This pilgrim trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and follows the Mayflower passengers from a Nottinghamshire manor house and a dozen years in Holland to the 66-day crossing, the Compact signed off Cape Cod, the deadly first winter and the alliance with Massasoit's Wampanoag. It covers the people (Bradford, Brewster, Standish, Squanto, Samoset, the Aldens, the babies born aboard), the ships and their fates, the 1621 harvest that later became 'the first Thanksgiving', and the myths: Plymouth Rock, black clothes and buckled hats. It suits classroom history rounds, Mayflower descendants, November pub quizzes and anyone who wants the story behind the holiday rather than the holiday itself. Easy questions cover the passenger count and the leaky companion ship; the hardest ask which book got a printer hunted across Europe and where the ship was last recorded. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia, Plimoth Patuxet Museums or Mayflower Society sources, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Nottinghamshire village did the future Mayflower Separatists meet secretly at a manor house?
Scrooby
The manor belonged to the Archbishop of York, so the group's own landlord was the churchman they were defying.
Q 02Before crossing the Atlantic, the Separatists spent about a dozen years living in which Dutch city?
Leiden
Many of them worked in the city's cloth trades, and William Brewster taught English at its university.
Q 03Which pastor led the congregation in Holland but never made the crossing, dying there in 1625?
John Robinson
He preached a farewell sermon at the quayside; his son Isaac later joined the colony in 1631.
Q 04What were the London investors who financed the Pilgrims' voyage called?
the Merchant Adventurers
The colonists were meant to send fish, timber and furs home to repay the debt, and it took them decades to clear it.
Q 05Which patch of coast was the Pilgrims' intended destination when they set out in 1620?
the Hudson River
That spot was then the northern edge of the Virginia patent, and it became Dutch New Netherland instead.
Q 06What was the name of the leaky companion ship that twice forced the Mayflower back to port in 1620?
Speedwell
It was sold off in London and, once repaired, went on to make several successful voyages for its new owners.
Q 07Under what name had the Pilgrims' 60-ton companion ship fought against the Spanish Armada in 1588?
Swiftsure
Decommissioned in 1605, she was renamed after a wildflower, with a pun on the speed her new owners hoped for.
Q 08How many passengers did the Mayflower carry across the Atlantic in 1620?
102
About 30 crew were aboard as well, all packed into a cargo ship roughly 100 feet long.
Q 09Once the Mayflower finally left England alone on 6 September 1620, how many days did the crossing take?
66
The return trip in spring 1621 took less than half that time, helped by the prevailing westerlies.
Q 10Who was the master (captain) of the Mayflower on its 1620 voyage?
Christopher Jones
He was part owner of the ship and died in 1622, within a year of bringing her home.
Q 11What did Mayflower passengers use to force a storm-cracked main beam back into place mid-ocean?
a great iron screw
The jackscrew had been bought in Holland to help build houses, and it may have saved the whole voyage.
Q 12Which passenger was washed overboard in a storm and hauled back aboard after grabbing a trailing rope?
John Howland
He later became personal secretary to Governor Carver and served for years as a deputy to the colony's General Court.
Q 13What was the name of the baby born at sea during the Mayflower's crossing?
Oceanus Hopkins
Q 21What name, meaning a traveller from afar, was given to the first English baby born in New England in 1620?
Peregrine
He lived until 1704 and was the last surviving Pilgrim Father, though he was too young to remember the crossing.
Q 22Governor William Bradford's wife Dorothy died in December 1620 while he was away exploring. How?
she fell overboard and drowned
Bradford recorded her death tersely in his journal, and some historians have speculated it was suicide.
Q 23Roughly what share of the Mayflower's passengers died during the first winter of 1620-21?
about half
The name was chosen for the obvious reason; sadly he did not survive childhood.
Q 14Who was the only passenger to die during the actual Atlantic crossing?
William Butten
He was a young servant of the colony's physician, Samuel Fuller, and died just days before land was sighted.
Q 15Which Mayflower passenger had been shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609 en route to Jamestown?
Stephen Hopkins
The Bermuda wreck of the Sea Venture is often cited as an inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Q 16The Mayflower first dropped anchor on 11 November 1620 in which Cape Cod harbour?
Provincetown Harbor
The ship spent five weeks there while parties explored the Cape before settling on Plymouth.
Q 17How many men signed the Mayflower Compact aboard ship in November 1620?
41
The list of signers comes from a 1669 history, since the original document does not survive.
Q 18What did the Separatists call the non-Puritan passengers recruited by the Mayflower's investors?
Strangers
That threat of splitting off is exactly why the Compact was drawn up before anyone went ashore.
Q 19Who wrote and first signed the Mayflower Compact and became the colony's first governor?
John Carver
He died in April 1621 after collapsing in his cornfield on an unusually hot day, and his wife followed within weeks.
Q 20In what year was the 1620 shipboard agreement first given the name 'Mayflower Compact'?
1793
For its first 170 years it was simply the agreement or combination; the catchy name arrived with Forefathers' Day oratory.
Only 52 or so people were alive to see spring, and half the crew died too.
Q 24Those who died in the first winter were buried on which rise opposite Plymouth Rock?
Cole's Hill
A granite sarcophagus placed there in 1920 holds bones accidentally dug up on the hill in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Q 25Which Pilgrim elder sailed with his wife and two sons named Love and Wrestling?
William Brewster
As the colony's only university-educated member, he served as its religious leader until an ordained pastor arrived in 1629.
Q 26Which 1619 book from the Pilgrims' secret Dutch press made King James order a manhunt for the printer?
Perth Assembly
The elder who ran the press went into hiding for a year and only resurfaced when it was time to sail.
Q 27Which Abenaki man startled the colonists on 16 March 1621 by greeting them in English?
Samoset
He had picked up English from fishermen off Monhegan Island in Maine, and his first request was for beer.
Q 28Squanto was kidnapped by an English captain in 1614 and sold in which Spanish city?
Málaga
Local friars reportedly rescued the captives, and notarial records later found in the city's archives document the sale of 25 Native people.
Q 29Squanto showed the colonists to plant their corn together with what, as fertiliser?
dead fish
The herring ran up the brook by the settlement each April, exactly when the corn went in.
Q 30'Massasoit', the colonists' name for the Wampanoag leader, was a title meaning what?
Great Sachem
The English mistook the title for his name, and it has stuck for four centuries.