The Pilgrim Fathers
Despite
the privations of 1620, the Puritans founded colonies that thrived and their success depended on
fishing, shipbuilding, trade and farming.
Unfriendly natives were not the Pilgrims' only problem. December was a bad time to start a
settlement, especially when so many of them were too sick to do the hard work which founding
the settlement required . The minority who were fit enough erected shelters near the beach at
Cape Cod for a start, and then set about reconnoitring the hinterland for sustenance. Had it not
been for friendlier native Americans who taught them their skills, the Pilgrims might never have
survived. The natives acted as guides through the forests and taught the colonists woodcraft,
trapping, hunting, how to make maple sugar, moccasins and birch-bark canoes and how to raise
crops of maize and tobacco. They also introduced the colonists to the turkey, which was native to
North America.
annaabi.ee 
