Winthrop Fleet - Voyage

Voyage

The initial group (Arbella and her three escorts) departed Yarmouth, Isle of Wight on April 8, the remainder following in two or three weeks. Seven hundred men, women, and children were distributed among the ships of the fleet. The voyage itself was rather uneventful, the direction and speed of the wind being the main topic in Winthrop's Journal, as it affected how much progress was made each day. There were a few days of severe weather, and every day was cold. The children were cold and bored, and there is a description of a game played with a rope that helped with both problems. Many were sick during The Winthrop Fleet was a well planned and financed expedition that formed the nucleus of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. However they were not the first settlers of the area. There was an existing settlement at Salem, started in about 1626, populated by a few hundred Puritans, most of whom had arrived in 1629, and who were governed by John Endicott. Winthrop superseded Endicott as Governor of the Colony upon his arrival in 1630.

The flow of Puritans to New England continued for another ten years, during a period known as the Great Migration.

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