Here's my intro, pillllgrum

  The horrors that the pilgrims faced are important to understand because it shows us how adamant they were to settle down in the New World. An examination of Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford will reveal that they had many harsh obstacles to overcome in the New World, including but not limiting to: The Atlantic Ocean, wildlife, Native Americans, diseases, having to get food in a place the don't know, and surviving the elements.

  Let's begin with their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. These people were Puritans from England, and they felt persecuted by The Church of England. They set sail to The New World, or North America, as it's known today. On the way there, they lost many of their original group, due to a deathly illness falling about them. One of the hardened sailors complained and yelled at them because he had to be stuck on a boat with a bunch of sick people. They thought it as an act of God when he was the first to die on the way there. When they arrived, they were horrified to find that this new land wasn't the Eden they'd been searching for.

  They arrived to the cold, harsh Eastern shores of Massachusetts. It was there that they started their new lives, under their new-found religious freedom. It was also there that they met Native Americans. At first, they had difficulty with the Natives, because they would steal their supplies and tools. As time went on, they forged a sort of alliance with them, and the Natives taught them how to hunt and gather food in the new terrain. But with this increased contact came a very deadly repercussion for the Natives. Diseases from the Old World.

  Now, the Natives, having never been around the English before, were not immune to the diseases that these people unknowingly carried. This caused many villages of Natives to get deathly ill, sometimes wiping out an entire population just from small pox. With little medicinal help available, there was almost now way that they could recover. As if the New World wasn't harsh enough, they had an even greater obstacle to over come: The first winter.

  During the first winter, they lost half of their people due to illnesses and starvation, as well as the harsh cold winds. But they bore these obstacles with a smile on their faces, helping each other the best they could. They made an alliance with the Native Americans, and with that alliance they were able to harvest food for themselves, and hunt for themselves. This is how they survived the first winter.

  Despite all of these obstacles, they overcame the elements and the people, and all odds, and they became the foundation for what we are today: Americans.