Were the Pilgrims simple Christians in square buckled shoes and hats?

Had they migrated quietly from England for freedom of religion?

Hardly. They had been severely persecuted.

They get a gold medal for perseverance through hardship.

They wanted the monarchy to give up control of the Anglican Church.

If the church could not be “purified,” they said, they would separate from it.

Their separatist movement was seen as a denunciation of king and church.

This was an act of treason.

In 1593, it became illegal to be a Puritan.

King James was intent on destroying those pesky protestant Puritans. History.com says, “He believed he had the divine right to rule as he pleased, and he opposed all who refused to submit to the official church bureaucracy. In a fit of rage, King James vowed, ‘I shall make them conform or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse.’”

A small group of Puritans met for 4 years in Scrooby Manor for secret candlelight bible studies. Their children hid near windows to watch to make sure they had not been followed.

The Puritans had a choice: Stay and be slaughtered or leave the country.

They negotiated in secret with a Dutch sea captain to pick them up in the middle of the night and carry them to Holland.

The captain betrayed them.

English soldiers found the Puritans, stripped their possessions, imprisoned the men and left the women and children to fend for themselves.

In 1608, they planned another escape, knowing they were being watched. Another Dutch ship was recruited to pick up the men at one secret spot and the women and children at another place to go to Holland.

When the ship arrived, the men could not get to their wives and children when their raft was trapped on a mud bank.

The men helplessly watched as English authorities captured their wives and children.

It would be a year until they were reunited in Holland.

The congregation settled in the town of Leiden for 12 years.

The Pilgrims were free, but life in Holland was tough.

Jobs were hard to find, and the children worked to put food on the table.

The Pilgrims wanted a permanent solution – a colony in the new world.

After 2 years of difficult negotiations with England, the Pilgrims hired the Speedwell and the Mayflower to take 150 passengers to the colonies.

The Speedwell sprang a leak and had to pull back to shore.

Half of the congregation stayed while the others sailed to the colonies. Storms at sea turned a 3-week journey into 66 days.

Everyone was constantly wet, sick and cold.

The Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts in the dead of winter. The healthy ones tried to build cabins.

By Mid-March, 47 were dead. The others were weak.

Mothers died covering their children to keep them warm.

In the spring of 1621, a Native American fluent in English named Squanto arranged a meeting where colonists and local Indians pledged peace.

The Indians taught them farming techniques to help them survive.

The 1st Thanksgiving was a solemn affair. Only 51 pilgrims were alive to give thanks with 90 tribesmen from the Wampanoag nation.

It was a simple thanks for survival, food, and freedom. They had endured severe hardship, persecution and heartache.

I hope, as we sit in warm homes, tables filled with food, we remember the extreme sacrifices of those original Pilgrims and the history of that 1st Thanksgiving Day!