Pilgrims Establish Plymouth Colony
What happened
Plymouth Colony, the first permanent English colony in New England, was founded in 1620 when Pilgrim Separatists arrived aboard the Mayflower. The colonists settled at a site previously surveyed by John Smith and established a treaty with Wampanoag chief Massasoit, aided by Squanto of the Patuxent tribe. Led by William Bradford, the colony survived its difficult early years and grew to occupy most of what is now southeastern Massachusetts before merging with Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.
People involved
When this happened
Pilgrims Establish Plymouth Colony occurred in 1620, during the colonial period period of American history.
Where this happened
Pilgrims Establish Plymouth Colony took place in Massachusetts. Explore the full history of Massachusetts and primary source records from this era.
European colonization of North America accelerated after 1600, with England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands establishing competing settlements along the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) struggled with starvation and conflict; the Plymouth colony (1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) followed. By the mid-1700s, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic seaboard, governed through a mix of royal charters, proprietary grants, and elected assemblies. The colonial economy depended on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and maritime trade in New England — all increasingly reliant on enslaved African labor after 1619. Conflict with Indigenous peoples over land was continuous, punctuated by major wars including King Philip's War (1675–1676) in New England and the Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the South. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of the global Seven Years' War, ended French power in North America and left Britain deeply in debt — triggering the taxation disputes that would lead to revolution.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Plymouth Colony — Wikipedia.
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