 Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of people ( separatists ) who later came to be known as the " Pilgrims . " The core group ( roughly 40 % of the adults and 56 % of the family groupings ) was part of a congregation of Christian separatists ( Congregationalists ) led by William Bradford . The congregation began to feel the pressures of religious persecution while still in the English village of Scrooby , near East Retford , Nottinghamshire . In 1607 , Archbishop Tobias Matthew raided homes and imprisoned several members of the congregation . The congregation then left England in 1609 and emigrated to the Netherlands , first to Amsterdam and then to Leiden . 
