In the early 1600s, an orphaned teenager named William Bradford joined a clandestine congregation of passionate Puritan worshipers in the village of Scrooby, England. Every Sunday, he met in secret with the radical group known as Separatists, who believed that the Church of England was corrupt, and that the only way forward was to break with it entirely. But defiance of the Church of England was a serious crime, and Bradford and his fellow worshippers faced harassment and persecution.

So they resolved to leave England altogether and flee to Holland, where they could worship in peace. It was the start of a long and turbulent odyssey that would end on the rocky shores of New England, with the founding of Plymouth Colony.

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