A Journey to the New World

by Kathryn Lasky

  In their native England under King James I’s reign, the Church of England was very powerful. Anyone who did not follow the established religion or cooperate with the King’s wishes faced persecution, in the form of arrests, imprisonment, fines, and other types of official harassment.

  A group of reformers called Puritans questioned the church’s power and a faction of them began to condemn the church as corrupt and unlawful. They were scorned by the King because their questioning threatened his authority as well as that of the church. Some of them began to meet in secret. They were known as Separatists because they wanted to separate themselves completely from the church. When the King found out about their meetings, some Separatists were sentenced to jail. Two had already been hanged. In 1607, a group of them decided they could no longer live in a country where the practice of religion was forced on people under threat of arrest.

  For fear of their livelihoods as well as their lives, the Separatists decided to move to Leyden, Holland, where they could worship freely. But life in Holland was hard economically and they felt extremely isolated in this new land. They were also worried that their children would forget how to speak English or become soldiers and sailors for Holland.

  They decided to immigrate to the New World. These Separatists came to be known as Pilgrims. They were led by the wise elder, William Brewster, and an idealistic young man named William Bradford. The Pilgrims knew that another English colony had already been established in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and they were ready to create their own colony in Northern Virginia.

  They were able to convince some London businessmen, the Merchant Adventurers, to sponsor their voyage. In return for financial backing by the London group, the Pilgrims promised to work for the next seven years to pay off their debts. Essentially, they would be indentured servants to this coalition of merchants, who hoped to accumulate a great profit from their chartered colony. The Pilgrims returned to England where they were provided with a small wooden ship named the Mayflower and some supplies to help them survive their first months in the wilds of America.

  On Wednesday, September 6, 1620, 102 brave people, including 34 children, crowded onto the ship and set off to form a colony of their own. About thirty-five of them were going for religious reasons — they were the Pilgrims (though they preferred to call themselves Saints) — others because they couldn’t find work in England, and still others for the spirit of adventure.

  The journey was long and difficult. There was little to eat except for salted beef and pork, dry biscuits, and also some cheese, peas, and beans from Holland. But food spoiled quickly and the barrelled water was not safe to drink. Many of the passengers were terribly seasick, and two (including one sailor) died during the grueling trip. After more than two months, the Pilgrims arrived at what is now Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Since they had been planning to settle in Virginia Colony, it was clear that they had gone more than a little off course.

  Cape Cod looked to be a rocky and ominous land. After determining to explore further, the Pilgrims sailed inland to the more welcoming shores of Plymouth, which had been discovered and named six years earlier by Captain John Smith. On December 21, 1620, the Pilgrims finally stepped ashore. No one is quite sure whether any of the Pilgrims actually stepped on the rock now known as Plymouth Rock, but many people believe the legend developed because it was the only good landing place along two and a half miles of beach.

  The first few months in Plymouth were cold and harsh for the new immigrants. Coming to this foreign land in the dead of winter was probably not the best plan. The Pilgrims arrived with no shelter, no medical care, and very few provisions. And because they still had to build houses, many of them spent most of the winter living aboard the ship. Illness swept through the tiny community, and more than half the Pilgrims died during that first winter. Some were killed by starvation and scurvy, while others died from pneumonia, fevers, and other diseases. While the Pilgrims did use medicinal herbs, there was no medicine that could cure the ravaging diseases that were killing them. Many doctors believed in bleeding ill patients, opening a vein to let some “poisoned” blood flow out.

  The Pilgrims had agreed to elect a man named John Carver to be their first governor, but he did not survive the long winter. William Bradford was elected to take his place. He and the other leaders of the group created a document called the Mayflower Compact, signed by all of the men in the small colony. In it, they agreed to hold annual elections for a governor and assistants, who would draft fair laws for all to follow. While America’s struggle for independence was over one hundred and fifty years away, the early seeds of self-government were sown by the forward-thinking Pilgrims.

  The Plymouth colonists came in almost immediate contact with the Indian peoples. Some of the local tribes, like the various Wampanoag groups, were friendly toward the Pilgrims. The Wampanoag had been trading furs with European traders for years before the Mayflower landed, but the Pilgrims were the first Europeans to settle permanently on Wampanoag land.

  On March 16, 1621, three months after their arrival, the Pilgrims met an Abenaki Indian named Samoset who spoke English and told them all about the neighboring Indian tribes. He also introduced them to another Indian named Tisquantum, or Squanto, the only surviving Patuxet native of Plymouth. He became their dearest friend and stayed with the Pilgrims for the rest of his life. When spring came and the Pilgrims were able to plant their first crops, Squanto introduced them to maize, or Indian corn. He also taught the Pilgrims how to fish and where to hunt for deer and turkey. While some of the English crops like beans and wheat did not grow very well in the rocky New England soil, maize thrived. The Pilgrims traded their surplus corn to the Indians for beaver pelts. These furs were then sent to England to help pay off their debts.

  There were other tribes, like the Gayhead and the Narragansett who were not as welcoming to the Pilgrims, and Captain Miles Standish helped form a militia, providing self-defense for the fledgling community.

  That October, the surviving Pilgrims (about fifty) celebrated the first Thanksgiving. It lasted three days, and they invited members of the Wampanoag tribe to join them for the joyful feast. They ate wild turkey, deer, meat pies, duck, fresh fish, vegetables from the Pilgrims’ gardens, corn, and wild berries. The Pilgrims had much to be thankful for. Without the help of Squanto and their Indian neighbors, they would not have survived their first year. They also signed an official peace treaty with the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit. Later, the British would take advantage of the Pilgrims’ new allies and force them to move away from their ancestral lands, but this did not happen initially.

  For the next few years, the Pilgrims were almost isolated in their new settlement. Their population grew slowly, as every so often, ships would arrive from England with some new immigrants. For the most part, though, the Pilgrims were on their own.

  The company of London never made a profit from the Pilgrims. It was too hard to exert control over colonies that were so far away. Plymouth was now essentially independent, although the King of England still had final jurisdiction over their activities. In practice, the Pilgrims were a self-governing community, but their fight for independence was only just beginning.

  The Mayflower was not a passenger ship, but a cargo ship. About ninety feet long, it was made to transport things like cloth and barrels of wine.

  This diagram of the Mayflower indicates the main areas of the ship.

  1. SPRITSAIL

  2. FORECOURSE

  3. FORE-TOPSAIL

  4. MAIN COURSE

  5. MAIN-TOPSAIL

  6. MIZZEN SAIL

  7. FO’C’SLE

  Where meals were cooked for the crew.

  8. TWEEN DECKS

  Living quarters.

  9. HOLD

  Storage for food, drink, tools, and supplies.

  10. STEERAGE

  This is where the helmsman steered the ship. He guided the whipstaff, the long lever that moved the tiller, which moved the rudder. An offi
cer on the deck above the steerage gave the orders.

  11. GREAT CABIN

  The ship’s master, some of the officers, and the ship’s apprentice slept here.

  12. ROUNDHOUSE

  The chartroom from which the master directed the ship’s course.

  A roster of signatures of some of the people on the Mayflower.

  The city of Leyden, Holland, was much more developed than the rugged landscape that awaited the Pilgrims on the shores of New England.

  The Pilgrims worked together to build their first homes. They modeled them after their houses in England, only much smaller. They had thatch (straw) roofs, and windows often covered with oiled paper to let in some light.

  Plymouth Colony, after the Pilgrims had built their homes.

  Forty-one men signed the Mayflower Compact, which promised “just and equall Lawes … for the generall good.” It was the first document in America based on majority rule.

  The Pilgrims’ long woolen dresses and white linen caps were different from the dress of the native peoples they encountered.

  An artist’s interpretation of the First Thanksgiving, which took place sometime in the middle of October, 1621. It lasted for three days.

  Psalm 100, a favorite Pilgrim hymn, from the book of Psalms.

  Modern map of the continental United States, showing the approximate location of Plymouth.

  This detail of Massachusetts shows Plymouth, which the Indians called Patuxet. Also shown are neighboring areas with their place names as they were known in the 1600s.

  About the Author

  KATHRYN LASKY has sailed the Atlantic twice in a thirty-foot boat. So writing about the Pilgrims’ journey on the Mayflower, she drew on first-hand experiences at sea. “I could relate to the storms and the terrible sound of the huge Atlantic waves crashing. Like Mem, I was sick many times.” On the eastward Atlantic trip, Ms. Lasky and her small crew landed in Falmouth, England, not too far from where the Pilgrims set sail for the New World. But unlike the Pilgrims, they were able to accurately plan their landing. “Because navigation was not developed in the early seventeenth century, the Pilgrims had no real ways of measuring longitude, they couldn’t pinpoint themselves on the sea the way we can today.”

  Ms. Lasky is the author of more than thirty books for children and adults, including, most recently, the Guardians of Ga’Hoole and the Wolves of the Beyond series, as well as the Daughters of the Sea books. She won a Newbery Honor for her book Sugaring Time, a National Jewish Book Award for The Night Journey, and the Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Award for her contribution to children’s nonfiction. She has also written several Dear America diaries, in addition to two historical fiction books — Beyond the Burning Time, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and True North — for Scholastic. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.

  Acknowledgments

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:

  Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien.

  Cover background: The Mayflower. Colored engraving, 1905. The Granger Collection, New York.

  The Mayflower. Colored engraving, 1905. The Granger Collection, New York.

  Diagram of the Mayflower by Heather Saunders.

  Roster of signatures, Courtesy of The Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, Massachusetts.

  City of Leyden, Holland, North Wind Picture Archives, Alfred, Maine.

  Building the first homes at Plymouth, Stock Montage, Inc., Chicago, Illinois.

  Plymouth Colony, ibid.

  The Mayflower Compact, Courtesy of The Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, Massachusetts.

  Drawings of Pilgrim and Wampanoag dress by Heather Saunders.

  The First Thanksgiving, The American Museum of Natural History, New York.

  The Ainsworth Book of Psalms, 1618, Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  Maps by Heather Saunders.

  Other books in the

  Dear America series

  The Winter of Red Snow

  The Diary of Abigail Jane Stewart

  by Kristiana Gregory

  The Fences Between Us

  The Diary of Piper Davis

  by Kirby Larson

  Voyage on the Great Titanic

  The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady

  by Ellen Emerson White

  Copyright

  While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Remember Patience Whipple is a fictional character, created by the author, and her diary and its epilogue are works of fiction.

  Copyright © 1996 by Kathryn Lasky

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, DEAR AMERICA, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier hardcover edition as follows:

  Lasky, Kathryn.

  A journey to the New World : the diary of Remember Patience Whipple : Mayflower/Plimoth Colony, 1620/by Kathryn Lasky.

  p. cm. — (Dear America ; 3)

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Mem presents a diary account of the trip she and her family made on the Mayflower in 1620 and their first year in the New World.

  ISBN 0-590-50214-X 1.

  Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony) — Juvenile fiction. [1. Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony) — Fiction. 2. Massachusetts — History — New Plymouth, 1620–1691 — Fiction. 3. Mayflower (Ship) — Fiction.] 4. Voyages and travels — Fiction. 5. Diaries — Fiction.]

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PZ7.L3274Jo 1995

  [Fic] — dc20 95-25715

  CIP AC

  Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi

  Cover art by Tim O’Brien © 2010 Scholastic Inc.

  Cover background: The Granger Collection, NY

  This edition first printing, September 2010

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

  eISBN: 978-0-545-41496-8