Mayflower Day by Day

Join us for an illuminating conversation with Pilgrim scholar Becket Soule as he explores his new book, "Mayflower Day by Day." This richly detailed chronicle follows the Pilgrims from July 1620, when they departed Holland, through December 1621, when the ship Fortune sailed back to England. Mayflower Day-by-Day was a project to join the Mayflower and its passengers on that journey, day by day, from July 1620 through December 1621 and look at the numerous records left behind describing that time and what followed. And posing questions: What was it like? Who was there? How does it affect us now? And, perhaps most intriguingly, why did the Plymouth Colony fail? In a way, Becket notes, the 2020 commemoration was precisely about the boat. Most of 1620 was spent trying to find suitable ships and negotiating the terms by which pilgrims and adventurers could administer the new settlement. After much dither and delay, the pilgrims set sail from Holland, where they had lived in exile after fleeing English persecution, on the Speedwell. If it hadn’t “leaked like a sieve” and been forced to abandon the voyage we would have celebrated Speedwell 400 in 2020. Instead many of them piled on board the Mayflower, which had been hired separately, and sailed from Plymouth, Devon. From July – when the ship left Holland – to the following January – once they had all finally moved ashore into new shelters – all the players: pilgrims, adventurers, wives, children, and servants were incarcerated on the vessel. No boat, no Plymouth Plantation, nothing to celebrate – or castigate.