For most of the first part of the seventeenth century, nobody gave two shits about the area that became known as New England, except the people living there of course. Laying between the French controlled St. Lawrence River and Dutch controlled Hudson River, the two primary fur trading routes into the interior, it was largely only visited by fishermen and English fur traders who had few other options. As a result, the various and numerous Algonquian tribes in the area were largely left alone, subsisting off farming and hunting as they had since the introduction of agriculture some eight hundred years earlier. Fur traders who came to the area; exchanging metal tools, glass, and cloth for beaver pelts; reported countless coastal villages. Unfortunately, one of these fur traders brought small pox with them on a visit in 1616, resulting in some 90 percent of the inhabitants of the New England coast dying by 1619. It should go without saying that this really fucked up the political balance in the region, with unaffected tribes in the interior, such as the Pequot, taking advantage of the situation to expand their power over a wider area, though they avoided the most affected areas, fearing the spread of the curse that had so weakened their neighbors. It was at this point that a group of English Puritans, who we today call the Pilgrims, showed up.
To really understand the Pilgrims, you have to understand what the hell was going on in England at the time. Back in 1534, King Henry VIII, wanting to leave his old wife for a new hot young wife, got around the Catholic church’s refusal to grant him a divorce by creating his own church with himself as its leader. The creation of this new Anglican church did not sit well with many of the more hardcore Catholics in England, which Henry responded to with excessive violence, sparking a religious cluster fuck for the next century or so. Anyways, in the middle of all this, a new hardcore group began to form called the Puritans, who while down with the whole fuck the Pope vibe, didn’t think the Anglicans took things far enough. The Puritans held a mixture of beliefs which would blow our minds today given current stereotypes. Though ridiculously religious and severely against anything that might even be kind of viewed as a sin, even holidays, pretty much leaving them with working their asses off as their only source of fun, they also believed that church leaders should be democratically elected and that everyone, including women, should be given an education so that they could read the bible. In response, the English monarchy, not really being cool with a group challenging the idea that some people were in charge just because God said so, began forcing everyone to go to Anglican church services or face a fine or imprisonment. This didn’t sit well with some of the more hardcore Puritans who in response fled to Holland. These were the Pilgrims.
Now the Pilgrims did not really enjoy living in Holland. Though the Dutch were pretty cool with them doing whatever, the overall hedonistic anything goes vibe did not sit well with the more conservative Pilgrims, especially when their kids started abandoning them to live that sweet Dutch lifestyle. As a result, the Pilgrims started looking for a new place to live, eventually making a deal with some merchants in England to help them build a colony at the mouth of the Hudson River. A plan the King of England was down with given it would likely help England get better access to the lucrative fur trade. In the fall of 1620, a little over 100 men, women, and children set sail across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. The two month voyage was miserable, with storms blowing the ship significantly off course, arriving at present day Massachusetts by accident. Not really having time to go searching for the Hudson River as planned, the Pilgrims just kind of said fuck it and decided to settle where they found themselves. They soon after built the colony of Plymouth on top of an abandoned native village, which had been ravaged by small pox so quickly the year prior that here was skeletons just lying around all willy nilly. They then created the Mayflower Compact, which was an agreement that the running of the colony would be decided by majority vote.
Things did not start out well for the Pilgrims. Half of the would be colonists had become sick on the voyage and died within the first three months of arriving. The remaining pretty much survived the winter by raiding the abandoned villages for food stored by the now dead inhabitants. The surviving locals at first avoided the Pilgrims, due to the propensity of English sailors over the past decade to kidnap random natives to take back to England. However, as time moved forward, some tribes began to make contact, mostly to see if there was any way the heavily armed Pilgrims could be useful in the post-apocalyptic chaos that was the New England coast at the time. This eventually led to several alliances being made with many of the local tribes, who in turn showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn, squash, and beans. This led to a joint celebration by the Pilgrims and some of the locals in November of 1621, the first Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately, soon after the first Thanksgiving, a ship arrived from England with 40 new settlers but no supplies, putting a significant strain on the colony. The merchants in England were angry that they had not yet seen any return on their investment, something they decided to solve by shipping over more Pilgrims for some reason. However, thanks to the alliances with the Native Americans, the Pilgrims survived their second winter with few losses. Over the next decade another 200 Pilgrims would arrive, who through hard work paid back much of the debt owed to merchants, mostly through the sale of furs and tall trees perfect for use as ship masts. Despite this influx of new settlers, things remained peaceful, largely due to the Pilgrims chasing any tribes that refused to sign treaties with them put of the area via violence or the threat of violence. The tribes allied with the Pilgrims were more than happy with this chain of events, glad to be rid of the competition and confident that by putting their faith in the newcomers from across the sea, they were assuring the survival of their peoples.
