Plymouth Colony

negotiated the treaty with the Wampanoags, served as the Pilgrims' ambassador to their financial backers in England, and was as one of the first governors of Plymouth Colony. This portrait is the only portrait of a Pilgrim that was painted from life. Origin , England, , home of the Mayflower Pilgrims until 1607 Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Brownists (a sect of English Protestant dissenters) who came to be known as the Pilgrims. The core group (roughly 40 percent of the adults and 56 percent of the family groupings) were part of a congregation led in America by William Bradford and William Brewster. They began to feel the pressures of religious persecution by the Church of England while still in the English village of Scrooby, near East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In Leiden, the congregation gained the freedom to worship as they chose, but Dutch society was foreign to them. Scrooby had been an agricultural community, whereas Leiden was a thriving industrial center, and they found the pace of life difficult. The community remained close-knit, but their children began adopting the Dutch language and customs, and some also entered the Dutch Army. They were also still harassed by the English Crown: English authorities came to Leiden to arrest William Brewster in 1618 after he published sharp criticism of the King of England and the Anglican Church. Brewster escaped arrest, but the events spurred the congregation to move farther from England. The Plymouth land patent allowed them to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River. They obtained financial backing through the Merchant Adventurers, a group of businessmen who sought to profit from the colony once the Pilgrims began working to repay their debts. 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 known to the Leiden congregation as "The Strangers", extra workers and staff largely recruited by the Merchant Adventurers. The term was also used for many of the indentured servants who paid for their passage by binding themselves to a period of service. Among the Strangers were Myles Standish, who was the colony's military leader; Christopher Martin, who had been designated by the Merchant Adventurers to act as shipboard governor during the trans-Atlantic trip; and Stephen Hopkins, a veteran of a failed colonial venture that may have inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest. The departure of the Mayflower and Speedwell was beset by delays, including further disagreements with the Merchant Adventurers. A total of 120 passengers finally departed on August 5: 90 on the Mayflower and 30 on the Speedwell. The seas were not severe during the first month on the Atlantic, but in the second month the ship was badly shaken by strong north-Atlantic winter gales, causing leaks from structural damage. There were many hardships and dangers throughout the trip, including seasickness and the bending and cracking of a main beam of the ship. One death occurred, that of William Button. Cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi made one of the earliest maps of New England , but he erroneously identified Cape Breton with the Narragansett Bay and completely omitted most of the New England coast. European fishermen had also been plying the waters off the New England coast for much of the 16th and 17th centuries. Frenchman Samuel de Champlain had explored the area extensively in 1605. He had specifically explored Plymouth Harbor, which he called "Port St. Louis," and he made an extensive and detailed map of it and the surrounding lands. He showed the Patuxet village (where the town of Plymouth was later built) as a thriving settlement. but a recent analysis suggests it was a lesser-known disease called leptospirosis. The absence of any serious Indian opposition to the Pilgrims' settlement may have been pivotal to their success and to English colonization in America. Popham Colony, also known as Fort St. George, was organized by the Plymouth Company (unrelated to Plymouth Colony) and founded in 1607 on the coast of Maine. Beset by internal political struggles, sickness, and weather problems, it was abandoned in 1608. Captain John Smith of Jamestown had explored the area in 1614 and is credited with naming the region New England. He named many locations using approximations of Indian words. He gave the name "Accomack" to the Patuxet settlement on which the Pilgrims founded Plymouth, but he changed it to New Plymouth after consulting Prince Charles, son of King James. A map published in his 1616 work A Description of New England clearly shows the site as "New Plimouth." The location was chosen largely for its defensive position. The settlement would be centered on two hills: Cole's Hill, where the village would be built, and Fort Hill, where a defensive cannon would be stationed. Also important in choosing the site was the fact that the prior villagers had cleared much of the land, making agriculture relatively easy. Fresh water for the colony was provided by Town Brook and Billington Sea. There are no contemporaneous accounts to verify the legend, but Plymouth Rock is often hailed as the point where the colonists first set foot on their new homeland. The area where the colonists settled had been identified as "New Plymouth" in maps which John Smith published in 1614. The colonists elected to retain the name for their own settlement, in honor of their final point of departure from Plymouth, Devon. First winter 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 on guard 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. The living and working structures were built on the relatively flat top of Cole's Hill, and a wooden platform was constructed atop nearby Fort Hill to support the cannon that would defend the settlement. During the winter, the Mayflower colonists suffered greatly from lack of shelter, diseases such as scurvy, and general conditions on board ship. Samoset returned to Plymouth on March 22 with a delegation from Massasoit that included Squanto; Massasoit joined them shortly after, and he and Governor Carver established a formal treaty of peace after exchanging gifts. This treaty ensured that each people would not harm the other, that Massasoit would send his allies to negotiate with Plymouth, and that they would come to each other's aid in a time of war. Several of the graves on Cole's Hill were uncovered in 1855; their bodies were disinterred and moved to a site near Plymouth Rock. The celebration lasted three days and featured a feast of numerous types of waterfowl, wild turkeys, and fish procured by the colonists, and five deer brought by the Wampanoags. After the departure of Massasoit and his men, Squanto remained in Plymouth to teach the Pilgrims how to survive in New England, such as using dead fish to fertilize the soil. For the first few years of colonial life, the fur trade was the dominant source of income beyond subsistence farming, buying furs from Natives and selling to Europeans. In May 1622, a vessel named the Sparrow arrived carrying seven men from the Merchant Adventurers seeking a site for a new settlement in the area. Two ships followed shortly after carrying 60 settlers, all men. They spent July and August in Plymouth before moving north to found a settlement which they named Wessagussett (modern Weymouth). The Pilgrims lost the trade in furs which they had enjoyed with the local tribes, their main source of income to pay their debt to the Merchant Adventurers. The raid had disastrous consequences for the colony, as attested by William Bradford in a letter to the Merchant Adventurers: "we had much damaged our trade, for there where we had most skins the Indians are run away from their habitations." They carried 96 new settlers, among them Leideners, including William Bradford's future wife Alice along with William and Mary Brewster's daughters Patience and Fear. Some passengers 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. 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 some additional settlers and the first cattle. A 1627 apportionment of cattle lists 156 colonists divided into 12 lots of 13 colonists each. Another ship arrived in August 1629, also named 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. In 1643, the colony had an estimated 600 males fit for military service, implying a total population of about 2,000. The estimated total population of Plymouth County was 3,055 by 1690, on the eve of the colony's merger with Massachusetts Bay. For comparison, more than 20,000 settlers had arrived in the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1630 and 1640 (the Great Migration), and the colonial population of all New England was estimated to be about 60,000 by 1678. Plymouth was the first colony in the region, but it was much smaller than Massachusetts Bay Colony by the time that they merged. Military history Myles Standish Myles Standish was the military leader of Plymouth Colony from the beginning. He was officially designated as the captain of the colony's militia in February 1621, shortly after the arrival of the Mayflower in December 1620. He organized and led the first party from the Mayflower to set foot in New England, an exploratory expedition of Cape Cod upon arrival in Provincetown Harbor. He also led the third expedition, during which Standish fired the first recorded shot by the Pilgrim settlers in the event known as the First Encounter. Standish had training in military engineering from the University of Leiden, and it was he who decided the defensive layout of the settlement when they finally arrived at Plymouth. He also organized the able-bodied men into military orders in February of the first winter. During the second winter, he helped design and organize the construction of a large palisade wall surrounding the settlement. Standish led two early military raids on Indigenous villages: the raid to find and punish Corbitant for his attempted coup, and the killing at Wessagussett called "Standish's raid." The former had the desired effect of gaining the respect of the local natives; the latter only served to frighten and scatter them, resulting in loss of trade and income. When it appeared that the war would resume, four of the New England colonies (Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth) formed a defensive alliance known as the United Colonies of New England. Edward Winslow, already known for his diplomatic skills, was its chief architect. His experience in the United Provinces of the Netherlands during the Leiden years was key to organizing the confederation. John Adams later considered the United Colonies to be the prototype for the Articles of Confederation, the first attempt at a national American government. Of specific concern was the founding of the town of Swansea, located only a few miles from the Wampanoag capital at Mount Hope. The General Court of Plymouth began using military force to coerce the sale of Wampanoag land to the settlers of the town. The proximate cause of the conflict was the killing of a Praying Indian named John Sassamon in 1675. Sassamon had been an advisor and friend to Philip before Sassamon's conversion to Christianity had driven the two apart. and in Plymouth the local magistrates reclaimed power. The return of self-rule to Plymouth Colony was short-lived, however. A delegation of New Englanders led by Increase Mather went to England to negotiate a return of the colonial charters that had been nullified during the Dominion years. The situation was particularly problematic for Plymouth Colony, as it had existed without a formal charter since its founding. Plymouth did not get its wish for a formal charter; instead, a new charter was issued combining Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and other territories including Maine. The official date of the proclamation was October 17, 1691, legally ending the existence of Plymouth Colony, though it was not put into force until the arrival of the new royal governor Sir William Phips inaugurated the Province of Massachusetts Bay on May 14, 1692. The last official meeting of the Plymouth General Court occurred on June 8, 1692. == Life ==

Religion 's memorial outside of St. Peter's Church in Leiden '', an 1867 portrait by George Henry Boughton John Robinson was the original pastor of the Scrooby congregation and the religious leader of the separatists throughout the Leiden years. He never actually set foot in New England, but many of his theological pronouncements shaped the nature and character of the Plymouth church. The Pilgrims distinguished themselves from another branch of Puritans in that they sought to separate themselves from the Anglican Church, rather than reform it from within. It was this desire to worship from outside of the Anglican Communion that led them first to the Netherlands and ultimately to New England. Each town in the colony was considered a single church congregation; in later years, some of the larger towns split into two or three congregations. Church attendance was mandatory for all residents of the colony, while church membership was restricted to those who had converted to the faith. In Plymouth Colony, it seems that a simple profession of faith was all that was required for acceptance as a member. This was a more liberal doctrine than the congregations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where it was common to conduct detailed interviews with those seeking formal membership. There was no central governing body for the churches. Each individual congregation was left to determine its own standards of membership, hire its own ministers, and conduct its own business. Church membership was socially vital. Education was carried out for religious purposes, motivated by a determination to teach the next generation how to read the Bible. The laws of the colony specifically asked parents to provide for the education of their children, "at least to be able duly to read the Scriptures" and to understand "the main Grounds and Principles of Christian Religion." Marriage and family life Edward Winslow and Susanna White both lost their spouses during the harsh winter of 1620–1621, and the two became the first couple to be married in Plymouth. Governor Bradford presided over the civil ceremony. Childhood, adolescence, and education Children generally remained in the direct care of their mothers until about the age of 8, after which it was not uncommon for the child to be placed in the foster care of another family. Some children were placed into households to learn a trade, others to be taught to read and write. It was assumed that children's own parents would love them too much and would not properly discipline them. By placing children in the care of another family, there was little danger of them being spoiled. Adolescence was not a recognized phase of life in Plymouth colony, and there was no rite of passage which marked transition from youth to adulthood. Several important transitions occurred at various ages, but none marked a single "coming of age" event. Children were expected to begin learning their adult roles in life quite early by taking on some of the family work or by being placed in foster homes to learn a trade. Orphaned children were given the right to choose their own guardians at age 14. At 16, males became eligible for military duty and were also considered adults for legal purposes, such as standing trial for crimes. Age 21 was the youngest at which a male could become a freeman, though for practical purposes this occurred some time in a man's mid-twenties. Twenty-one was the assumed age of inheritance, as well, although the law respected the rights of the deceased to name an earlier age in his will. Actual schools were rare in Plymouth colony. The first true school was not founded until 40 years after the foundation of the colony. The General Court first authorized colony-wide funding for formal public schooling in 1673, but only the town of Plymouth made use of these funds at that time. By 1683, though, five additional towns had received this funding. Education of the young was never considered to be the primary domain of schools, even after they had become more common. Most education was carried out by a child's parents or foster parents. Formal apprenticeships were not the norm in Plymouth; it was expected that a foster family would teach the children whatever trades they themselves practiced. The church also played a central role in a child's education. As noted above, the primary purpose of teaching children to read was so that they could read the Bible for themselves. == Government and laws ==

Organization Plymouth Colony did not have a royal charter authorizing it to form a government, yet some means of governance was needed. The Mayflower Compact was the colony's first governing document, signed by the 41 Puritan men aboard the Mayflower upon their arrival in Provincetown Harbor on November 21, 1620. Formal laws were not codified until 1636. The colony's laws were based on a hybrid of English common law and religious law as laid out in the Bible. The colony offered nearly all adult males potential citizenship. Full citizens, or freemen, were accorded full rights and privileges in areas such as voting and holding office. To be considered a freeman, adult males had to be sponsored by an existing freeman and accepted by the General Court. Later restrictions established a one-year waiting period between nominating and granting of freeman status, and also placed religious restrictions on the colony's citizens, specifically preventing Quakers from becoming freemen. The colony's most powerful executive was its Governor, who was originally elected by the freemen but was later appointed by the General Court in an annual election. The General Court also elected seven Assistants to form a cabinet to assist the Governor. The Governor and Assistants then appointed Constables who served as the chief administrators for the towns, and Messengers who were the main civil servants of the colony. They were responsible for publishing announcements, performing land surveys, carrying out executions, and a host of other duties. In 1625, the settlers had repaid their debts and thus gained complete possession of the colony. The colony was a de facto republic, since neither an English company nor the King and Parliament exerted any influence – a representative democracy governed on the principles of the Mayflower Compact ("self-rule"). Laws As a legislative body, the General Court could make proclamations of law as needed. These laws were not formally compiled anywhere in the early years of the colony; they were first organized and published in the 1636 Book of Laws. The book was reissued in 1658, 1672, and 1685. Official seal The seal of the Plymouth Colony was designed in 1629 and is still used by the town of Plymouth. It depicts four figures within a shield bearing St George's Cross, each carrying the burning heart symbol of John Calvin. The seal was also used by the County of Plymouth until 1931. == Geography ==

Boundaries showing the location of Plymouth Colony. The map is oriented with west at the top. Without a clear land patent for the area, the settlers settled without a charter to form a government and, as a result, it was often unclear in the early years what land was under the colony's jurisdiction. In 1644, "The Old Colony Line" – which had been surveyed in 1639 – was formally accepted as the boundary between Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth. The situation was more complicated along the border with Rhode Island. Roger Williams settled in the area of Rehoboth in 1636, near modern Pawtucket. He was forcibly evicted in order to maintain Plymouth's claim to the area. Williams moved to the west side of the Pawtucket River to found the settlement of Providence, the nucleus for the colony of Rhode Island, which was formally established with the "Providence Plantations Patent" of 1644. Various settlers from both Rhode Island and Plymouth began to settle along the area, and the exact nature of the western boundary of Plymouth became unclear. The issue was not fully resolved until the 1740s, long after the dissolution of Plymouth Colony itself. Rhode Island had received a patent for the area in 1693, which had been disputed by Massachusetts Bay Colony. Rhode Island successfully defended the patent, and a royal decree in 1746 confirmed Rhode Island's territory along the eastern shore of the Narragansett Bay, including the mainland portion of Newport County and all of modern Bristol County, Rhode Island. The border itself continued to be contested by Massachusetts, first as a colony and later as a state, until as late as 1898, when the boundary was settled and ratified by both states. Counties and towns For most of its history, the town was the primary administrative unit and political division of the colony. Plymouth Colony was not formally divided into counties until June 2, 1685, during the reorganization that led to the formation of the Dominion of New England. Three counties were composed of the following towns. • Barnstable, the shire town (county seat) of the county, first settled in 1639 and incorporated 1650. • Sandwich, first settled in 1637 and incorporated in 1639. • Rehoboth, first settled in 1644 and incorporated in 1645. Nearby to, but distinct from the Rehoboth settlement of Roger Williams, which is now the town of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. • Bridgewater, purchased from Massasoit by Myles Standish, and originally named Duxburrow New Plantation, it was incorporated as Bridgewater in 1656. • Duxbury, founded by Myles Standish, was incorporated in 1637. Other notable residents of Duxbury included John Alden, William Brewster, and Governor Thomas Prence. • Marshfield, settled in 1632, incorporated in 1640. Home to Governor Edward Winslow. Also home to Josiah Winslow, who was the Governor of the colony during King Philip's War, and to Peregrine White, the first English child born in New England. • Middleborough, incorporated in 1669 as Middleberry. Named for its location as the halfway point on the journey from Plymouth to Mount Hope, the Wampanoag capital. • Scituate, settled in 1628 and incorporated in 1636. The town was the site of a major attack by King Philip's forces in 1676. == Demographics ==

English The settlers of Plymouth Colony fit broadly into three categories: Pilgrims, Strangers, and Particulars. The Pilgrims were a Puritan group who closely followed the teachings of John Calvin, like the later founders of Massachusetts Bay Colony to the north. (The difference was that the Massachusetts Bay Puritans hoped to reform the Anglican church from within, whereas the Pilgrims saw it as a morally defunct organization and removed themselves from it.) They used such terms to indicate their place as God's elect, as they subscribed to the Calvinist belief in predestination. In addition to the Pilgrims, the Mayflower carried "Strangers," the non-Puritan settlers placed on the Mayflower by the Merchant Adventurers who provided various skills needed to establish a colony. This also included later settlers who came for other reasons throughout the history of the colony and who did not adhere to the Pilgrim religious ideals. A third group known as the "Particulars" consisted of later settlers who paid their own "particular" way to America, and thus were not obligated to pay the colony's debts. The presence of outsiders such as the Strangers and the Particulars was a considerable annoyance to the Pilgrims. As early as 1623, a conflict broke out between the Pilgrims and the Strangers over the celebration of Christmas, a day of no particular significance to the Pilgrims. Furthermore, a group of Strangers founded the nearby settlement of Wessagussett and the Pilgrims were highly strained by their lack of discipline, both emotionally and in terms of resources. They looked at the eventual failure of the Wessagussett settlement as Divine Providence against a sinful people. The residents of Plymouth also used terms to distinguish between the earliest settlers of the colony and those who came later. The first generation of settlers called themselves the Old Comers or Planters, those who arrived before 1627. Later generations of Plymouth residents referred to this group as the Forefathers. Historian John Demos did a demographic study in A Little Commonwealth (1970). He reports that the colony's average household grew from 7.8 children per family for first-generation families to 8.6 children for second-generation families and to 9.3 for third-generation families. Child mortality also decreased over this time, with 7.2 children born to first-generation families living until their 21st birthday. That number increased to 7.9 children by the third generation. Life expectancy was higher for men than for women. Of the men who survived until age 21, the average life expectancy was 69.2 years. Over 55% of these men lived past 70; less than 15% died before the age of 50. The numbers were much lower for women owing to the difficulties of childbearing. The average life expectancy of women at the age of 21 was 62.4 years. Of these women, fewer than 45% lived past 70, and about 30% died before the age of 50. During King Philip's War, Plymouth Colony lost eight percent of its adult male population. By the end of the war, one-third of New England's approximately 100 towns had been burned and abandoned, and this had a significant demographic effect on the population of New England. Native Americans The Native Americans in New England were organized into loose tribal confederations, sometimes referred to as nations. Among these confederations were the Nipmucks, the Massachusetts, the Narragansetts, the Niantics, the Mohegans, and the Wampanoags. Several significant events dramatically altered the demographics of the Indigenous population in the region. The first was "Standish's raid" on Wessagussett, which frightened Indigenous leaders to the extent that many abandoned their settlements, resulting in many deaths through starvation and disease. The second was the Pequot War, which resulted in the dissolution of the Pequot tribe and a major shift in the local power structure. The third was King Philip's War which had the most dramatic effect on local populations, resulting in the death or displacement of as much as 80 percent of the total number of southern New England Natives and the enslavement and forced displacement of thousands to the Caribbean and other locales. Black and Indigenous slaves Some of the wealthier families in Plymouth Colony enslaved Black people and Native Americans. Colonists considered slaves to be the property of their owners, able to be passed on to heirs, unlike indentured servants. Slave ownership was not widespread and very few families possessed the wealth necessary to acquire slaves. In 1674, the inventory of Capt. Thomas Willet of Marshfield includes "8 Negroes" at a value of £200. In the July 29, 1680, codicil to the will of Peter Worden of Yarmouth, he bequeathed ownership of his "Indian servant" to his wife Mary, to be passed on to their son Samuel upon her decease. The unnamed slave was dutifully recorded in the January 21, 1681, inventory of Worden's estate at the original purchase price of £4 10s. Other inventories of the time valued "Negro" slaves at £24–25 each (equivalent to £ in 2010, or $ at PPP), well out of the financial ability of most families. A 1689 census of the town of Bristol shows that, of the 70 families that lived there, only one owned a Black slave. So few were Black and Indigenous slaves in the colony that the General Court never saw fit to pass any laws dealing with them. == Economy ==

The largest source of wealth for Plymouth Colony was the fur trade. The disruption of this trade caused by Myles Standish's raid at Wessagussett created great hardship for the colonists for many years and was directly cited by William Bradford as a contributing factor to the economic difficulties in their early years. Besides cattle, there were also pigs, sheep, and goats raised in the colony. Overall, there was little cash in Plymouth Colony, so most wealth was accumulated in the form of possessions. Trade goods such as furs, fish, and livestock were subject to fluctuations in price and were unreliable repositories of wealth. Durable goods represented an important source of economic stability for the residents, such as fine wares, clothes, and furnishings. To that point, the colony's economy had been entirely dependent on barter and foreign currency, including English, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and counterfeit coins. In 1661, after the restoration of the monarchy, the English government considered the Boston mint to be treasonous. However, the colony ignored the English demands to cease operations until at least 1682, when Hull's contract expired, and the colony did not move to renew his contract or appoint a new mint master. The coinage was a contributing factor to the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter in 1684. == Legacy ==

The events surrounding the founding and history of Plymouth Colony have had a lasting effect on the art, traditions, mythology, and politics of the United States of America, despite the colony's short existence of less than 72 years. Art, literature, and film '' The earliest artistic depiction of the Pilgrims was actually done before their arrival in America; Dutch painter Adam Willaerts painted a portrait of their departure from Delfshaven in 1620. Several contemporaneous accounts of life in Plymouth Colony have become both vital primary historical documents and literary classics. Of Plimoth Plantation (1630 and 1651) by William Bradford and ''Mourt's Relation (1622) by Bradford, Edward Winslow, and others are both accounts written by Mayflower'' passengers that provide much of the information which we have today regarding the trans-Atlantic voyage and early years of the settlement. Benjamin Church wrote several accounts of King Philip's War, including ''Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War, which remained popular throughout the 18th century. An edition of the work was illustrated by Paul Revere in 1772. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God'' provides an account of King Philip's War from the perspective of Mary Rowlandson, an Englishwoman who was captured and held by Philip's tribe during the war. and frequently involves a family gathering with a large feast, traditionally featuring a turkey. Civic recognitions of the holiday typically include parades and football games. The holiday is meant to honor the First Thanksgiving, which was a feast of thanksgiving held in Plymouth in 1621, as first recorded in the book Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, one of the Mayflower pilgrims and the colony's second governor. The annual Thanksgiving holiday is a more recent creation. Throughout the early 19th century, the U.S. government had declared a particular day as a national day of Thanksgiving, but these were one-time declarations meant to celebrate a significant event, such as victory in a battle. The northeastern states began adopting an annual day of Thanksgiving in November shortly after the end of the War of 1812. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Boston's ''Ladies' Magazine'', wrote editorials beginning in 1827 which called for the nationwide expansion of this annual day of thanksgiving to commemorate the Pilgrim's first feast. After nearly 40 years, Abraham Lincoln declared the first modern Thanksgiving to fall on the last Thursday in November in 1863. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Congress ultimately moved it to the fourth Thursday in November. After some sparring as to the date, the holiday was recognized by Congress as an official federal holiday in 1941. Plymouth Rock , inscribed with 1620, the year of the Pilgrims' landing in the Mayflower One of the enduring symbols of the landing of the Pilgrims is Plymouth Rock, a large granodiorite boulder that was near their landing site at Plymouth. However, none of the contemporaneous accounts of the actual landing makes any mention that the Rock was the specific place of landing. The Pilgrims chose the site for their landing, not for the rock, but for a small brook nearby that was a source of fresh water and fish. a historical recreation of the original 1620 settlement; and the Wampanoag Homesite, which recreates a 17th-century Indian village. In America, Plymouth Colony initiated a democratic tradition that was followed by Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628), Connecticut Colony (1636), the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1636), the Province of New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (1681). Roger Williams established Providence Plantations specifically as a safe haven for those who experienced religious persecution, thereby adding freedom of conscience to Plymouth's democratic model. The Mayflower Society 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 was founded at Plymouth in 1897 and claims that tens of millions of Americans are descended from these passengers, and it offers research services for people seeking to document their descent. == See also ==

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