The Pilgrim Fathers: The Price of Liberty

Blog overview

In 1620, a group of people who later became known as the Pilgrim Fathers, left the Dutch city of Leiden, boarded the Mayflower and set sail to America in search of liberty. Their story is remarkable, and one worth telling. Over time, it was also greatly romanticized and distorted. Based on the exhibition ‘Pilgrims to America’ at Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, this blog series tries to paint a more nuanced picture of the Pilgrims’ enterprise.

‘Your Freedom or My Freedom?’

By Mieke Bleeker

July 29, 2020

  After a harrowing journey, the Pilgrims had finally reached the Promised Land and found their freedom. But what about the freedom of the people who were already there? Land for grabs The New England coast might have appeared abandoned at first. Earlier European visitors transmitted numerous diseases that ravaged the Native American communities. Between …...

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‘Do I Stay or Do I Go?’

By Mieke Bleeker

July 22, 2020

Even though the Pilgrims believed strongly in God’s providence, this question must have weighed heavy on their minds. What would it be like on the other side of the ocean? Would they survive the crossing? Could they afford it? In the end, only about fifty of the three hundred people who made up the Pilgrim …...

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“Can I Be Who I Am?”

By Mieke Bleeker

July 15, 2020

  Can I be who I am? It’s one of the questions the exhibition Pilgrims to America – And the Limits of Freedom presents to its visitors. If we could ask the strict, Puritan religious community in England in 1608 which we now know as the Pilgrim Fathers, they would probably have answered with a …...

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