"In reading about the Pilgrims, I found some facts and inaccurate myths about them...
 
1. “Pilgrims wore black, and were very serious, against anyone having fun.”
We have all heard this. The reality is...

• Pilgrim graves show they dressed normally for their day, including bright colors.
• Roger Williams, leaving some years later to start a Baptist colony did so partly because in Massachusetts they had too much fun, with parties, races, and games.

2. The Mayflower Compact, hailed now as the first national charter of a genuine democracy, was simply the way they organized their church life: “congregationally,” with the people choosing leaders and agreeing to follow them, now applied to their civic life. Government based on the consent of the governed. (Our “democracy” came from their “church” model!)

3. Once the Pilgrims showed they could survive here, evangelicals came, not by the ship, but by the convoy! King James, wanting to keep the Anglican Church as close to the Roman Catholic model as he could, was glad to see these troublesome evangelical Christians go. It was one of the largest religious migrations in history, and filled New England in short order with people wanting religious liberty, people about as much like us as any of their day. They didn’t do it perfectly, but they did it well enough for it to succeed, and set the core values for this 'best of countries'!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
excerpt from a blog by Dave Gable, Vanguard University