Brownscombe, Thanksgiving

One of their leaders, William Bradford, wrote a history, 'Of Plymouth Plantation,' in which he referred to them as Pilgrims. But they were not ordinary pilgrims, traveling to a sacred shrine, and then returning home to resume everyday life. They were, rather, perpetual pilgrims, setting up a new, sanctified country which was to be a permanent pilgrimage, traveling ceaselessly towards a millenarian goal. They saw themselves as exceptions to the European betrayal of Christian principles.