An article by Carrie Gibson in The Guardian website describes the voyage of the Mayflower and also the first few years of the Pilgrim settlement in Plimoth in what is now Massachusetts. One problem: the story describes many things that were not mentioned in history books when I was in school.

A 1752 PAINTING BY BERNARD GRIBBLE OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS BOARDING THE MAYFLOWER IN 1620 FOR THEIR VOYAGE TO AMERICA. PHOTOGRAPH: PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES

The article describes the Mayflower 400: Legend & Legacy, the inaugural exhibition of the Box in Plymouth, Devon, England, being held in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s Atlantic crossing.

Here is a quote from the article:

“‘This wasn’t a huge historic voyage in 1620. If anything, it was an act of madness because they were going at the wrong time of year into an incredibly dangerous Atlantic,’ said the exhibition’s curator, Jo Loosemore.

“The omission in the port book is one of many gaps surrounding the voyage of the Mayflower that the exhibition tries to fill. The general story is well known: the Mayflower took its 102 men, women, and children – the majority of whom were Puritan religious dissenters known as Separatists, but also called Pilgrims – from Plymouth to what they hoped would be the Hudson river. They endured a treacherous 66-day voyage and were blown off course, landing on the tip of what is now Massachusetts, before crossing the bay to set up a colony on land belonging to the Wampanoag, whose name means ‘people of the first light’ and who had inhabited the area for some 12,000 years.

“They had an estimated population of at least 15,000 in the early 1600s, and lived in villages on the Massachusetts coast and inland. Their help enabled the English to survive, and also became the basis for the much-mythologised first Thanksgiving feast, still celebrated in the US as a national holiday, though not without controversy. The reality, as this exhibition shows, was far more complicated – and violent.”

You can read the full article at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/20/pilgrim-fathers-harsh-truths-amid-the-mayflower-myths-of-nationhood.