On July 30, 1619, in the Jamestown church where

John Rolfe several years earlier had established peace with the Indians by marrying Pocahontas, met the first legislative assembly on the continent: a governor, six councillors, and two burgesses (representatives) each from ten plantations. The third significant event of the year was the arrival in August of a Dutch ship with Negro slaves, of whom it sold twenty to the settlers. This marked the beginning of the slave trade which eventually became v/idespread in America. An important event in the colonization of North America took place in 1620 when a group of colonists known as the Pilgrim Fathers came to North America on the famous ship the Mayflower and settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. They were separatists in England, or members of the Puritan movement wishing to purify the Church of England by making religious services simpler and discipline stricter. That is why ttiey were called Puritans (from the Latin "purus" — to make pure).

They were perlecuted by English authorities, and so many fled to Holland, but they were not happy in the new country and eventually decided to settle in the New World. Having secured a patent to settle in America, 102 Pilgrims left their home country in September and landed on Cape Cod in Massachusetts in December 1620.