The two ships finally set sail on August 23; they traveled only 200 miles (320 km) beyond Land's End before another major leak in the Speedwell forced the expedition to return again to England, this time to the port of Plymouth.

They attempted to sail south to the designated landing site at the mouth of the Hudson but ran into trouble in the region of Pollock Rip, a shallow area of shoals between Cape Cod and Nantucket Island.

With winter approaching and provisions running dangerously low, the passengers decided to return north to Cape Cod Bay and abandon their original landing plans.

The men of the settlement organized themselves into military orders in mid-February, after several tense encounters with local Indians, and Myles Standish was designated as the commanding officer.

[4]: 94–96  Squanto himself had been abducted in 1614 by English explorer Thomas Hunt and had spent five years in Europe, first as a slave for a group of Spanish monks, then as a freeman in England.

This treaty ensured that each people would not bring harm to the other, that Massasoit would send his allies to make peaceful negotiations with Plymouth, and that they would come to each other's aid in a time of war.

[22] The celebration lasted three days and featured a feast which included numerous types of waterfowl, wild turkeys, and fish procured by the colonists, and five deer brought by the Wampanoags.

"[4]: 154–155  Edward Winslow reports in his 1624 memoirs Good News from New England that "they forsook their houses, running to and fro like men distracted, living in swamps and other desert places, and so brought manifold diseases amongst themselves, whereof very many are dead".

Rather than strengthening their position, Standish's raid had disastrous consequences for the colony, as attested by William Bradford in a letter to the Merchant Adventurers: "we had much damaged our trade, for there where we had most skins the Indians are run away from their habitations".

The war's roots go back to 1632, when a dispute arose between Dutch fur traders and Plymouth officials over control of the Connecticut River Valley near Hartford.

Church was given permission to grant amnesty to any captured Native Americans who would agree to join the colonial side, and his force grew immensely.

The official date of the proclamation was October 17, 1691, ending the existence of Plymouth Colony, though it was not put into force until the arrival of the charter of the Province of Massachusetts Bay on May 14, 1692, carried by the new royal governor Sir William Phips.

The laws of the colony specifically asked parents to provide for the education of their children, "at least to be able duly to read the Scriptures" and to understand "the main Grounds and Principles of Christian Religion".

[4]: 104 In Plymouth Colony, "courtships were usually initiated by the young people themselves, but as a relationship progressed toward something more permanent, the parents became more directly involved," according to John Putnam Demos.

"[40]: 272  Sexual contact was prohibited between a betrothed couple, but the penalty for it was one-fourth of what it was for single persons, and records indicate a relatively high number of babies born less than nine months after a wedding ceremony.

Historians James and Patricia Scott Deetz cite a 1678 inquest into the death of Anne Batson's child, where the jury was composed of five women and seven men.

[39] The General Court as the legislative and judicial bodies, and the Governor as the chief executive of the colony constituted a political system of division of power.

[47] The colony was a de facto republic, since neither an English company nor the King and Parliament exerted any influence—a representative democracy governed on the principles of the Mayflower Compact ("self-rule").

[3]: 7  The General Court established townships as a means of providing local government over settlements, but reserved for itself the right to control specific distribution of land to individuals within those towns.

There were several crimes that carried the death penalty: treason, murder, witchcraft, arson, sodomy, rape, bestiality, adultery, and cursing or smiting one's parents.

[3]: 102  Perhaps the most notable use of the death penalty was in the execution of the Native Americans convicted of the murder of John Sassamon; this helped lead to King Philip's War.

[48][3]: 96–98 [1]: 143 Several laws dealt with indentured servitude, a legal status whereby a person would work off debts or be given training in exchange for a period of unrecompensed service.

In the July 29, 1680, codicil to the will of Peter Worden of Yarmouth, he bequeathed ownership of his "Indian servant" to his wife Mary, to be passed on to their son Samuel upon her decease.

[3]: 52–53  In 1652, the Massachusetts General Court authorized Boston silversmith John Hull to produce local coinage in shilling, sixpence, and threepence denominations to address a coin shortage in the colony.

[65] To that point, the colony's economy had been entirely dependent on barter and foreign currency, including English, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and counterfeit coins.

The earliest artistic depiction of the Pilgrims was actually done before their arrival in America; Dutch painter Adam Willaerts painted a portrait of their departure from Delfshaven in 1620.

[4]: 75, 288, 357–358  Later works have provided a romantic and partially fictionalized account of life in Plymouth Colony, such as The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Boston's Ladies' Magazine, wrote editorials beginning in 1827 which called for the nationwide expansion of this annual day of thanksgiving to commemorate the Pilgrim's first feast.

Roger Williams established Providence Plantations specifically as a safe haven for those who experienced religious persecution, thereby adding freedom of conscience to Plymouth's democratic model.

The Society was founded at Plymouth in 1897 and claims that tens of millions of Americans are descended from these passengers, and it offers research services for people seeking to document their descent.