First settlers of Plymouth (Massachusetts), the first permanent colony in New England (1620).
The members of the English Separatist Church, a radical faction of Puritanism , composed a third of the 102 colonists who sailed aboard the Mayflower to North America, and they became the dominant group in the colony. The settlers were later collectively referred to as the Forefathers; the term Pilgrim Fathers was applied to them by Mayflower Compact ; {{link=Plymouth Company">Plymouth Co.