You probably learned in elementary school that the Pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower, saw a big rock, and started building houses. It sounds simple. It sounds like a clean-cut date on a calendar. But if you're asking when was the Plymouth colony founded, the answer is actually a messy timeline of bad weather, legal loopholes, and a desperate search for a place that didn't feel like a graveyard.
Most history books will give you a single date: December 21, 1620.
That’s the day the first landing party supposedly hit the shore of what we now call Plymouth, Massachusetts. But honestly? The "founding" wasn't a one-day event. It was a grueling, month-long process of trial and error that started in November and didn't really solidify until the spring of 1621. These people were exhausted. They were sick. They were technically "squatting" on land they didn't have a patent for.
The False Starts of November 1620
Before they ever reached Plymouth, the Mayflower dropped anchor at the tip of Cape Cod, near present-day Provincetown. This was November 11, 1620. If you want to be technical about when the group first arrived in New England, that’s your date.
But they didn't stay.
Cape Cod was sandy. The water was shallow. Most importantly, the settlers—a mix of religious "Saints" and secular "Strangers"—were already fighting. Because they had landed north of their intended target in Virginia, the legal contract they had with their investors was essentially void. To keep the peace, they drafted the Mayflower Compact right there in the harbor. It was a "fix-it" document.
They spent five weeks scouting.
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Imagine being stuck on a cramped, wooden ship that smells like wet wool and beer while small groups of men go out in a tiny boat (a shallop) to find a place where you won't starve. They explored the coast of the Cape, got into a brief skirmish with the Nauset people (often called the "First Encounter"), and eventually realized the Cape wasn't going to work.
When Was the Plymouth Colony Founded? The December Breakthrough
By mid-December, the pressure was on. Winter was hitting hard. On December 11 (Old Style calendar, which corresponds to December 21 in our modern New Gregorian calendar), a scouting party finally entered Plymouth Harbor.
They liked what they saw.
Why? Because it wasn't a "wilderness." It was a cleared site. This is the part of the story that often gets skipped in the "heroic founder" narrative. The location where Plymouth was founded was actually the site of a Patuxet village called Patuxet. A few years earlier, between 1616 and 1619, a devastating plague—likely leptospirosis or smallpox brought by European fishermen—had wiped out nearly the entire population.
The Pilgrims didn't find "virgin land." They found a ghost town with cleared fields and a reliable water source (Town Brook).
The Mayflower itself didn't actually sail into Plymouth Harbor until December 16. It took another few days to decide exactly where to build. Most historians agree that the physical construction of the first "common house" began on December 25, 1620. While the rest of the world was celebrating Christmas, the Pilgrims—who viewed the holiday as a pagan excess—were felling timber.
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The Brutal First Winter
Knowing the date of the founding is one thing; understanding if it would actually survive is another. The colony almost ended before it began.
Between December 1620 and March 1621, about half of the passengers and crew died. We’re talking about 50 or so people out of 102. They stayed on the ship for most of the winter because the houses weren't finished. Scurvy and pneumonia ripped through the decks. At one point, only six or seven people were healthy enough to care for the rest.
If you had walked onto that shore in February 1621, you wouldn't have seen a "founded colony." You would have seen a group of dying refugees burying their dead in secret, leveling the graves so the local Indigenous people wouldn't realize how few of them were left.
Why Plymouth Succeeded (Eventually)
Things changed in March 1621. That’s when Samoset, an Abenaki sagamore who had learned some English from fishermen in Maine, walked into the settlement and famously said, "Welcome!"
He later brought Tisquantum (Squanto). Squanto is the real reason the question "when was the Plymouth colony founded" results in a story of success rather than a story of another "Lost Colony" like Roanoke. As the sole survivor of the Patuxet village, Squanto knew the land intimately. He brokered a peace treaty between the Plymouth settlers and the Wampanoag leader, Massasoit (Ousamequin).
This treaty, signed in April 1621, gave the colony the breathing room it needed to actually function as a permanent settlement.
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Common Myths About the 1620 Founding
People love a good story, and over 400 years, the founding of Plymouth has collected a lot of "extras" that aren't strictly true.
- The Rock: There is zero contemporary evidence that the Pilgrims stepped on Plymouth Rock. It isn't mentioned in Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford or in Mourt’s Relation. The first mention of the rock comes from a 94-year-old man named Thomas Faunce in 1741—over a century later.
- The Intent: They didn't intend to start a new country. They were a commercial venture funded by "Merchant Adventurers" in London. They were expected to send back furs, fish, and timber to pay off their massive debts.
- The Outfits: No, they didn't wear all black with buckles on their hats. Buckles weren't even in style then. They wore bright colors—reds, greens, and yellows—mostly because dyes were a way to show a bit of status.
Long-Term Impact of the Founding
By the time the colony merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691, it had fundamentally changed the trajectory of the continent. It established the concept of "self-rule" through the Mayflower Compact, but it also began a long, complicated, and often violent history of land expansion that displaced the very people who had helped the colony survive its first year.
The "founding" was a pivot point. It wasn't just about a group of people finding religious freedom; it was about the beginning of a permanent English presence in New England that would eventually lead to the United States.
Next Steps for History Buffs and Researchers
To truly understand the founding, don't just rely on textbooks. Check out these primary and high-accuracy resources:
- Read "Of Plymouth Plantation": William Bradford’s journal is the definitive primary source. It’s surprisingly readable and very blunt about how much they struggled.
- Visit Plimoth Patuxet Museums: If you’re ever in Massachusetts, this living history museum does a great job of showing the colonial side alongside the Indigenous Patuxet perspective.
- Explore the Mayflower Passenger List: Sites like the General Society of Mayflower Descendants have verified lists. It’s fascinating to see who actually survived that first winter—many families today can trace their roots back to those few survivors.
- Study the 1621 Treaty: Look into the specific terms of the agreement between the Wampanoag and the settlers. It lasted for more than 50 years, which is an anomaly in colonial history, and offers a nuanced look at 17th-century diplomacy.
The founding of Plymouth wasn't a single moment of triumph. It was a slow, painful crawl toward stability that began in late 1620 and wasn't guaranteed until years later.