Exceptionalism

• Pilgrims


  Group of religious dissidents who wanted to separate from England's church ("Separatists")
• Pilgrims moved to America

  1. Moved to Holland in 1607/1608 (English Crown forbade separation)

  2. Began to move to America in 1620 with several ships (Mayflower, Fortune, Anne, Little James)
• Pilgrim Separatists' Bible

  Geneva Bible (translation made by English Calvinist refugees)
• Official English church disagreed with the Geneva Bible
• Puritans

  Englishmen who believed more reforms were needed to purify the church
• Separatists


  Formed congregations entirely apart from English church
• Voyage of Mayflower and Speedwell

  1. Separatists bought Speedwell in Holland and embarked on July 22, 1620

  2. Sailed to Southhampton (England) to meet Mayflower

  3. August 15 set sail to America (Speedwell leaked-turned back to England)

  4. September 16: Mayflower set sail to America alone
• Mayflower Compact

  1. Pilgrims obtained first Patent for a settlement in the Northern Part of Virginia colony

  2. Agreement that passengers would stay together in a civil body

  3. Pilgrims from Mayflower had to travel to Virginia but failed and reached Cape Cod instead

  4. Built their own colony named "Plymouth Colony"
• Jamestown Settlement


  • Established first permanent English colony on the shores of James River in Virginia
  • Settlers vowed to exterminate the Indians and noticed they could get rich with slavery
  • Three cultures (European, African, Indian) collided and a big chaos started
  • King James wanted the settlers to perish because of their bad behavior
• "The new man"


  • Either European or a descendant of them
  • Left behind old manners & prejudice and took on new ones
  • Motto: "Ubi pans ibi patria" (lat.: "where there is bread there is [my] fatherland")
  • Got out of misery and took a new opportunity