More Details and Buy Now!

Common Mayflower and Pilgrim Myths

#1) MYTH: Mayflower passengers were Puritans.

ANSWER: The Mayflower passengers (at least those passengers that were from the Pilgrims' church in Leiden) are more properly classified as Separatists.  Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England, while Separatists took a more extreme approach of wanting to separate entirely from it.  Theologically, however, there was not very much difference between Separatists and Puritans.  Both Puritanism and the Pilgrims' separatist movement, as well as Presbyterianism, descend from John Calvin and the Calvinists of the mid-1500s. Puritans are more traditionally associated with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and began arriving in America starting about 1629 under the leadership of Governor John Winthrop. After the English civil war, Puritans and Pilgrim-Separatist movements became rather indistinguishable, though they and their descendants tended to keep to separate Colonies even into the end of the 17th century.

For More Information: The Pilgrims' pastor John Robinson puts forth his beliefs on his Separatist movement in his book, The Justification for the Separation from the Church of England (1610).  The distinctions between Separatists and Puritans are covered in depth in Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650, by Perry Miller, and is briefly summarized in Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691, by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, and The Puritans, by Thomas H. Johnson.

#2) MYTH: The Pilgrims stole the land for their Colony from the Indians, and mistreated them.

ANSWER:  The Pilgrims arrived and found a place to settle, called Plymouth on Captain John Smith's map of 1614.  The native Indians called the area Patuxet. The Patuxet tribe had been completely wiped out in a 1618 plague (probably tuberculosis or smallpox).  The only Patuxet survivor was Tisquantum, more commonly called "Squanto" (who had been in England at the time of the plague).  Squanto was accepted into the Plymouth Colony and acted as interpreter and negotiator with Massasoit and the Wampanoag confederation of tribes--the Pilgrims nearest neighbors.  The Wampanoag do not appear to have expressed any objections to the Pilgrims' settlement in the early years, and in fact they paid Plymouth regular visits and offered their assistance in many other ways; Plymouth frequently returned those favors.  Tensions between the Wampanoag and Plymouth Colony did not start to foment until after the deaths of Massasoit and his son Mooanam (alias Wamsutta, also known as "Alexander" to the English) in the 1660s.  The Plymouth Colony did attack a group of Massachusett Indians in 1622 near present-day Boston, following the revelation they were joining together to expel the English at Wessagussett and Plymouth; and they joined with other New England colonies in various conflicts with other Indian groups including the Pequot (1637) and Narragansett (1640s).  The Plymouth Colony did not take up arms against the Wampanoag until the 1675-1676 war known as King Philip's War.

#3) MYTH: The Mayflower passengers always wore black and white clothes, without any color, and had big buckles.

ANSWER: When a Mayflower passenger died, an inventory of the person's estate was taken by the Court, for purposes of probate. These inventories show that John Howland had two red waistcoats. William Bradford had a green gown, violet cloak, lead colored suit with silver buttons, and a red waistcoat. And William Brewster had green pants, a red cap, and a violet coat. Black, white, grey, and brown were the most common colors worn by the Pilgrims, but were definitely not the only colors.  The Pilgrims did not have buckles on their clothing, shoes, or hats.  Buckles did not come into fashion until the late 1600s--more appropriate for the Salem Witchcraft trials time period than for the Pilgrims' time period.

#4) MYTH: The Mayflower made a second voyage to America.

ANSWER:  The Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to America was never used again as a passenger ship. From its return in April 1621 until the death of its master Christopher Jones in March 1622, it resumed its former occupation as a trading vessel. After Christopher Jones' death, the ship sat in harbor slowly decaying while it was in probate.  Christopher Jones gave his part of the ship to his widow, Josian, and in 1624 an inventory of the Mayflower was taken.  It is described as being "in ruinis", and valued at £128-08-04 (a ship of its size should have been worth more than £700 pounds).  Ships in this condition were typically broken up and sold for scrap wood--an extremely valuable commodity in England at the time.

#5)  MYTH:  The Mayflower passengers were mostly old men.

ANSWER:  This is one of the most prevailing stereotypes, due mainly to the 19th century artwork depicting the Pilgrims.  It couldn't be further from the truth.  The average age of a Mayflower passenger was 32.  Only five of the 104 Mayflower passengers were over 50--and only fourteen Mayflower passengers were over 40.  About 60 passengers were between 20 and 40 years old.  At least 30 passengers were under the age of 17. The oldest Mayflower passenger, James Chilton, was 64.  As for a gender breakdown, there were 51 men, 22 boys, 20 women, and 11 girls.  The oldest Mayflower passenger still alive to partake in the first Thanksgiving was William Brewster, at the age of 54.

#6) MYTH:  The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a gross navigational error they ended up making landfall at Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

ANSWER:  This myth is caused by a failure to elaborate on the facts.  The Pilgrims in their writings and documents (including the Mayflower Compact itself) refer a place called "Northern Virginia."  However, students are often left to assume that "Northern Virginia" is relative to the modern-day State of Virginia, thus suggesting the Mayflower was off course by almost 500 miles.  This misconception that the Mayflower was drastically off course has found its way into some otherwise decent documentaries and histories.  In fact, the Virginia Company (and thus the "state" of Virginia at the time) had rights to almost the entire eastern seaboard of America.  When the Pilgrims say "Northern Virginia," they are referring to a region which on modern maps would be roughly southern New York State.

Based on numerous contemporary accounts, including Bradford's own History, it is quite clear that the Pilgrims originally intended to settle the Hudson River region (near Long Island, New York)--a part of Northern Virginia (although the Dutch also claimed the New York region).  Once Cape Cod was sighted, they turned south to head for the Hudson River, but encountered treacherous seas and nearly shipwrecked.  They then decided to return to Cape Cod rather than risk another attempt to head south.  So in reality they were only a day or two's sail away from their intended destination--quite accurate given the navigational tools in use at the time.

#7)  MYTH:  The Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving every year.

ANSWER:  The Pilgrims had their legendary Thanksgiving at their first harvest, but it was never made into an annual event.  When William Bradford's History Of Plymouth Plantation was rediscovered in 1854, it brought renewed interest and attention to Pilgrim history; and the rapidly approaching Civil War brought a renewed interest in the history of the settlement of the Northern states to counterbalance the earlier "founding of America" at Jamestown, Virginia, a Southern state.  Encouraged by the lobbying of Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.

#8)  MYTH:  During the famine of 1621, the Pilgrims were only rationed 5 kernels of corn to eat per day.

This was a myth that apparently began in 1820.  It has no foundation in historical fact.  Five kernels of corn would have no nutritional value whatsoever: yet not a single Pilgrim died from the food shortages of 1621.  There was a shortage of planted crops that year, and hunger was a problem, but their diet was supplemented by enough fish, shellfish, nuts, waterfowl, turkeys, deer, and other native flora and fauna, to keep everyone alive.

#9) MYTH: The Mayflower ended up as a Barn in Jordans, England.

In 1920, the 300-year anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, a large number of books and publications appeared about the Mayflower.  One set of books was authored by J. Rendel Harris.  In them, he attempted to document that the Mayflower had ended up as a barn in England.  This identification has been widely accepted by the "mass media"; I have seen it appear as an answer on Jeopardy, and it even got recent mention in National Geographic.  Nonetheless, anyone who reads J. Rendel Harris' book can clearly see it is entirely wild speculation; the family identifications he uses to try to connect the Mayflower to the Jordans Barn owners has long since been disproved.  So the entire argument rests simply on oral tradition: an oral tradition that is widely disputed as having been created by Harris himself.  Everything was fairly well debunked in a series of articles by J.W. Horrocks appearing throughout the 1922 issues of Mariner's Mirror.  The "Mayflower Barn" may well be the remains of an old ship, but there is not a single shred of evidence to suggest it was the Mayflower.

#10) MYTH: The Mayflower was a slave ship prior to bringing the Pilgrims to America.

In the 19th century it was generally thought that the Mayflower's captain was Thomas Jones, a pirate and some-time slave trader.  However in the early 20th century it was conclusively proven that the Mayflower was owned and captained by Christopher Jones of Harwich and later Rotherhithe.  Christopher Jones' Mayflower was not used for transporting slaves, it was used in the wine trade with France.

#11) MYTH: William Bradford's wife Dorothy committed suicide by jumping off the Mayflower.

The story of the suicide of Dorothy Bradford originates from a fictional story written for and appearing in Harper's Weekly in 1866; it has eventually become a part of "popular culture".  However, Thomas Prince writing in 1737, and using now-lost manuscripts written by William Bradford, states that Dorothy Bradford's fall off the Mayflower in December 1620 was "accidental".  There are no historical records which suggest it was anything but an accident.