One of the Separatists was William Brewster. Many of them had originally come from Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The Mayflower was not solely transporting 'Pilgrims' to the New World.Īround 40 of the passengers were 'Separatists' – later known as the Pilgrims – who did not want to be part of the Church of England and had been living in exile in Holland for years before their journey. 'Honey, I've Packed My Manservant!' - the list of Mayflower passengers at Elizabethan Gardens in New Street, Barbican (Image: Carl Eve) So, basically, one of America's iconic symbols which has long inspired weepy-eyed patriotism is based entirely on evidence no better than 'you know my mate Dave? Well his dad once said he saw Elvis working at the local fish and chip shop, so it must be true'. The claim was made by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce, a church elder who said his father, who arrived in Plymouth in 1623, and several of the original Mayflower passengers assured him the stone was the specific landing spot. It wasn't until 1741 - 121 years after the arrival of the Mayflower - that a 10-ton boulder in Plymouth Harbor was identified as the precise spot where Pilgrim feet first trod. With an approaching winter and depleted supplies they chose to sail across Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth to settle.Īccording to oral tradition, Plymouth Rock was the site where William Bradford and other Pilgrims first set foot on land.

However, the Pilgrims had been beaten back by bad weather.

Huge ship and celebrities will be at Mayflower 400 - in America.

The Mayflower Pilgrims had originally aimed to land at the mouth of the Hudson River, next to what became New York City. It also has a booming whale-watching industry. Ironically, Provincetown is now well known as a longtime haven for artists, lesbians and gay men. The ship landed at the tip of Cape Cod, now known as Provincetown. It is now accepted that The Mayflower – which was built to transport goods and supplies but not people – did not land in Plymouth first. Touching Plymouth Rock while aiming for New York (painting by city artists Mike Haywood) (Image: Mike Haywood) James Fort, founded in 1607, was the earliest part of the Jamestown colony which was one of the first permanent encampment made up of English settlers.Įvidence suggested the marks on the bones were 'absolutely consistent with dismemberment and de-fleshing of this body'. They found unusual cuts on the bones consistent with butchering for meat. The remarkable discovery was given greater weight a few years later when the highly respected Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC announced in 2013 how historians and archeologists discovered a skull and a tibia of a teenage girl following excavations of a rubbish pit in James Fort. It's entirely likely that the colonists swore an oath never to speak of it.' She said: 'Cannibalism is not something the Pilgrims would have been proud of, and it's not something the company's investors would have been thrilled to hear about. Mayflower 400 'could have City of Culture effect on Plymouth'.In none of these works was there any mention of cannibalism - a fact which was not exactly a surprise to anthropologist Mary Donner, also of Taunton University.

The findings called into question the accepted history of the Pilgrim's first winter of 1620-21, including accounts written by the Pilgrims themselves. Subsequent exhumations confirmed Mr Holman's suspicions. The joints showed signs of deliberate butchering, perhaps with a hatchet.' He said: 'It looked like something, or someone, had gnawed on them. What they found raised unsettling quesitons.Īccording to the website the archeological team leader Stephen Holman examined some of the bones which bore 'unususual markings'. In 2005 it was reported how archeologists from Taunton University carried out excavations on Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts which turned up the bones of several Pilgrims. Skull discovered at Jamestown camp suggested settlers indulged in cannibalism

Where were the pilgrims from