Pilgrims land at Plymouth on the Mayflower

In December 1620, the Mayflower passengers went ashore at Plymouth after first anchoring at Cape Cod in November 1620. William Bradford, Myles Standish, and other Separatist settlers chose the site after exploring the coast in the middle of a New England winter. The landing established Plymouth Colony as the first enduring New England settlement of the Pilgrims.

The Plymouth landing intensified the settlers' struggle to survive outside the territory they had expected to occupy under a Virginia patent. Because disease, cold, and hunger struck the colony immediately, the authority created by the Mayflower Compact had to be tested in the hardest possible circumstances. Plymouth's leaders also had to negotiate with Wampanoag communities while trying to build houses, secure food, and preserve the congregation that had crossed the Atlantic together.

The settlement at Plymouth led to the 1621 alliance with Massasoit and to the annual elections that made William Bradford the central governor of the colony for decades. Plymouth's example, together with the Mayflower Compact, became a lasting New England memory of self-government rooted in covenant and settlement.