Mayflower Voyage and Plymouth Settlement

English Separatists living in Leiden arranged to migrate to North America with financial backing from English investors. Their smaller vessel, the Speedwell, proved unseaworthy, forcing many passengers onto the Mayflower before it sailed from Plymouth in September 1620 with both religious Separatists and other colonists.

The crowded Atlantic crossing lasted more than two months and brought sickness, storms and severe discomfort. After reaching Cape Cod rather than the intended Virginia territory, leading men signed the Mayflower Compact and established a settlement at Plymouth. Disease and inadequate shelter caused heavy mortality during the first winter.

The settlement depended on Indigenous land and knowledge and developed within the territory of the Wampanoag Confederacy. This context supports books about the Mayflower passengers, the Speedwell, the Compact, Plymouth’s first winter and the beginnings of English colonisation in New England.