Pilgrims

in American history, the group of separatists and other individuals who were the founders of Plymouth Colony. The name Pilgrim Fathers is given to those members who made the first crossing on the Mayflower.

Origins

The nucleus of the group came into being in the meetings of a group of Puritans at Scrooby, a village in Nottinghamshire, England. Opposed to the episcopal jurisdiction and the rites and discipline of the Church of England, the group had formed as a separatist church by 1606, with John Robinson eventually becoming their minister. The congregation was composed mainly of farmers and artisans, men of little education or position, although William Brewster, one of their leaders, was a man of some importance in the town and had spent some time at Cambridge Univ. Although not actively persecuted, the group was subjected to ecclesiastical investigation and to the mockery, criticism, and disfavor of their neighbors.

To avoid contamination of their strict beliefs and to escape the hated church from which they had separated, the sect decided to move to Holland, where other groups had found religious liberty, despite an English law that forbade emigration without royal permission. After several false starts, two of which were frustrated by the law, small groups made their way to the Netherlands in 1607, and by the middle of 1608 most of them had reached Amsterdam. They went from there to Leiden, where they established themselves as artisans and laborers.

Life in Holland was not easy, however, and the immigrants found the presence of radical religious groups there objectionable. Dutch influence also seemed to be altering their English ways, and the prospect of renewed war between the Netherlands and Spain threatened. For these reasons they considered moving to the New World. (America)

I hope I get an A+ on your homework assignment.

There were tens of thousands of Puritans that left to the Americas. The Pilgrims were a small portion, about 40~ of the 100~ on the Mayflower were actually Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were Separatists, so they came for different reasons.

The Puritans, however, had a different objective. Their goal was to establish a Utopian religious community (an efficient theocracy), hoping that England will want for them to return (to make themselves look good, so England can take them back).

They came over because they were extremely prejudiced religious people who couldn’t stand religious freedoms in Europe- especially in Holland. The Pilgrims were some pretty crazy people and hated others who did not share the same fantasies- they hated them so much they fled Europe to a place that they thought they could live completely away from people who didn’t see the world exactly as they saw it, and eventually were responsible for things such as witch burnings because of their delusions and fears. But really what happened is they were essentially uneducated low class slaves sent to America by rich people in Europe to do the extremely dangerous work of setting up colonies, so that after most of them died, the rich people would have ridiculously cheap to establish pre-existing cities to live in without having to face hardships themselves. It’s kind of like how now rich people use slave labor in China to make crap loads of cash by exploiting poor people. After some time the founding fathers- rich people from Europe- came in and exploited these low class people’s work and took over the government for themselves so that they could get even richer and achieve a higher status than they were born into. Luckily all their wealth gave them the leisure to philosophize enough to the point they came up with some pretty good ethical ideas about how a country should work outside of an aristocratic world. But the fact remains that the puritans were a backwards people exploited for the gains of members of an educated rich class.

Some wanted to get away from debt in Europe while others wished to have political and religious freedom. Some just wanted land to.

To be able to follow their own religious beliefs in the New World.

To have the freedom to practice their religious beliefs

they whent to the new world in search of gold and the fountian of youth they also wher seeking religous freedom because at that time some forms of christianity wher disliked

to be able to worship God freely. and to get their kids out of the worldy influences of that time

Because they were skeptical of what most people thought |D