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They Came for Freedom

The Forgotten, Epic Adventure of the Pilgrims

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A page-turning story of the Pilgrims, the courageous band of freedom-seekers who set out for a new life for themselves and forever changed the course of history.

Once a year at Thanksgiving, we encounter Pilgrims as folksy people in funny hats before promptly forgetting them. In the centuries since America began, the Pilgrims have been relegated to folklore and children’s stories, fairy-tale mascots for holiday parties and greeting cards.

The true story of the Pilgrim Fathers could not be more different. Beginning with the execution of two pastors deviating from the Elizabethan Church of England, the Pilgrims’ great journey was one of courageous faith, daring escape, and tenuous survival. Theirs is the story of refugees who fled intense religious persecution; of dreamers who voyaged the Atlantic and into the unknown when all other attempts had led to near-certain death; of survivors who struggled with newfound freedom. Loneliness led to starvation, tension gave way to war with natives, and suspicion broke the back of the very freedom they endeavored to achieve.

Despite the pain and turmoil of this high stakes triumph, the Pilgrim Fathers built the cornerstone for a nation dedicated to faith, freedom, and thankfulness. This is the epic story of the Pilgrims, an adventure that laid the bedrock for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the American identity.

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    • Booklist

      Starred review from September 1, 2017
      Proving that Nathaniel Philbrick's celebrated Mayflower (2006) left room for more exciting accounts of the Pilgrims, Milbrandt's rendition of their story is a masterpiece of popular historiography, accessible and exciting. It emphasizes the persecution that drove the so-called Separatists from England to Holland and then North America, the ardors of finding a ship for their emigration, the suspense of a long Atlantic crossing and search for a place to settle, and decades of touch-and-go relations with Native Americans. The colonization was a commercial venture by investors who, hot on the heels of a first winter during which half the settlers died, harassed them for the fish, beaver skins, and other natural products they'd contracted to deliver. Adding to the new colony's woes, the first full growing season was nearly preempted by drought; the clouds burst in July, giving something, apart from successful diplomacy with the Wampanoags, to be thankful for that fall (the famous feast was not repeated, however). Among many who behaved heroically, the principal heroes of Milbrandt's telling are William Bradford, second governor of the colony, and Squanto, kidnapped to England at 14, made tribeless by plague while he was gone, and a great mediator between English and Indians. In all, a founding story as doughty as Virgil's Aeneid.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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  • English

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