History Smashers: The Mayflower - Softcover

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KATE MESSNER is passionately curious and writes books that encourage kids to wonder, too. Her titles include award-winning picture books, like Over and Under the Snow; novels, like Breakout and Chirp; the Fergus and Zeke easy reader series, and the popular Ranger in Time chapter books, and works of nonfiction with a focus on nature and history. Before becoming a full time writer, Kate was a TV journalist and National Board certified middle school English teacher. She lives on Lake Champlain with her family and is trying to summit all 46 Adirondack High Peaks in between book deadlines. Visit katemessner.com and Facebook: Kate Messner for more information and follow her on Twitter @katemessner.

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Who Were the Pilgrims, Anyway?

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? 

The answer to the riddle, of course, is Pilgrims. The joke works because almost everyone knows a little about the Pilgrims. We’ve heard how they left England and came to America in search of religious freedom. But that’s not even close to the whole story. For starters, the Pilgrims didn’t go to America when they left England. Not at first, anyway. 

The real-deal story of the Mayflower begins way back in the 1530s, when King Henry VIII made some big changes to religion in England. King Henry wanted a son who could grow up to be the king of England, too. He and his first wife only had a daughter, though. Henry decided the solution was to get divorced and marry someone else, with whom he might have a son. 

But the Roman Catholic Church was the official church in England then, and it did not allow divorce. King Henry went all the way to the pope, the leader of the whole Catholic Church, to argue that he should be able to leave his wife and marry a new one. When the pope said no, Henry decided to break away from the Catholic Church and start his own. From then on, the Church of England would be the official church of the land. 

King Henry wasn’t the only one who had issues with the Roman Catholic Church at that time. Many complained that Catholic leaders had too much power and wealth. But not everyone liked King Henry’s new church, either. Some thought it was too similar to the Catholic Church. One group, called the Puritans, wanted the new church to be “purified” of all the old practices. Other people didn’t think that was enough. They were called Separatists because they wanted to separate from the Church of England completely and have their own religion. The Separatists thought that true Christian believers should come together in their own small churches. They wanted those churches to be independent so members could study the Bible and make decisions on their own. 

William Brewster, who was the postmaster of a village called Scrooby, decided to start a church in his own house. It was a risky idea. Back then, people who didn’t follow the Church of England could be thrown in jail. In his book Of Plymouth Plantation, Pilgrim William Bradford wrote that Brewster’s Separatists were “hunted and persecuted on every side.” 

Government officials were watching the Separatists’ houses day and night. Some of them did get thrown in jail. You can probably understand why leaving England was starting to seem like a good idea. 

So that’s when the Separatists set sail for America, right? 

Wrong. They went to Holland. 

Holland, which today we call the Netherlands, was known for religious freedom. Brewster learned that a small group of Separatists had recently escaped to the city of Amsterdam, where they could practice their religion in peace. That seemed like a good idea, so Brewster made plans to take his group there, too. His followers were nervous, though. They didn’t speak Dutch. They weren’t sure how they’d earn money to support their families. Bradford later wrote that to many of the Separatists, taking off for Holland seemed like “an adventure almost desperate” and “a misery worse than death.” But after much discussion, they decided to go anyway.

1607: Brewster arranged for a ship to sneak his congregation away to Amsterdam. It was expensive, and they had to wait a long time, but he didn’t see any other option. 

Finally the day arrived.  

It was time for the Separatists to leave England once and for all! 

But then everything fell apart. 

The ship’s captain had ratted them out! 

The ship’s crew ransacked all the passengers’ belongings, looking for money. 

They turned the Separatists over to the authorities. 

Instead of escaping to Holland, 

they ended up spending a month in an English prison.

But Brewster didn’t give up. About a year later, he took his group north in England and found another ship. Officials discovered their plan and tried to catch them again. But this time the Separatists saw the authorities coming. Most of the men had boarded the ship, and in a panic they brought up the anchor, hoisted the sails, and took off. The women and children, who hadn’t boarded yet, were still waiting on the dock with most of their belongings.

English authorities caught the women and children. But then they weren’t quite sure what to do with them, since their husbands and fathers were gone. Eventually, the women and children were released and met up with the others in Holland. This group of Sepa-ratists lived in Amsterdam for about a year before deciding the busy port city wasn’t the right place for them to settle. It was time to move on. 

So that’s when they left for Plymouth Rock, right? 

Nope. Instead, they moved to another city in Holland, called Leiden. 

Leiden was a beautiful city with a university. It was also known for cloth making, and some of the newly arrived Separatists got jobs in that industry. They worked long hours at looms to weave linen and wool cloth. They would bring their products to the town chapel, where members of the local weavers’ guild would examine them. If the cloth was judged to be of high-enough quality, then it could be sold. 

Leiden was also home to a towering twelfth-century castle whose grounds had been turned into a public park. When Bradford and the other Separatists weren’t working, they spent time there with their families. 

Sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? But the Separatists weren’t very happy in Leiden, either. The language sounded strange to them, and they weren’t used to the Dutch customs. 

Like Amsterdam, Leiden was a busy, bustling city. Too busy and bustling for many of the Separatists. They did their best to make a life there, but it never felt like home. Back in England, many of them had been farmers. They missed the countryside, and their farming skills didn’t transfer well to such a big city. Some had trouble earning money. They were also worried that war might break out between Holland and Spain. And as the years passed, they grew more and more concerned that their English children were becoming Dutch. Some of the older kids had even run off to be soldiers or sailors. 

The Separatists had wanted to break away from the Church of England, but they’d never meant to give up being English. There had to be a place where they could raise their families with the old English ways while practicing their religion in peace. So after about twelve years in Holland, they decided that the time had come to move again, to a place they could truly call home. 

We’re talking about Plymouth now, right? Actually, no. Not yet. 

When the Separatists decided to leave Holland, they weren’t sure at first where they’d go. For a while, they were thinking about Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America. The Dutch had set up a colony there. It was lush and green, with warm weather that made it easy to grow food. 

That sounds way better than the freezing-cold winters of New England, doesn’t it? But the Separat- ists worried that the warm weather “would not agree so well with our English bodies.” They feared that diseases would spread easily in the hot climate. 

Another option was to cross the ocean but go farther north. There, they’d be living close to other English people. They worried about that, too. What if they were...