I really didn't like this movie...

If the Separatist Pilgrims (1620) left us a monument built in 1888, over 250 years after Plymouth, then can we say the apostles left us the church fathers?  Also, this movie seems to ignore the Great Migration (1629-1640), when about 20,000 Puritans immigrated to New England dwarfing the Separatist population.

Obadiah Holmes: You have struck me as with roses

In 1651, Obadiah Holmes traveled two days to visit with an elderly man who was too infirm to travel to Baptist churches anymore. He and his fellow Baptists held their own home service the following Sunday morning. The state barged in. Holmes and two others were arrested for the failure to attend the state approved church and were forced to attend an afternoon service at the local congregational church. While there, Holmes indignantly refused to remove his hat during the pastor's prayer and had to have it forcibly removed.

In Massachusetts at the time, the government did not consider themselves persecutors of Christians. One was given the choice to be whipped or pay the fine, therefore no one was whipped for their faith that did not choose to be. Were they not merciful? No one chose the whip, no one except Holmes. Holmes was convicted for not attending church, refusing to remove his hat during prayer, baptizing those who had already been baptized before, receiving sacrament, and preaching against infant baptism. He faced thirty lashes or thirty pounds.

His fellow Baptists raised the money for the trio's fines, but Holmes refused to pay his fine. This stubborn minister believed that paying the fine acknowledged that he had committed crimes and he knew that the state had no right to fine or whip him for these activities. He had committed no crime and would pay no fine.

If it was not the fine, then it was the whip and Holmes prayed for the courage to face the ribbons that his back would be sliced into. After the whipping, he said that the whip had felt as painless as being whipped with roses. Still for weeks, he was unable to find relief on his back or stomach, only able to rest while supported by his knees and elbows. [1]

This is one American that we all should be more familiar with.

Day of Doom: Children beg God for his mercy

O great Creator, why was our Nature
depraved and forlorn?
Why so defil'd, and made so vild
whilst we were yet unborn?
If it be just, and needs we must
transgressors reck'ned be,
Thy Mercy, Lord, to us afford
which sinners hath set free.

You sinners are, and such a share
as sinners may expect,
Such you shall have; for I do save
none but mine own Elect.
Yet to compare your sin with their,
who liv'd a longer time,
I do confess yours is much less,
though every sins's a crime.

Day of Doom - Michael Wigglesworth Stanzas 169 & 180 (1662) (Children who die before the age of accountability beg for their souls.)

NatGeo: History of the King James Bible

Horrible Histories Explains the Civil War (English)

First American Divorce 1/5/1643

In the first record of a legal divorce in the American colonies, Anne Clarke of theMassachusetts Bay Colony is granted a divorce from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis Clarke, by the Quarter Court of Boston, Massachusetts. In a signed and sealed affidavit presented to John Winthrop Jr., the son of the colony's founder, Denis Clarke admitted to abandoning his wife, with whom he had two children, for another woman, with whom he had another two children. He also stated his refusal to return to his original wife, thus giving the Puritan court no option but to punish Clarke and grant a divorce to his wife, Anne. The Quarter Court's final decision read: "Anne Clarke, beeing deserted by Denis Clarke hir husband, and hee refusing to accompany with hir, she is graunted to bee divorced." [1]

A Pilgrim Thanksgiving

My son was led by his teacher in the "children's prayer" before his Thanksgiving Party Meal, because they were learning about the holiday.

God is great
God is good
Let us thank him for our food
By his hand we all are fed
Give us Lord our daily bread[1]

She was trying to teach the children that Thanksgiving was about giving thanks to God.  However, I could not help, but think about what the Pilgrims, English Separatists, would think about mostly unbaptized children reciting a prayer to commemorate their meal.  I am not convinced that reciting a prayer on a national holiday conformed to their Separatist beliefs.

1. The Pilgrims did not believe in reciting men's prayers.  They objected to the English Book of Common Prayer. The "prayer book" that you see mentioned in many recounts was a psalm-book written by  Henry Ainsworth.  Ainsworth specially prepared a psalm-book (published in 1612) for the Pilgrims in Holland based on his translation of the Book of Psalms.    Also of note the Pilgrims did not use the King James translation of the Bible published in 1611.  They used an older English translation developed in Geneva.[2][3]
2. The Pilgrims believed that marriage was a civil affair not a religious one.  Marriages were performed by civil servants/magistrates rather than clergy.  In the England of the Pilgrims' day you could actually be arrested for not being married in a church.  
3. The Pilgrims believed that children were mandated to be baptized to wipe away original sin.  However they only baptized children who had at least one parent in the church.  Those that did not have a parent in the church were only allowed to be baptized after they came of age making their own personal profession of faith.  The Pilgrims thought that groups like the Anabaptists deprived the Christian flock of young lambs.[4]
4. The Pilgrims did not celebrate Christmas or even Easter. These were not Holy Days, but days invented by man to commemorate Jesus Christ.[5]

I know my son's teacher meant well.  She led a liturgical prayer in order to teach the children about the history of Thanksgiving.  This history, she viewed in very modern Christian terms.  I have been looking for who wrote the Children's prayer, but I have not been able to find out.  I thought the prayer might date to the 19th Century, but I can only find it in the 20th Century.  Thank you google books.

This is my point entirely.  The Pilgrims never would have prayed a prayer that was written centuries after their deaths.  Even if the prayer had been written in the 17th Century, their religious beliefs forbade them from reciting it.  The children who had married parents in the room, probably had some sort of religious ceremony.  The Pilgrims would have objected to those ceremonies.  They also would have been aghast at the great number of unbaptized children in attendance. I would be keeping my son outside the Christian flock, you see.  The novel point is that these English separatists did not believe in holidays like Christmas, Easter, and therefore Thanksgiving.  They might have a day of thanksgiving, but it never would have been an annual event.  In trying to teach my child the Christian history of Thanksgiving she failed on a number of points.   

What changed?  The Pilgrims were a small separatist group.  They were the extreme end of the puritan spectrum.  In 1629, Charles I dissolved Parliament opening the door for active persecution of the more moderate Puritans.  During what is known as the Great Migration, Puritans fled England to other countries.  They came to Massachusetts by the thousands, quickly outnumbering the little struggling colony at Plymouth.    Over the centuries these moderates would increasingly moderate until they were more open to annual holidays by man.[6][7]

Silence! Fun is sinful!