 When Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere in the 1490’s it was already home to hundreds of Native American peoples with different languages, cultures, and social values.  Some peoples, such as the Aztecs of Mexico and Central America, created complex societies with great cities, large-scale farming, and elaborate record keeping based on a system of writing.  Others, such as the Plains Indians, who hunted buffalo, lived in portable dwellings and passed on their knowledge through oral tradition.

Beginning about 1400, Europeans to start exploring the rest of the world. One of these explorers was Christopher Columbus, an Italian who commanded a Spanish fleet. In 1492 he made the first of four voyages from Spain to the Americas, opening the era of cultural contact between Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The European exploration, conquest, and settlement of the Americas led to the founding of many new nations, including the U.S. For the Native Americans, however, it was the beginning of an immense tragedy during which many of their societies were destroyed by war and disease.

Religion was a major factor in American colonial culture. Groups of Protestant from England, such as the Pilgrims and Puritans, began founding settlements in New England in Other groups seeking religious freedom followed, including the Quakers, who settled in Pennsylvania in In the 1730’s and 1740’s, a religious revival called the Great Awakening spread throughout the colonies.

From their beginnings, the American colonies suffered from a severe labor shortage. By 1750 there were more than 200,000 enslaved Africans in Britain’s North American possessions, most of them in the Southern colonies.

In the mid-1760’s, unrest began to develop in the American colonies. A long war with France had left Britain in debt. To raise money, the British government passed a series of unpopular laws. By the mid-1770’s, resentment over these taxes was leading to political violence and calls for colonial self-rule. The first battles of the Revolutionary War were fought there between American militiamen and British soldiers. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, asserting the colonists’ right to self- government and establishing the United States of America. To defend their independence, the Americans fought a long war with the British, who finally accepted American independence in 1783.

Separatist - an advocate of secession or separation from a larger group (such as an established church or a national union)

Puritan-A member of a group of English Protestants who in the 16th and 17th centuries thought that the Protestant Reformation under Elizabeth was incomplete and advocated the simplification and regulation of forms of worship. Puritans held to a strict work ethic. In England, the calendar year included about 240 working days, but the Puritans in America worked at least 300 days a year, taking holidays only on the Sabbath, election day, and public thanksgiving days.

John Carver, a successful business man, attained financial backing and chartered the Mayflower which held 102 passengers: 50 men 19 women 14 teenagers 19 children under the age of 12 Most wished to join the new settlement for religious and economic reasons

Nearly 500 miles northeast of their intended destination, the Separatists landed in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod on November 21, On December 26 th, the 102 settlers disembarked nearby at a site they named Plymouth. Before leaving the Mayflower, the men in the group drafted and signed the historic Mayflower Compact, the colony’s rules of government.

The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later known as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Almost half of the colonists were part of a separatist group seeking the freedom to practice Christianity according to their own determination and not the will of the English Church.

The voyage had been harsh and the Pilgrims arrived with little or no food at the onset of winter and had no wilderness survival skills. They constructed crude shelters, hoping to make it through the winter. Nearly half the colonists died of scurvy, pneumonia, fever, or starvation.

William Bradford was 30 years old when he was aboard the Mayflower. Born in Yorkshire, England. Bradford was orphaned and brought up by relatives. He studied the bible in his youth and became a Separatist.

The group of about 100 settlers, known today as the Pilgrims, elected Bradford leader after John Carver, the first governor, died. He was reelected governor for thirty, one-year terms between 1622 and He served as chief magistrate, high judge, and treasurer. To ensure peaceable, organized society, Bradford distributed parcels of land equally to all settlers, even non-believers.

In 1630, Bradford started to compile, “Of Plymouth Plantation, ”. The chronicle is unique in that it separates religious commentary from historical commentary. He steered a middle course between a Bible commonwealth an a secular society that made for a prosperous Plymouth.