In 1628, Dudley and others from the Earl of Lincoln's circle formed the Massachusetts Bay Company, with a view toward establishing a Puritan colony in North America. Bradstreet became involved with the company in 1629, and in April 1630, the Bradstreets joined the Dudleys and colonial Governor John Winthrop on the fleet of ships that carried them to Massachusetts Bay. There they founded Boston, the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Simon Bradstreet | Early life
The London Company (also called the Virginia Company of London) was an English joint-stock company established in 1606 by royal charter by King James I with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America. The territory granted to the London Company included the eastern coast of America from the 34th parallel (Cape Fear) north to the 41st parallel (in Long Island Sound). As part of the Virginia Company and Colony, the London Company owned a large portion of Atlantic and Inland Canada. The company was permitted by its charter to establish a settlement within this area. The portion of the company's territory north of the 38th parallel was shared with the Plymouth Company, with the stipulation that neither company found a colony within 100 miles (161 km) of each other.
London Company | Introduction
The club was founded in January, 1769, by Isaac Lothrop, Pelham Winslow, Thomas Lothrop, Thomas Mayhew, Elkanah Cushman, John Thomas, Edward Winslow, Jr. and John Watson. Their intent in creating a private club was to avoid "the many disadvantages and inconveniences that arise from intermixing with the company at the taverns in ... Plymouth." It went moribund during the American Revolution due to a split between Tory and Patriot members, but was revived in 1875. Its clubhouse on Court Street was purchased in 1893.
Old Colony Club | History
There were violent disputes among the colonists and between them and the local Kalina people. The attempt to found a colony ended in failure. Of the 700 colonists just over 100 survived and escaped to Suriname in January 1654, then to Barbados. The company went bankrupt when it emerged that it was not backed by the king.
Compagnie de la France équinoxiale | First company
In the fall of 1621 the Fortune was the second English ship destined for Plymouth Colony in the New World, one year after the voyage of the Pilgrim ship "Mayflower". Financed as the "Mayflower" was by Thomas Weston and others of the London-based Merchant Adventurers, "Fortune" was to transport thirty-five "settlers" to the colony on a ship that was much smaller than "Mayflower". The "Fortune" required two months to prepare for the voyage and once underway, reached Cape Cod on 9 November 1621 and the colony itself in late November. The ship was unexpected by those in Plymouth colony and although it brought useful settlers, many of whom were young men, it brought no supplies, further straining the limited food resources of the colony.
Fortune (Plymouth Colony ship) | Introduction
In April 1841 the company informed the Colonial Secretary of its intention to establish a second colony "considerably larger" than the first. The colony was initially to be called Molesworth after Radical MP Sir William Molesworth, a supporter of Wakefield, but was renamed Nelson (after the British admiral) when Molesworth showed little interest in leading the colony. It was planned to cover , consisting of 1000 allotments. Each would be 150 acres (60 hectares) of rural land, 50 acres (20 hectares) of accommodation land and one "town acre" (4000 square metres), with half the funds raised by land sales being spent on emigration and about £50,000 ending up as company profits.
New Zealand Company | Nelson
Humphrey and White became involved in a variety of plans for migration to North America. In the early 1620s Humphrey served as treasurer of the Dorchester Company, an early effort spearheaded by White to colonise Massachusetts Bay. This colonisation effort failed in 1625 due to a lack of funding. Humphrey and White persisted in efforts to establish a successful colony. While White sought new sources of funding in London, Humphrey circulated in the Puritan circle of his brother-in-law the Earl of Clinton. White succeeded in interesting new investors, under whose auspices the Massachusetts Bay Company was established in 1628. The company acquired a grant from the Plymouth Council for New England for land roughly between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers.
John Humphrey (Massachusetts) | Establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Company
The earliest history of the General Court is in the original charter of 1629. The Company of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England was a royally chartered joint stock company founded in 1628 in London. Much like other joint-stock companies of the time the first General Court was a meeting of shareholders, known as freemen. The "Great and General Court" was to meet in London and elect its officers and members in the same manner as other colonial charted companies of the time such as the Virginia Company and the East India Company. The freemen would meet annually to elect representatives in the form of a Royal Governor, a Deputy Governor, and a Council made from the directors of the Company.
Massachusetts General Court | Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Company was established by various charters as follows:
Spanish Company | History
Some of the passengers who arrived on the "Anne" were either unprepared for frontier life or undesirable additions to the colony, and they returned to England the next year. According to Gleason Archer, "those who remained were not willing to join the colony under the terms of the agreement with the Merchant Adventurers. They had embarked for America upon an understanding with the Adventurers that they might settle in a community of their own, or at least be free from the bonds by which the Plymouth colonists were enslaved. A letter addressed to the colonists and signed by thirteen of the merchants recited these facts and urged acceptance of the new comers on the specified terms." The new arrivals were allotted land in the area of the Eel River known as Hobs Hole, which became Wellingsley, a mile south of Plymouth Rock.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
Popham Colony, also known as Fort St. George, was organized by the Plymouth Company (unrelated to Plymouth Colony) and founded in 1607. It was settled on the coast of Maine and was beset by internal political struggles, sickness, and weather problems. It was abandoned in 1608.
Plymouth Colony | Prior exploration and settlements
The colonists were to plant first within their respective non-overlapping areas; the overlapping area between 38° and 41° would then go to the first company that proved "strong enough" to colonize it.
Popham Colony | Founding
Plymouth was the first colony in the region, but it was much smaller than Massachusetts Bay Colony by the time they merged.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
The Providence Company or Providence Island Company was an English chartered company founded in 1629 by a group of Puritans including Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick in order to establish the Providence Island colony on Providence Island and Mosquito Coast of what became Nicaragua.
Providence Island Company | Introduction
The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe. Plymouth played a central role in King Philip's War (1675–1678), one of several Indian Wars, but the colony was ultimately merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Despite the colony's relatively short existence, Plymouth holds a special role in American history. Most of the citizens of Plymouth were fleeing religious persecution and searching for a place to worship as they saw fit, rather than being entrepreneurs like many of the settlers of Jamestown in Virginia.
Plymouth Colony | Introduction
The New Zealand Company, chartered in the United Kingdom, was a company that existed in the first half of the 1800s on a business model focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one-day buying land with their savings.
New Zealand Company | Introduction
After exploring the inner shoreline of Cape Cod, the colonists chose to settle in Plymouth. The site offered a good harbor, several fresh water springs, and a large hill overlooking the harbor (which they would later name Burial Hill) suitable for a fort. A tribe known as the Patuxet (part of the Wampanoag peoples) had settled the site and cleared a large area of land for planting corn. By the time the "Mayflower" arrived, the Patuxet tribe had been wiped out by plagues, likely as a result of contact with English fishermen. During their first winter in Plymouth, most of the settlers fell ill and half died of disease.
John Alden | Establishing Plymouth Colony
The Pilgrims were the English settlers who came to North America on the "Mayflower" and established the Plymouth Colony in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, named after the final departure port of Plymouth, Devon. Their leadership came from the religious congregations of Brownists, or Separatist Puritans, who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands. They held Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs but, unlike most other Puritans, they maintained that their congregations should separate from the English state church. They eventually determined to establish a new settlement in the New World and arranged with investors to fund them.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | Introduction
In 1606, King James I of England granted charters to the Plymouth Company and the London Company to establish permanent settlements in the Americas. The London Company established the Colony of Virginia in 1607, the first permanently settled English colony on the continent. The Plymouth Company founded the Popham Colony in present-day Maine. The Plymouth Council for New England sponsored several colonization projects, eventually establishing the permanent Plymouth Colony in 1620 which was settled by English Puritan separatists, known as the Pilgrims. The Dutch, Swedish, and French also established successful American colonies at roughly the same time but most of these eventually fell under the rule of the British Crown.
Monarchism in the United States | Historical Background
The Council for New England was a 17th-century English joint stock company that was granted a royal charter to found colonial settlements along the coast of North America. The Council was established in November of 1620, and was disbanded (although with no apparent changes in land titles) in 1635. It provided for the establishment of the Plymouth Colony, the State of New Hampshire, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, and the eventual State of Maine. It was largely the creation of Sir Ferdinand Gorges. Some of the persons involved had previously received a charter in 1606 as the Plymouth Company and had founded the short-lived Popham Colony within the territory of northern Virginia (actually in present-day Maine in the United States).
Council for New England | Introduction
Bradford wrote, "They were presently put to half allowance, one as well as an other, which begane to be hard, but they bore it patiently, under hope of (future) supply."
Fortune (Plymouth Colony ship) | "Fortune" passengers