With the arrival of the Mayflower Pilgrims at Patuxet in December 1620, Plymouth Colony was established as the first permanent colony in New England. Plymouth was the third permanent English colony in America, following the settlements at Jamestown (1607) and Newfoundland (1609).

The new colony was located on the site of what had been the Wampanoag village of Patuxet. The Patuxet area had previously been mapped and given the name “Plymouth” by English explorer Captain John Smith. The Indigenous residents had left the village after a lethal outbreak of European-introduced disease devastated its population, but elsewhere communities survived the “Great Dying.” The Wampanoag, though recovering from the loss of thousands of their people, still

greatly outnumbered the English families of early Plymouth. In the spring of 1621, after losing half of their own group to sickness during their first New England winter, the colonists entered into a treaty with the Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoag people.

Building the colony began almost immediately after the Mayflower’s arrival. On December 25, 1620, men went ashore, “some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, some to carry, so no man rested all that day.” A few days later, they measured the ground for house lots and gardens for 19 family groups, “willing all single men to join with some family….so we might build fewer houses”. In January, the colonists “went to labor in the building of our town in two rows of houses for more safety. We agreed every man should build his own house, thinking by that course men would make more haste than working in common.” – Mourt’s Relation (London, 1622)

By their first harvest in 1621, there were seven dwelling houses, plus four buildings constructed for the use of the plantation, including a common house. Soon after, the village was enclosed with a palisade of eight-foot high boards with three great gates. In 1622, in response to news of a deadly Native attack at Virginia Colony, the Plymouth settlers constructed a fort at the top of the steep hill overlooking the town and equipped it with artillery. The fort also served as the Colony’s first meetinghouse for religious services and for civic meetings.

By 1623, Captain Emmanuel Altham of the Little James arrived in Plymouth and wrote a letter home describing the “plantation at Patuxet” as

“…well situated upon a high hill close unto the seaside, and very commodious for shipping to come unto them. In this plantation is about twenty houses, four or five of which are very fair and pleasant, and the test (as time will serve) shall be made better. And this town is in such manner that it makes a great street between the houses, and at the upper end of the town, there is a strong fort, both by nature and art, with six pieces of reasonable good artillery mounted thereon…”

– Emmanual Altham to Sir Edward Altham, September 1623, in Sydney V. James, Jr. ed.,
Three Visitors to Early Plymouth (Applewood Books, 1997), 24.

A few years later in 1627, visiting Dutch official Isaack de Rasieries of New Netherland observed:

“New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill stretching east towards the sea-coast, with a broad street about a cannon shot of 800 feet long, leading down the hill: with a [street] crossing in the middle, northwards of a rivulet and southwards to the land. The houses are constructed of clapboards, with gardens also enclosed behind and at the sides with clapboards, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets there are three wooden gates. In the center on the cross street, stands the Governor’s house, before which is a square stockade upon which four patereros are mounted, so as to enfilade the streets.”

– Isaack de Rasieres to Samuel Blommaert, c. 1628, in Sydney V. James, Jr. ed.,
Three Visitors to Early Plymouth (Applewood Books, 1997), 76.

De Rasieries also details the construction of the fort/meetinghouse and describes how the residents assembled there for worship:

“Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof, built of thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannon, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds, and command the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain’s door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order, three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor, in a long robe; beside him comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand, the captain with his side-arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. They are constantly on their guard night and day.”

– Isaack de Rasieres, c. 1628, in Three Visitors to Early Plymouth, 76.

This small community, with its fortifications and meetinghouse, served as the center and seat of government of Plymouth Colony as it expanded. At its height, the Colony occupied most of what is now southeastern Massachusetts. To pursue trade with Indigenous Nations, the Pilgrims also established outlying posts at Cape Ann, on the Kennebec in the area of present-day Maine, at Aptuxcet on upper Cape Cod, and on the Connecticut River.

The Colony Expands

“There was no longer any holding them together, but now they must of necessity go to their great lots … they must have land for plowing & tillage.”

– William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

The English residents at Plymouth continually sought more land for their large and growing families, and the arrival of additional colonists furthered land hunger.  For the colonists, as lands were granted further away from the core settlement, the distance between dwelling place and farmland became impractical. The original settlers began to disperse to form new towns (and church congregations) within Plymouth Colony: Duxbury and Marshfield to the north, Taunton to the west, Sandwich and Barnstable on Cape Cod were founded in the 1620s and 1630s. Rehoboth and Bridgewater, both to the west, were founded in the 1640s as the colonists continued to spread onto traditional Native lands.

Plymouth Colony’s expansion created tension with the Wampanoag inhabitants, whose sovereignty over Native homelands and traditional landways were increasingly disregarded or circumvented by the English. The pattern of expansion and displacement grew more acute as other English colonies were established. In the 1630s, several thousand Puritans emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony north of Plymouth. The “Providence Plantations” was founded in Rhode Island in 1636. The Connecticut colonies were founded soon after.

Plymouth Colony’s growth and the dispersal of English families distressed leaders such as William Bradford as it threatened the cohesion of the original community and congregation. Local community bonds were supported by the weekly religious worship that all were required to attend and by the participation of adult men in town meeting. As families moved away from Plymouth to establish new towns, they also began to form their own churches.

William Bradford saw the Colony’s success in supplying corn and cattle to Boston as a factor in the cycle of colonial expansion and church formation:

“Also ye people of ye plantation begane to grow in their owtward estats, by reason of ye flowing of many people into ye cuntrie, espetially into ye Bay of ye Massachusets; by which means corne & catle rose to a great prise, by wch many were much inriched, and comodities grue plentifull; and yet in other regards this benefite turned to their hurte, and this accession of strength to their weaknes. For now as their stocks incresed, and ye increse vendible, ther was no longer any holding them togeather, but now they must of necessitie goe to their great lots; they could not other wise keep their katle; and having oxen growne, they must have land for plowing & tillage. And no man now thought he could live, except he had catle and a great deale of ground to keep them; all striving to increase their stocks. By which means they were scatered all over ye bay, quickly, and ye towne, in which they lived compactly till now, was left very thine, and in a short time allmost desolate. And if this had been it, it had been less, thoug to much; but ye church must also be devided, and those yt had lived to long togeather in Christian & comfortable fellowship must now part and suffer many divissions. First, those that lived on their lots on ye other side of ye bay (called Duxberie) they could not long bring their wives & children to ye publick worship & church meetings here, but with such burthen…”

– William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

Bradford personally lamented what he considered as the abandonment of the mother church in Plymouth, “grown old and forsaken of her children.”

Plymouth was steadily overshadowed by Massachusetts Bay as more heavily populated Boston became the commercial center for all of New England. The scarcely populated “Old Colony” and its scattered towns remained small in comparison with prosperous communities spreading out from the Boston area.

In the 1640s, colonial growth slowed. The Puritans were winning the civil war in England and emigration to America dropped dramatically. The contest for land in New England did not abate, however, and Indigenous communities faced continued pressure and coercion to cede or sell land. These growing tensions led to contention, violence and the outbreak of regional wars.

The most devasting colonial conflict was King Philip’s War, named after Wampanoag leader “King Philip” or Metacom, who sought to drive the English out of his homeland after a history of encroachment and oppression. Beginning in Plymouth Colony in June of 1675, Metacom with his followers and allies, took up arms against the English and war spread throughout New England. Boston itself was threatened. Colonial troops ultimately defeated the Native forces by August of 1676, and in the aftermath, executed many Indigenous soldiers and enslaved other survivors.

The End of Plymouth Colony

The destruction caused by King Philip’s War drew the attention of the English crown to its American colonies. Starting in 1685, colonial governments were restructured and charters were revoked. Plymouth Colony became part of the United Colonies of New England.

When the English government under King William and Queen Mary wrote new charters for the colonies, Plymouth was not given its own charter.

As of 1692, Plymouth Colony was combined with the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which eventually became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Plymouth Colony lasted only 72 years, but its impact on the American imagination proved a more enduring legacy.