Story of America Cards

Life in the Plymouth Colony

So, today I will be talking about one of the first colonies in America, That being Plymouth and where the Thanksgiving tradition began too, so I'll be showing The Life of The Plymouth Colony from the Coming to America Section in Stories of America Cards.

(What is the Plymouth Colony?)

The Plymouth Colony, mainly called Plymouth, was an English colonial venture in America from 1620 to 1691 at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, The Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of Massachusetts.

The Colony was founded by a group of Puritan Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. Despite the colony's relatively short existence, Plymouth holds a special role in American history. Most of the citizens of Plymouth were fleeing religious persecution and searching for a place to worship as they saw fit, while wanting the groups around them to adhere to their beliefs, rather than being entrepreneurs like many of the settlers of Jamestown in Virginia. The social and legal systems of the colony became closely tied to their religious beliefs, as well as to English custom. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock.

(Starting from Scratch)

In 1620, the cold and weary Pilgrims of the future Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts must have thought they were guided by Providence when their ship Mayflower passed the great granite boulder known as Plymouth Rock.

There, about 100 yards (91.44 meters) before them, lay the wide, sheltering inlet of a brook, and beyond that an expanse of already cleared land.

Only three or four years earlier, it had been an Indian village, but smallpox had decimated the population and the few remaining Indians moved away.

The Pilgrims built their first shelters there out of mud, sticks, and stakes of wood interwoven with twigs and tree branches. Later these were replaced with neat frame houses of planks, often covered with clapboard, some having thatched or shingled roofs.

Leyden Street, named for the Pilgrims' Holland community, was laid out along the north bank of Town Brook and ended in a rise in the land called Burial Hill. There, for protection against marauding Indians, the Pilgrims built a small fort in the summer of 1622.

It was a large square building made of thick planks fastened to oak beams, On its flat roof, which commanded a view of the surrounding countryside six canons were mounted.

The lower floor served as a community meeting place and a church, Captain Miles Standish, lived in a house closest to the fort, His neighbor was John Alden, and further down, on a small cross-street, Governor William Bradford built his home, In the center of the intersection stood a square stockade with four small cannons, which were capable of Indian attack.

The entire colony was surrounded by a stockade fence.

The first winter was a rough one for the Pilgrims. Many died of starvation and disease, and only the lucky discovery of some grain stored previously by the Indians in Corn Hill, close by one of their abandoned brutal grounds, sustained the rest.

With the aid of an Indian friend, Squanto, the Pilgrims soon learned to plant corn, beans, and pumpkins, Squanto also guided the Pilgrims to good hunting and fishing grounds and introduced them to tribes to the south with whom the Pilgrims were able to set up a brisk trade in beaver skin.

Soon the Pilgrims were busy making rope, salt and ships, although farming remained most important.

By 1632, the town fathers began looking for meadows and pasture-land beyond their village to meet growing needs of the now successful Plymouth Colony.

(The First Thanksgiving)

Thanksgiving for those who do not know, is a holiday in the U.S, which started with the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony, it takes place in November and on the fourth of November/Fourth Thursday is Thanksgiving, kids in school are given the 24th and 26th day off from school....or that is where I'm from since I do live in Massachusetts, the The holiday is meant to honor the First Thanksgiving, which was a harvest feast held in Plymouth in 1621, as first recorded in the book New England's Memorial by Nathaniel Morton.

Some of the modern traditions you may know which have developed alongside the Thanksgiving holiday are the National Football League's Thanksgiving Day games and the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

(Ending)

And this life in the Plymouth Colony from the story of America cards, I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you next time.