The Pilgrims who boarded the Mayflower and sailed across the ocean to America, we’re told, were trying to set up a new colony free of religious persecution—but there was a bit more to the story than that. The Pilgrims weren’t just a group of religious Puritans. The real story of the colony that one day grew into the most powerful nation in the world isn’t exactly pure.

10The Pilgrims Were Actually Escaping The Religious Tolerance Of The Dutch

The Pilgrims didn’t flee religious persecution in England by going to America—they went to the Netherlands.

Long before the Pilgrims stepped aboard the Mayflower, they settled in a Dutch city called Leiden, where they were welcomed with open arms. The Dutch let them hold Puritan services in their churches, promising that they let all honest people live freely in their nation.

And they did. The Dutch lived up to their promise—but the Puritans realized maybe religious freedom wasn’t what they wanted after all. They complained about the “extravagant and dangerous” lifestyle of the Dutch, who, they complained, were depraved enough to spend part of the Sabbath not resting. The Puritans were worried that their children might be swept away by the depraved and wild lifestyle of doing work on the Sabbath. The young Puritans, William Bradford wrote, were being “drawn away by evil examples” by “the great licentiousness of youth in that country.”^[1]

And so they boarded the Mayflower—not to escape religious persecution, which they’d already escaped by going to the Netherlands, but to escape the religious tolerance of the Dutch.

9French Pilgrims Went To America First

The Pilgrims on the Mayflower weren’t the first people to have the idea—some French settlers had already gone off to America in search of religious freedom 55 years before them. They didn’t find it. Instead, they found the Spanish, and what happened next makes it a bit easier to understand why the Puritans didn’t want to stay in Europe.

The French set up a settlement called Fort Caroline and began living lives as Lutheran Protestants, away from all the religious wars of Europe—until Europe found them. A Spanish army led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles tracked them down and killed them all, for no other reason, as he proudly explained, than “for being Lutherans.”^[2]

The Spanish climbed over the French walls with ladders, snuck into their bedrooms, and attacked. The French Pilgrim’s piousness was no match for the Spanish conquistador’s guns and their willingness to sneak into someone’s bedroom and murder him in his sleep.

132 Pilgrims died—nearly every single person there. And the Spanish conquistadors renamed the fort “Mantazas,” meaning “massacre,” to commemorate their favorite pastime.

8A Man Put His Kids On The Mayflower To Spite His Wife

The strangest names on the passenger list of the Mayflower were the More children: four unaccompanied minors, all under nine years old, sailing off to America without their parents.

The Mores were the children of Samuel and Katherine More—or, at least, that’s what Katherine told Samuel. As the kids grew older, though, Samuel started noticing that they didn’t look very much like him. Instead, looked an awful lot like Jacob Blakeway, the guy his wife kept insisting was just a friend.

Samuel More divorced his wife, but under English law, he still had legal authority over his kids. He also absolutely hated his wife, so, purely out of spite, he handed her kids off to the Puritans and bought them a one-way ticket on the Mayflower.

All but one of the kids died during the first winter. The sole survivor was Richard More, who ended up settling in Salem. Apparently, he still had his biological father’s genes—years later, he was convicted for “gross unchastity with another man’s wife.”^[3]

7Less Than Half Of The People On The Mayflower Were Puritans

Despite how we imagine it, the Mayflower wasn’t a boat full of Puritans. In fact, out of the 102 people on the boat, more than 60 were Anglicans—followers of the very religion the Puritans were trying to escape.

The Puritans let the Anglicans come with them because they needed their money. Sailing two boats to the New World and setting up a colony was expensive, and they needed investors. They made it clear, though, they weren’t part of the group. They called these Anglicans “Strangers” and called themselves “Saints.” Those two boats, though, didn’t pan out anyway. The other, the Speedwell, started leaking before they even got off the docks, and so all 102 people had to cram into the Mayflower.^[4]

By the time they’d made it to Plymouth, there were only 32 Puritans left alive. Worried that they were going to fall into “the devil’s hands,” the Puritans signed the Mayflower Compact with the Strangers, letting them elect their own governors—and then made sure a Puritan was elected every time.

6They Landed At Plymouth Because They Were Running Out Of Beer

The Puritans were against a lot of things, but beer wasn’t one of them. They drank incredibly heavily. In fact, they brought more beer with them than water. Pretty much all the Pilgrims drank was beer. Water, they explained, “spoiled quickly,” which sounds like an alcoholic father’s justification for brushing his teeth with Pabst Blue Ribbon.

By Christmas day, after months of sailing in cramped quarters, starving, and being ridden by disease, a true tragedy struck: they were running out of beer. They had to start rationing their supply, and, to the Pilgrims, this was a nightmare. “We have, divers times now and then, some beer,” William Bradford wrote in his journal, but they’d resorted to the unthinkable: “We began to drink water aboard.”^[5]

People started complaining—so they kicked them off. The first settlers were dropped off at Plymouth and forced to drink water, because the people who stayed on the boat wanted to make sure there was enough beer for themselves. They didn’t suffer long, though. They refused to. One of the very things the Pilgrims built was a brew house.

5The Pilgrims Robbed Native American Graves

When the Pilgrims landed, they expected to see a thriving Indian population all around them—but nobody was there. Other than the distant light for a few campfires at night, there wasn’t any sign of life anywhere around them. Then they started to wander out, and they found empty towns full of corn, beans—and the bones of dead men.^[6]

The natives had been wiped out by a plague, spread by the first Europeans to the area. It had wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the people in southern New England, leaving behind nothing but empty towns full of supplies just waiting for the settlers to use them. The settlers, instead of being worried about the fact that an entire country had just been wiped out took this as a sign of god’s favor. John Winthrop called it a miracle, writing, “God hath cleared our title to this place!”

They took their corn, but more than that, they literally robbed their graves. One settler wrote in his diary that he dug up a dead man’s grave and fished out all the possessions he’d been buried with. “We took several of the prettiest things to carry away with us,” he wrote, “and covered the corpse up again.”

4The First Native American They Met Asked For Beer

Not every Native American was dead. While the settlers were still setting up their camp, they made first contact with a Native American—who, out of nowhere, wandered into their camp and said, in English: “Welcome, Englishmen!”

The man’s name was Samoset. He’d met Englishmen before, and he’d picked up enough phrases to get by. He knew, at least, how to welcome an Englishman, and, more important, how to ask them for beer.

After he’d asked them enough times, the Plymouth colonists gave him “strong water,” which was enough to make him happy. Apparently, Samoset had a bit of a personality. After a while, they started politely hinting he should go home now, but they couldn’t figure out how to get rid of him.

They ended up letting him sleep off the strong water in their camp, which paid off. Samoset would ultimately save their lives several times and help them make peace treaties with the Wampanoag tribe. He also sold some of the first land in America to the Plymouth settlers—which probably wasn’t his to sell, but certainly gave the settlers a signature they could use to call the land their own.^[7]

3Squanto Had Been Sold Into Slavery Several Times

Samoset told the settlers about Squanto, a man in his tribe who could speak English even better than he could. He wasn’t lying. Squanto spoke English nearly as well as the Englishmen themselves.

There was a reason. Six years before, Squanto had met another famous settler: Thomas Hunt, John Smith’s successor at the Jamestown Colony. Hunt had kidnapped him and 23 other natives and sold them into slavery in Spain. From there, Squanto was sold again to an Englishman, who taught him to English and brought him to Newfoundland to work as his interpreter. While in Newfoundland, he was sold again, this time to Thomas Dermer, who took him to Massachusetts. By a miracle of chance, Squanto made it back to his home. By the time he’d arrived, though, everyone he’d known was dead, wiped out by the plague.

Squanto ended up with the Wampanoag when Dermer was taken hostage. He won his freedom, and, in an act of mercy, convinced them to let Dermer go alive. And that was how he ended up the tribe’s interpreter to the Plymouth Colony—a colony that was built, as he realized when he met them, directly on top of his family’s grave.^[8]

2Squanto Went Mad With Power

Squanto never extracted revenge on the settlers. Instead, he helped them so much that, without his help, some believe, the settlers wouldn’t have survived. He taught them to grow maize, to catch eels, and helped them negotiate with the nearby tribes.

In time, though, he got a little carried away. He was the tribe’s connection the European settlers—and that made him their connection to guns and technology. He started making people give him gifts in exchange for a few good words with the English, and at least once threatened that, if they didn’t do what he said, he would make the Englishmen release the plague again.^[9]

One of his tricks went too far. He got mad at Massosit, the chief of the Wampanoag tribe, and decided this time he was going to show them he was bluffing. He’d really get the Englishmen to kill him. So, he tricked the Englishmen into believed that Massosit was planning on killing them all, trying to convince them to strike him first.

When they realized it was all made up, Massosit demanded Squanto’s head. The Englishmen were going to do it, too—but when they realized how doomed they were without his help, they had to side with Squanto, who, it turns out, really was as important as he thought he was.

1They Hung A Dead Man’s Head Over Their Fort

Peace didn’t last long. Even with all the empty villages around them and the help of people like Squanto and Samoset, the settlers were starving. It was a just a matter of time before the harshness of life broke out into war—and when it did, it was brutal.

Things were particularly bad in the nearby Wessagusset Settlement. They were starving so badly that, when one of their Pilgrims stole corn from the Pecksuot Tribe, they agreed to hang him for it. They needed the help of their native neighbors so badly that they were willing to kill their own people.

The Pecksuot Tribe, though, wasn’t totally satisfied, and a rumor that they were plotting to destroy the white presence in America reached the Plymouth Colony. It was the same sort of rumor they’d ignored before, when Squanto spread it, but they’d been in America for a few years now, and they were harder, more cynical people. So, a group from the Plymouth Colony, led by Myles Standish, took care of it.

They invited the best warriors from the Pecksuot tribe over for dinner. Then they locked the door, stabbed them to death, chopped off the chief’s brother’s head, and placed it on the roof the blockhouse, next to flag made from a cloth soaked in his blood.^[10]

We all know the Mayflower as the famous ship that transported the English Puritans to America. The ship was at sea for 66 days before arriving and carried about 130 passengers and crew.^[1] Today, we refer to the colonists who made the trip across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower as the Pilgrims.

The passengers of the Mayflower consisted of servants, laborers, doctors, wives, children, and more. We don’t know much about the people who were on board the ship, but some documents have been recovered to give us a small glimpse into their lives. From what we do know about them, here is a list of ten of the most interesting passengers from the Mayflower.

10 Samuel Fuller

Samuel Fuller was married three times and had four children. He had two children each with his second and third wives, but his first two children died at young ages. He came over on the Mayflower in 1620, leaving behind his third wife, Bridget Lee. Bridget would come later on the ship Anne in 1623.

Fuller was a surgeon and received enough education to practice medicine. He was also a deacon in his church and was a member of the Separatist community in Leiden. Later in his life, he helped lead discussions about the practices of the Plymouth church, which would lead to the founding of the Salem church. In 1633, he served as a Plymouth tax assessor, which was also the same year that he passed away. He was at least one of ten in the Plymouth Colony who died from a smallpox epidemic.^[2]

9 Francis Cooke

Francis Cooke was born around 1583 and was most likely from the Canterbury or Norwich areas of England. Cooke was a wool comber, and he lived in Leiden as early as 1603, which was before the Pilgrim Separatist community immigrated to Holland. His wife, Hester, and their children were members of the Leiden Walloon Church, whose beliefs were very similar to those of the English Separatists.

He arrived on the Mayflower with his oldest son, and his wife and remaining children came in 1623 on the Anne. While living the remainder of his life in Plymouth, he served on various committees, such as the committee to lay out highways. He also surveyed land, was a juror many times, and received various land grants over time. He passed away in 1663 at the age of 80.^[3]

8 Mary Brewster

Mary Brewster and her husband William were one of the many married couples who came over on the Mayflower. They had six children together with unique names like Patience, Fear, Love, and Wrestling. Love and Wrestling traveled with Mary and William on the Mayflower, and the other children traveled a couple of years later on the ships Anna and Fortune.

The most interesting thing about Mrs. Brewster is she beat the odds several times. She was one of only five adult women to survive the first winter and one of only four women to survive to see the First Thanksgiving. She would later die in 1627 at the age of 60, and her husband lived another 17 years before dying.^[4]

7 William Latham

When the Mayflower made its voyage, William Latham was only 11 years old and traveled as a servant/apprentice of John Carver’s family. Carver passed away in 1621, and Latham would finish out his service with William Bradford. There are records that show that Latham was still at the Bradford household at the time of the Division of Cattle in May 1627.

Latham was no stranger to the Plymouth Court. He was once fined 40 shillings for the “entertaining of John Phillips into his house contrary to the act of the Court” and for “lavish and slanderous speeches.” After not being able to pay the entire fine, Latham was ordered to not depart Plymouth Colony without first obtaining a license. He finished paying the debt about a month later.

In 1639, Latham sold his home and property in Duxbury to move to Marblehead, which was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His house was accidentally burned down in 1645, and that is the last record of him being in the Colonies. He returned to England and took a trip to the Bahamas shortly after, but he and the entire group died of starvation.^[5]

6 Peter Browne

Peter Browne was not a part of the Leiden Separatist community, but he did come over on the Mayflower as a single man. Records indicate that he was neighbors with a man named John Goodman, who also came over on the Mayflower. One morning, they were cutting thatch for roofing purposes when their two dogs wandered into the woods to chase a deer. Peter and John went searching for the dogs but quickly got lost. After spending the afternoon in the rain, they decided to sleep in a tree. They spotted the bay on their next day of searching and were able to lead themselves back to the colony.

In 1626, Browne married Martha Ford, who was one of the few women to come over on the ship Fortune. He had two children with her before she quickly passed away. He then married a woman named Mary and had two children with her as well. In 1633, there was a general sickness that swept through the colony, and that is most likely what claimed the life of Peter Browne. His estate showed that he owned 130 bushels of corn, six goats, one cow, eight sheep, pigs, and many other things. Peter and his brother were weavers, which is the reason he had more sheep than anyone else in Plymouth.^[6]

5 Richard Warren

Richard Warren was a wealthy man from London, and he traveled alone on the Mayflower. His wife and five daughters came over on the Anne in 1623, and Richard and his wife had two sons who were born in Plymouth. He received his land in the Division of Land in 1623, and his family shared in the 1627 Division of Cattle. Richard died the next year in 1628.

His wife outlived him by 45 years, and all of his children survived into adulthood, married, and created large families. This means that Richard Warren is one of the most common passengers of the Mayflower to be descended from. Some of the most notable descendants of Richard Warren include Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Alan Shepard Jr.^[7]

4 Degory Priest

Degory Priest was born in England and was one of the earliest people to arrive in Leiden. He became a citizen of Leiden in 1615 and was a hatter with other members of the Leiden congregation. In 1617, Degory was involved in an altercation with a man named John Cripps, who was allegedly having an adulterous affair with the wife of another man. Degory’s friends signed an affidavit stating that he didn’t hit Mr. Cripps but only “touched his jabot,” which is the frilly part of one’s shirt.

Degory’s wife, Sarah, was the sister of another Mayflower passenger, Isaac Allerton. They had two daughters named Mary and Sarah. Degory traveled alone on the Mayflower with plans to send his wife and children over soon after. Those plans were never carried out, though, because he died during the first winter. His wife would remarry to a hatter who worked with Degory, and they would come over on the ship Anna.^[8]

3 John Carver

One of the most prominent members in the Pilgrims’ church in Leiden was John Carver. He served as a deacon for the Leiden congregation and was a representative to help move their church to America. John Carver and Robert Cushman went to England together to negotiate with the Virginia Company and organize the business of moving the church.

Carver came over on the Mayflower as acting governor of the ship, and he was also elected the first governor of the colony. He also took part in an exploratory expedition on Cape Cod, which resulted in the “First Encounter.” He and his wife both voyaged to America on the Mayflower, but their two children died young before the trip. Carver served as the governor until his death in April 1621. His wife died just a few days later of a supposed “broken heart.”^[9]

2 Stephen Hopkins

In 1609, Stephen Hopkins boarded the ship Sea Venture to Jamestown, Virginia, but the ship wrecked in Bermuda. Hopkins, along with the other passengers and crew, were stranded for ten months and survived on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. While stranded, he and others organized a mutiny against their governor. When the mutiny was discovered, Stephen was sentenced to death. He pleaded with sorrows and tears and somehow managed to get his sentence commuted.

The castaways built a small ship soon after and sailed to Jamestown. While Hopkins was in Jamestown, his first wife passed away, leaving behind their three children. When he returned to England, he married Elizabeth Fisher, and they had seven children together. They would all travel together on the Mayflower to America. Since Hopkins had been to Virginia before, he was a part of nearly all exploring missions and helped communicate with the Native Americans.

He served as a governor’s assistant for many years and volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637. He opened up a shop that served alcohol, which would eventually lead to trouble for him. After getting into a fight and seriously wounding his opponent, Stephen was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. He would also be fined later for allowing people to drink excessively, selling beer at twice the actual value, and selling a looking glass for twice what it was worth. He would later die in 1644.^[10]

1 John Alden

John Alden was hired to be a barrel maker for the Mayflower ’s trip to America. He was given the option to return to England or stay, and he chose to stay in America. About two years after arriving, he married a woman passenger of the Mayflower, Priscilla Mullins. They would end up having ten children together.

He was elected as an assistant to the governor and slowly became a prominent member of the community. He was involved in a fur trading dispute that would lead to a double murder. He was held for questioning, but they had no authority to detain him.

He would later help found the town of Duxbury, and they started building houses as early as 1629. He served as deputy to the Plymouth Court, served in several committees, sat on several councils of war, and served as a colony treasurer. In 1653, he built the Alden House, which is still standing today. He died in 1687 at the age of 89 and was one of the last surviving passengers of the Mayflower.^[11]

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