How the miniature “Puritan Hunter” came about

The Pilgrim Fathers have long been considered the first colonists of the New World; they settled in New England and founded their colony on the coast of Massachusetts, which was officially recognised on the 1^st June 1621. In fact before that there were many expeditions and incursions of a military nature, but it was through the Pilgrim Fathers that the mass migratory influx started, which then increased in the following centuries.

Contrary to common opinion, the Pilgrim Fathers were none other than a group of English private citizens of Puritan faith. To evade the religious persecutions of the Anglican Church, they first escaped to Holland, and subsequently, totally financing the voyage themselves, they decided to leave towards the New World where they hoped to achieve their ideals. After long negotiations with Virginia Company, who managed the land in the valley of the Hudson River, and, after having been promised by King James I of England (1603-1625) that, once they arrived in Virginia, the group would not be persecuted, a ship – the Mayflower – was leased. On the 6^th September 1620, the Mayflower set sail from the English port of Plymouth, where it had taken on board another group of faithful followers: in total the ship carried on board 102 passengers including women and children. The crossing of the Atlantic Ocean was very hard, and the first winter was even harder, during which more that 40 people died of hardship. They landed, in fact, at the mouth of the Hudson River (in Cape Cod Bay) on the 11^th November 1620, further north than the territory controlled by Virginia Company, when winter was just round the corner and the surrounding lands were deserted, wild and inhospitable. By the autumn of 1621, however, the colony was well organized and they had constructed houses which were more appropriate for the harsh winters and they had befriended the Wampanoag Indians, who had taught the whites all about maize cultivation. Contented for the harvest and for the good land, they decided to feast all together with local products: turkey, maize and pumpkin pie. Thus, the first Feast of Thanksgiving took place, a celebration which is still celebrated today in the United States to commemorate the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers on American soil. In the fifteen years after their arrival, all of New England and in particular Massachusetts Bay, were the landing point of an increasing mass migration of Puritans and religious dissidents (more than 1000 people just in 1630), forced to flee because of the repressive politics of King Charles I (1625-1649) and the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud (1573 – 1645). By 1640, more than 20000 religious dissidents had immigrated to the coasts of Massachusetts Bay, thus forming the original nucleus from which, 150 years later, the United States would emerge.