2.2.3 The Pilgrim Fathers

Question 1

Who were the Pilgrim Fathers?

Answer 1

• A group of Puritans. Like the Quakers, Puritans were a group of Protestant Christians, but they also did not believe in the same Protestantism as the people in England at that time, and were therefore known as religious dissenters. -Throughout the 1500s and 1600s, Puritans like the Pilgrim Fathers were often persecuted or imprisoned in England because of their religious belief.
• In the early 1600s, after years of facing religious persecution, the Pilgrim Fathers decided to leave England and seek religious freedom elsewhere.
• They named the new settlement ‘Plymouth’ after their home town, and named the region in which they settled ‘New England’.

Question 2

Settlement and The Plymouth Company

Answer 2

• The first few months of settlement did not go well for the Plymouth settlers; many died from the disease and they constantly feared attacks by Native Americans whose land they had settled on.
• However, the Plymouth Company became the second permanent English settlement in North America (after Jamestown).

Question 3

What religion did the Puritans belong to?

Answer 3

Protestant Christians

Question 4

In which year did the Pilgrim Fathers set sail on The Mayflower?

Answer 4

1620