Around 1620

"Americans learn the basics about the Pilgrims in school: They were 17th-century Puritans from England by way of the Netherlands, who sought religious freedom and authored the Mayflower Compact. They had a rough initial go of it after they arrived at Plymouth Rock, and they brought disease with them that devastated the indigenous population. Depending on where you went to high school or your college major, you might also be familiar with King Philip’s War, but the American history curriculum tends to treat Puritan New England as simply the opening strains of the overture before the curtain opens on the Revolution. In English class, assigned reading like The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible is the likely reason 'puritan' or 'puritanical' are often used as epithets in the broader culture. So, this Thanksgiving, let’s get some answers. What exactly was a Puritan? Was it the same thing as a Pilgrim? Where did they go after they killed all those poor people in Salem? And why do they reemerge every so often as a national metaphor for either paranoid intolerance or the indomitable American spirit?" For your full Thanksgiving read, here is Tablet Magazine's "The Original Puritans."