The Mayflower pilgrims had been outlaws in England, members of an underground church known as the Brownists or Separatists. They believed church should be a voluntary community rather than a compulsory state religion. For their refusal to submit to the Church of England they had faced raids, prison, exile and death for the previous 60 years.
The pilgrims were not the first British settlers in North America. The officially sanctioned colony of Jamestown, Virginia, was 13 years old in 1620 and Roanoake colony, founded in the 1580s, had disappeared. What is less well known is that the Brownists themselves had made a previous expedition to North America. They had attempted to become the pilgrim fathers as early as 1597, trying to settle in Newfoundland.
