In 1620, the Mayflower was an English ship that conveyed a group of English families known as the Pilgrims from England to the New World. The Mayflower, with 102 passengers and a crew of roughly 30, landed in America on November 21, 1620, mooring near the apex of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Unlike their predecessors, the Puritans, the Pilgrims opted to break from the Church of England because they considered it was beyond salvation owing to its Roman Catholic heritage and the church's reluctance to change, forcing them to worship in secret. Beginning in 1608, several English families moved to England for the Netherlands, in which they could practice their religion freely. By 1620, the group had decided to sail the Atlantic for America, where they saw as a 'new Promised Land,' and to create Plymouth Colony.