We all learned about the pilgrims and indians in grade school. We learned about Governor William Bradford and Squanto, but there were other key players in this story that have had their influence fade into obscurity through the years.
William Bradford wasn't the first governor of the Massachusett's Bay Colony. It was actually a man named John Carver. Who was this man and what role did he play? He was a deacon in Leiden, Holland in the early 1600s. He buried multiple children and wife before leading much if his congregation to England in hopes of securing funding and a land grant through the Virginia Company.
In order to secure this funding, John Carver enlisted another Deacon named Robert Cushman to act as principle agent for the congregation. In 1618, Cushman had secured a patent from the Virginia Company. While we learned that the Puritans were fleeing religious persecution, they swore allegiance to the Church of England as well as to the Monarch, King James I. This is interesting as the King was at the time seeking Separatists and to silence them.
To fund the Mayflower journey, Carver and Cushman turned to a man named Thomas Weston, who represented a group of investors called the Merchant Adventurers. The two deacons were able to secure funding for their joint company under the following stipulations:
The Pilgrims were to travel to the new world and will work six days a week for seven years. What was produced in four of those six days will go to the Merchant Adventurers and the Pilgrims would keep what they produced in the other two days as their own profit and at the end of seven years each family would own the land they had personally developed.
This was not a bad deal and the agents of the Separatists accepted it with the stipulation from the congregation that the deal not be changed without their consent. Because this was a business deal the Adventures recruited people outside the Separatist community to insure enough Planters to make the investment worthwhile. In the end half the people that would come on the Mayflower were Separatists and were called the Saints and the other half were coming for other reasons and were called the Strangers.