The American War of Independence

In 1620, a ship called The Mayflower crossed the Atlantic Ocean from England to Massachusetts on the north-eastern coast of America. It was carrying 102 passengers who had decided that they could no longer live under the authoritarian rule of the first Stuart king, James I, who reigned from 1603 to 1625, but needed greater religious freedom to carry on their lives according to their consciences. In the American colony, the ‘pilgrim fathers’, as they have since been called, established a primitive form of democracy, where all men – no women – voted on community decisions and each man gave what he could to improve life for all. European colonization of North America was, therefore, based on freedom of conscience and belief and the right of all men to influence decisions.