John Carver (colonial governor)

John Carver in negotiations with Massasoit from the Wampanoag tribe

John Carver († 1621 in Plymouth , Massachusetts ) was an English pilgrim guide and first governor of the New England colony of Plymouth ( Plymouth Colony ).

family

Carver was a wealthy London trader but left England in 1607 or 1608 because of political persecution and went to Leiden , the Netherlands, where he became a member of the separatist congregation led by Pastor John Robinson . There Carver married Marie de Lanno in 1609, who died in 1616. Carver married Katherine (White) Legatt a year later. They had two children, but both of them died in Leiden.

Mayflower

In 1617, members of the Leiden community, including John Carver and Robert Cushman, began planning to establish a colony in America. The negotiations to raise the funds were first conducted with the Virginia Company . A year later, however, negotiations began with a group of London merchants led by Thomas Weston. Carver hired the Mayflower and set sail from Leiden with 101 other colonists in September 1620.

In the New World

On November 11, 1620, Carver was one of the authors and signatories of the Mayflower Treaty . On the same day he was appointed governor of the future colony of Plymouth for the first one-year term. He made a decisive contribution to the fact that today's Plymouth was chosen as a settlement and that in 1621 an alliance with chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe was concluded.

The settlement was poorly organized. About half of the original 102 colonists died in the winter of 1621 from the effects of the cold and the lack of food, including Carver. His wife died just weeks later. He was succeeded as governor by William Bradford for 30 terms .

So Carver lived in America for just half a year. His greatest contribution to the success of the company was the negotiations and preparations in London and Southampton on behalf of the community in Leiden before his departure in 1620.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Mayflower passenger list  
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated November 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Prudence of Bradford and Massasoit  

Web links

• [1] Personal data on www.mayflowerhistory.com

literature

• Robert Charles Anderson, Carver, John (d. 1621) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 seen on February 27, 2012 License required
• Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, Pilgrim Fathers (act. 1620) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. on-line