born 1567, England
died April, 1644, Plymouth, Mass.
Anglo-American Puritan leader of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.
He studied briefly at the University of Cambridge and became leader of a small Puritan congregation at Scrooby. Government persecution forced Brewster and his followers to emigrate to Holland in 1608, and he printed religious books in Leiden. In 1620 he joined the first group of Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower on the voyage to North America. When the colonists landed at Plymouth, Brewster became the senior elder of the colony, serving as its religious leader and as an adviser to Gov. William Bradford .