Who were the Pilgrims?

Report: Who were the Pilgrims?
Subject: History
By: Alyssa

The Pilgrims were men and women from Europe seeking religious freedom in America.
Although they did in fact make a hard voyage to the New World, they were not Pilgrims. The
word ‘pilgrim’ means someone who travels a great distance to a sacred or holy place for
religious practices. Technically America, the New World, was not a sacred place.

In 1620 the Pilgrims came to America on board the Mayflower. They came to the New World for religious freedom, but they were supposed to be a fishing colony. It was getting hard for the
Pilgrims to send fish back and forth between here and Europe. In time, the Pilgrims found the Indians and began to trade for beaver and otter furs. It was a lot easier to just send the furs to Europe instead of fish.

There were three leaders of the Pilgrims; William Bradford, William Brewster, and John Carver. They left Europe because of religious persecution. They didn’t want to practice their beliefs in secrecy. The Mayflower was the ship in which the Pilgrims came to America on. There is no real record of the build of the Mayflower because there were no paintings or records of it, but it was a three mast ship.

Things were hard in the New World. Disease was abundant, the people were too weak to fight it off. The food and water was lacking because of the people using it up and because Europe was no longer getting what they sent food and water for. They couldn’t really grow food either, because the soils weren’t fertile enough, or nobody was capable of doing it.

For the sick, it was getting worse and worse. The seasons were harsh and the shelters they stayed in were quite drafty. Nobody could make adequate shelters for the sick people. The food was also rapidly diminishing.