[Sidenote: Why the colony was
not attacked by the Indians]
It was a fortunate miscalculation that brought the Pilgrims to New
England. Had they ventured upon the lands between the Hudson and the
Delaware, they would probably have fared worse. They would soon have
come into collision with the Dutch, and not far from that neighbourhood
dwelt the Susquehannocks, at that time one of the most powerful and
ferocious tribes on the continent. For the present the new-comers were
less likely to be molested in the Wampanoag country than anywhere else.
In the course of the year 1621 they obtained their grant from the
Plymouth Company. This grant was not made to them directly but to
the joint-stock company of merchant adventurers with whom they were
associated. But the alliance between the Pilgrims and these London
merchants was not altogether comfortable; there was too much divergence
between their aims. In 1627 the settlers, wishing to be entirely
independent, bought up all the stock and paid for it by instalments
from the fruits of their labour. By 1633 they had paid every penny, and
become the undisputed owners of the country they had occupied.
Such was the humble beginning of that great Puritan exodus from England
to America which had so much to do with founding and peopling the United
States.
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