The First Pilgrims

Abstract

M . ~Y own interest in the settlement of eastern North America is with origins. The establishment of San Augustin, of Jamestown, of Quebec, of Plymouth, of the Bay Colony are all, from this aspect, terminal points, when, one after another, groups of Europeans not only reach North America but stay there. The arrival of the Pilgrims of i620 is from this point of view the end of a story, rather a long story, one chapter of which is concerned with the First Pilgrims, those who came briefly to North America in I597, but who did not remain there. In the sixteenth century each of the national Protestant churches, after it had established itself, settled down to persecute other kinds of Protestants or Catholics: few Catholic powers ever ceased persecution. Always there were dissident groups in hiding or running to find refuge. The French Huguenots, then one of the most powerful dissident