Pilgrims: New World Settlers and the Call of Home

As many as one in four English settlers who joined the Great Migration to New England in the 1630s went back. Why? This book uncovers what might seem to be a dark side of the American dream: the New World from the viewpoint of those who decided not to stay. At the core of the volume are the life histories of people who left New England during the British Civil Wars and Interregnum, 1640–1660. More than a third of the ministers who had stirred up emigration from England deserted their flocks...