Pilgrims

The Landing of the Pilgrims
by James Daugherty
Report by J.J. Hinrichs

The pilgrims were separatists. Separatists means they were separating from the church of England. The church of England was adding things into the Bible and the separatists did not want things added to the Bible. They were living in England and they were being threatened by being put in prison so they had to flee. They went to Holland and then they were called pilgrims.

While the pilgrims were living in Holland, they lived in an area called “Stink Alley.” They lived there because they did not have a lot of money and they did not have very good jobs.

Then some of their daughters married some of the Holland boys and some of their boys joined the Holland army. All of the boys and girls were forgetting the ways of England. The parents wanted to move because they did not want the children to forget the English ways.

They decided to go to America, but they did not have enough money. They decided to get the Mayflower to sail them to the New World. When they were sailing one of the sailors said that he hoped to throw half of the pilgrims over but within a few days he died. Everyone thought it was God’s hand. No one else got a sickness.

When the pilgrims landed they started exploring and found a graveyard of the Indians. They found a man that had yellow hair and they did not know if he was a chief or a lost sailor. They also found mounds of corn. They found pots and a bunch of stuff.

Then the pilgrims built a storage house where they put the sick and the food. Next they built some houses on the hillside and finally they built a fortress that was 12 feet high all around the houses.

There was a terrible sickness and they got really cold from the winter. Only nine women survived. The ones that were still sick but could still walk had to go work on the storage house. They did not have a lot of food. They had to give only one scoop of corn for each person.

One day Squanto came and he taught them how to plant corn, stomp on the ground at the beach and eels would come up (which doesn’t work anymore). Squanto had a friend named Samoset they could both speak English. Samoset brought Chief Massasoit to do the peace pipe with William Bradford. He brought ninety other braves with him. The woman were afraid to feed this many. Samoset fixed it, he told his braves to go into the woods and bring back four other deer. They also ate lobster, clams, duck, goose, and of course turkey. It became a barbecue.

Many things happened, like Squanto died. Some of the Indians planned war once against the pilgrims, there was a rattlesnake skin that had a bunch of colors on it and it was filled with arrows. The pilgrims filled it with bullets and sent it back.

Once they had a drought and they prayed for eight hours and then it began to rain lightly with no wind. The pilgrims praised God.