Mayflower Pilgrims

The Mayflower Pilgrims were English Separatists who established Plymouth Colony in 1620, representing a pivotal moment in the development of Protestant dissent and religious autonomy in the early modern Atlantic world. Their theological commitment to congregational church governance and scriptural authority, formalized in documents such as the Mayflower Compact, established foundational principles for later American religious pluralism and democratic self-governance. As pioneers of religious separatism, they exemplified the broader seventeenth-century tensions between ecclesiastical conformity and individual conscience that would reshape both English and colonial religious landscapes.