The Mayflower Pilgrims lived in Holland for twelve years

While the story of the Mayflower is often told as a direct voyage from England to the New World, the group of Separatists who became the Pilgrims actually spent over a decade as refugees in the Dutch Republic. Fleeing the religious intolerance of King James I, who threatened to harry them out of the land, the congregation first escaped to Amsterdam in 1608. They eventually settled in the manufacturing town of Leiden, where they lived for twelve years.