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Keep The Holiday Fires Burning
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The History of the Pilgrims
Part 2: The Scrooby Separatists During this time, there were in the town of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire a group of Separatists led by the minister John Robinson and ruling elder William Brewster, the town's postmaster. As with many of the Separatists, they suffered greatly for their beliefs. William Bradford, later the Governor of Plymouth Colony wrote of those years that they could not long continue: "in any peacable condition; but were hunted and persecuted on every side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these which now came upon them. For some were taken and clapt up in prison, others had their homes beset and watched night and day and hardly escaped their hands; and most were feign to fly and leave their houses and habitations and the means of their livelihood. (From The History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. Fearing further persecution, the Scrooby Separatists decided to relocate to the Netherlands, which had at that time a reputation for permitting religious freedom. Bradford later wrote that "thus molested and beset by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Low Countries, where they heard was freedom of Religion for all men." Leaving England, however, was not easy. English authorities foiled the first attempts by the Scrooby Separatists to leave in 1607, arresting several of the leaders. The second attempt, in 1608, resulted in the departure of the men, while English authorities held the women and children onshore. They were later reunited in Amsterdam. In 1609, the Scrooby Separatists moved to Leyden, where they stayed for twelve years. (continued below) |
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While the Netherlands did indeed offer the religious freedom they sought, there were other issues. The Dutch economy was faltering, and their children were beginning to adopt Dutch ways. While the Scrooby Separatists felt they had to leave England for religious reasons, they still considered themselves Englishmen, and wanted their children to feel the same:
"That which was … of all sorrows most heavy to be borne was that many of the children were drawn away into extravagant and dangerous courses." What they needed was an isolated an uninhabited stretch of land where they could settle on their own terms and establish their own way of life. Bradford wrote: "The place they had thoughts on was some of those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and brutish men which range up and down little otherwise than the wild beasts of the same." English North America in 1619 had been divided between two groups of speculators, the London Company and the Plymouth Company. The London Company had had some success with the establishment of Jamestown, which the Plymouth company, assigned the less habitable northern coastal regions had not been able to follow. Still, the Plymouth Company's investors were eager to colonize the mainland, and thus gain a monopoly on the fisheries off the coast and on the grand banks. In the same year that the Jamestown colony was founded (1607), a group of 120 adventurers was sent out to the mouth of the Kennebec River in present day Maine under the leadership of George Popham, a nephew of the Chief Justice of England. Although they had high hopes, reality soon set in and the long winter brought much suffering and death. Popham himself died and the next summer the enterprise was abandoned. The failure of the expedition convinced many that the land was uninhabitable and for some years, no other effort at settlement was made. The next major trip to the north coast was led in 1614 by John Smith (of Jamestown fame). During his explorations - which took him from Penobscot to Cape Cod. - Smith drew a detailed map of the coast, which he sprinkled plentifully with English names and christened "New England. He was, no doubt, trying to make that harsh coast seem more pleasant. Despite his propaganda efforts, Smith knew that it would take an extraordinary effort to settle the land. In fact, Smith predicted that nothing but hope of riches would ever people that region, or "draw company from their ease and humors at home. But it wasn't wealth that brought people to the region; it was something more fundamental, and ultimately more important. |