{"id":122102,"date":"2025-11-19T15:14:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.banneroftruth.org\/uk\/?p=122102"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:34:12","slug":"why-did-the-pilgrims-really-go-to-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.banneroftruth.org\/uk\/resources\/articles\/2025\/why-did-the-pilgrims-really-go-to-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did the Pilgrims Really Go to America?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 21 November 16201<\/a><\/sup>November 11, according to the Old Style calendar.<\/span> the Mayflower<\/em> made landfall in what is now Provincetown Harbour, Massachussetts. 37 of its 102 passengers were English ‘Pilgrims’ from the separatist church in Leiden, Holland. Their pioneering settlement of Plymouth Colony laid the foundations for the eventual formation of the United States of America. The pilgrims’ motivation for leaving Europe and embarking on this risky venture has been much discussed and much misunderstood. In what follows Dr. Robert Tracy McKenzie, Professor of History at Wheaton College, helps us to grasp their hopes and aspirations and to see what lessons we might learn from them today. We are grateful to Dr. McKenzie for his gracious permission to reproduce this article, which appeared on his blog, ‘Faith and American History,’ in November 2017.<\/a><\/p>\n

Anytime I\u2019m interviewed about the history of Thanksgiving, the interviewers always seem to try to direct the conversation to popular myths about the \u201cFirst Thanksgiving,\u201d with the tiresome result that we end up mostly talking about what the Pilgrims had to eat.\u00a0 For my part, I\u2019d rather discuss the far more important misconceptions most of us have about the Pilgrims: we tend to misunderstand why they came to America in the first place, how they saw themselves, and how they understood the celebration that we\u2013not they\u2013labeled the \u201cFirst Thanksgiving.\u201d\u00a0 Between now and Thursday I thought I would share some past posts that speak to those foundational questions.\u00a0 I hope you enjoy.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Search of Religious Freedom?<\/h2>\n

The belief that the Pilgrims came to America in search of religious freedom is inspiring, but in the sense that we usually mean it, it\u2019s not really true. I\u2019ve shared this reality numerous times since writing The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us about Loving God and Learning from History<\/em><\/a>, and I almost always get pushback from the audience. That\u2019s understandable, since most of us from our childhood have been raised to believe quite the opposite. But if we\u2019re going to really learn from the Pilgrims\u2019 story, we need to be willing to listen to them instead of putting words into their mouths.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite all-time quotes is from Democracy in America<\/em> where Alexis de Tocqueville observes, \u201cA false but clear and precise idea always has more power in the world than one which is true but complex.\u201d The Pilgrims\u2019 motives for coming to America is a case in point.<\/p>\n

The popular understanding that the Pilgrims came to America \u201cin search of religious freedom\u201d is technically<\/em> true, but it is also misleading. It is technically true in that the freedom to worship according to the dictates of Scripture was at the very top of their list of priorities. They had already risked everything to escape religious persecution, and the majority never would have knowingly chosen a destination where they would once again wear the \u201cyoke of antichristian bondage,\u201d as they described their experience in England.<\/p>\n

To say that the Pilgrims came \u201cin search of\u201d religious freedom is misleading, however, in that it implies that they lacked such liberty in Holland. Remember that the Pilgrims did not come to America directly from England. They had left England in 1608, locating briefly in Amsterdam before settling for more than a decade in Leiden. If a longing for religious freedom alone had compelled them, they might never have left that city. Years later, the Pilgrim\u2019s governor, William Bradford, recalled that in Leiden God had allowed them \u201cto come as near the primitive pattern of the first churches as any other church of these later times.\u201d As Pilgrim Edward Winslow recalled, God had blessed them with \u201cmuch peace and liberty\u201d in Holland. They hoped to find \u201cthe like liberty\u201d in their new home.<\/p>\n

\"'The

‘The Landing of the Pilgrims’ (1877) by Henry A. Bacon. Public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Licentiousness” and “Hardness”<\/h2>\n

But that is not all that they hoped to find. Boiled down, the Pilgrims had two major complaints about their experience in Holland. First, they found it a hard place to raise their children. Dutch culture was too permissive, they believed. Bradford commented on \u201cthe great licentiousness of youth\u201d in Holland and lamented the \u201cevil examples\u201d and \u201cmanifold temptations of the place.\u201d Part of the problem was the Dutch parents. They gave their children too much freedom, Bradford\u2019s nephew, Nathaniel Morton, explained, and Separatist parents could not give their own children \u201cdue correction without reproof or reproach from their neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compounding these challenges was what Bradford called \u201cthe hardness of the place.\u201d If Holland was a hard place to raise strong families, it was an even harder place to make a living. Leiden was a crowded, rapidly growing city. Most houses were ridiculously small by our standards, some with no more than a couple hundred square feet of floor space. The typical weaver\u2019s home was somewhat larger. It boasted three rooms\u2014two on the main floor and one above\u2014with a cistern under the main floor to collect rainwater, sometimes side by side with a pit for an indoor privy.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the seasonal rhythms of farm life, the pace of work was long, intense, and unrelenting. Probably half or more of the Separatist families became textile workers. In this era before the industrial revolution, cloth production was still a decentralized, labor intensive process, with countless families carding, spinning, or weaving in their own homes from dawn to dusk, six days a week, merely to keep body and soul together. Hunger and want had become their taskmaster.<\/p>\n

This life of \u201cgreat labor and hard fare\u201d was a threat to the church, Bradford repeatedly stressed. It discouraged Separatists in England from joining them, he believed, and tempted those in Leiden to return home. If religious freedom was to be thus linked with poverty, then there were some\u2014too many\u2014who would opt for the religious persecution of England over the religious freedom of Holland. And the challenge would only increase over time. Old age was creeping up on many of the congregation, indeed, was being hastened prematurely by \u201cgreat and continual labor.\u201d While the most resolute could endure such hardships in the prime of life, advancing age and declining strength would cause many either to \u201csink under their burdens\u201d or reluctantly abandon the community in search of relief.<\/p>\n

In explaining the Pilgrim\u2019s decision to leave Holland, William Bradford stressed the Pilgrim\u2019s economic circumstances more than any other factor, but it is important that we hear correctly what he was saying. Bradford was not telling us that the Pilgrims left for America in search of the \u201cAmerican Dream\u201d or primarily to maximize their own individual well being.<\/p>\n

\"'Washing

‘Washing the Skins and Grading the Wool’: Painting by Isaac Claesz of workers in Leiden (1594). Public Domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Bradford\u2019s telling, it is impossible to separate the Pilgrims\u2019 concerns about either the effects of Dutch culture or their economic circumstances from their concerns for the survival of their church. The leaders of the Leiden congregation may not have feared religious persecution, but they saw spiritual danger and decline on the horizon.<\/p>\n

The solution, the Pilgrim leaders believed, was to \u201ctake away these discouragements\u201d by relocating to a place with greater economic opportunity as part of a cooperative mission to preserve their covenant community. If the congregation did not collectively \u201cdislodge . . . to some place of better advantage,\u201d and soon, the church seemed destined to erode like the banks of a stream, as one by one, families and individuals slipped away.<\/p>\n

So where does this leave us? Were the Pilgrims coming to America to flee religious persecution? Not at all. Were they motivated by a religious impulse? Absolutely. But why is it important to make these seemingly fine distinctions? Is this just another exercise in academic hair-splitting? I don\u2019t think so. In fact, I think that the implications of getting the Pilgrims\u2019 motives right are huge.<\/p>\n

Scorching Sun or Strangling Thorns?<\/h2>\n

As I re-read the Pilgrims\u2019 words, I find myself meditating on Jesus\u2019 parable of the sower. You remember how the sower casts his seed (the word of God), and it falls on multiple kinds of ground, not all of which prove fruitful. The seed that lands on stony ground sprouts immediately but the plant withers under the heat of the noonday sun, while the seed cast among thorns springs up and then is choked by the surrounding weeds. The former, Jesus explained to His disciples, represents those who receive the word gladly, but stumble \u201cwhen tribulation or persecution arises for the word\u2019s sake\u201d (Mark 4:17). The latter stands for those who allow the word to be choked by \u201cthe cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things\u201d (Mark 4:19).<\/p>\n

In emphasizing the Pilgrims\u2019 \u201csearch for religious freedom,\u201d we inadvertently make the primary menace in their story the heat of persecution. Persecution led them to leave England for Holland, but it was not the primary reason that they came to America. As the Pilgrim writers saw it, the principal threat to their congregation in Holland was not the scorching sun, but strangling thorns<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The difference matters, particularly if we\u2019re approaching the Pilgrims\u2019 moment in history as an opportunity to learn from them. It broadens the kind of conversation we have with them and makes it more relevant. When we hear of the Pilgrims\u2019 resolve in the face of persecution, we may nod our heads admiringly and meditate on the courage of their convictions. Perhaps we will even ask ourselves how we would respond if, God forbid, we were to endure the same trial. And yet the danger seems so remote, the question so comfortably hypothetical. Whatever limitations we may chafe against in the public square, as Christians in the United States we don\u2019t have to worry that the government will send us to prison unless we worship in the church that it chooses and interpret the Bible in the manner that it dictates.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t misunderstand me. I\u2019m not suggesting that we never ask the question. Posing it can remind us to be grateful for the freedom we enjoy. It may inspire us to greater vigilance in preserving that freedom and heighten our concern for Christians around the world who cannot take such freedom for granted. These are good things. But I am suggesting that we not dwell overlong on the question. I\u2019m dubious of the value of moral reflection that focuses on hypothetical circumstances. Avowals of how we would respond to imaginary adversity are worth pretty much what they cost us. Character isn\u2019t forged in the abstract, but in the concrete crucible of everyday life, in the myriad mundane decisions that both shape and reveal the heart\u2019s deepest loves.<\/p>\n

\"The

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth (1914) by Jennie A. Brownscombe. Public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here the Pilgrims\u2019 struggle with \u201cthorns\u201d speaks to us. Compared to the dangers they faced in England, their hardships in Holland were so . . . ordinary. I don\u2019t mean to minimize them, but merely to point out that they are difficulties we are more likely to relate to. They worried about their children\u2019s future. They feared the effects of a corrupt and permissive culture. They had a hard time making ends meet. They wondered how they would provide for themselves in old age. Does any of this sound familiar?<\/p>\n

And in contrast to their success in escaping persecution, they found the cares of the world much more difficult to evade. As it turned out, thorn bushes grew in the New World as well as the Old. In little more than a decade, William Bradford was concerned that economic circumstances were again weakening the fabric of the church. This time, ironically, the culprit was not the pressure of want but the prospect of wealth (\u201cthe deceitfulness of riches\u201d?) as faithful members of the congregation left Plymouth in search of larger, more productive farms. A decade after that, Bradford was decrying the presence of gross immorality within the colony. Drunkenness and sexual sin had become so common, he lamented, that it caused him \u201cto fear and tremble at the consideration of our corrupt natures.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we insist that the Pilgrims came to America \u201cin search of religious freedom,\u201d we tell their story in a way that they themselves wouldn\u2019t recognize. In the process, we make their story primarily a source of ammunition for the culture wars. Frustrated by increasing governmental infringement on religious expression, we remind the unbelieving culture around us that \u201cour forefathers\u201d who \u201cfounded\u201d this country were driven above all by a commitment to religious liberty.<\/p>\n

But while we\u2019re bludgeoning secularists with the Pilgrim story, we ignore the aspects of their story that might cast a light into our own hearts. They struggled with fundamental questions still relevant to us today: What is the true cost of discipleship? What must we sacrifice in pursuit of the kingdom? How can we \u201cshine as lights in the world\u201d (Philippians 2:15) and keep ourselves \u201cunspotted from the world\u201d (James 1:27)? What sort of obligation do we owe our local churches, and how do we balance that duty with family commitments and individual desires? What does it look like to \u201cseek first the kingdom of God\u201d and can we really trust God to provide for all our other needs?<\/p>\n

As Christians, these are crucial questions we need to revisit regularly. We might even consider discussing them with our families as part of our Thanksgiving celebrations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the author:<\/strong> Dr. Robert Tracy McKenzie is Professor of History and Arthur F. Holmes Chair of Faith and Learning at Wheaton College, Illinois. His most recent book is\u00a0We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of Democracy<\/a> and readers who have enjoyed this article may be interested to read more in his 2013 book\u00a0The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each of the paintings featured in this post are believed to be in the public domain. If you have reason to believe that this is not the case, please contact us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 21 November 1620 the Mayflower made landfall in what is now Provincetown Harbour, Massachussetts. 37 of its 102 passengers were English ‘Pilgrims’ from the separatist church in Leiden, Holland. Their pioneering settlement of Plymouth Colony laid the foundations for the eventual formation of the United States of America. The pilgrims’ motivation for leaving Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65473,"featured_media":122103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"resource-author":[20599],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-122102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","resource-author-dr-robert-tracy-mckenzie"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Did the Pilgrims Really Go to America? - Banner of Truth UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Did the Pilgrims Really Go to America?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On 21 November 1620 the Mayflower made landfall in what is now Provincetown Harbour, Massachussetts. 37 of its 102 passengers were English ‘Pilgrims’ from the separatist church in Leiden, Holland. 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