What It Was Really Like Sailing On The Mayflower

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Since there was no Uber Eats back in 1620, all the passengers on the Mayflower brought along food supplies for the voyage. While there was probably fresh food and water in the beginning, it was consumed right away since it wouldn't last very long. What was left was probably salted meat, a biscuit called hardtack, and beer. In fact, as HowStuffWorks reports, low alcohol beer was an essential staple of everyone's diet, because the water was scarce or dangerous to drink. It's speculated that the crew of the Mayflower forced the Pilgrims to leave the ship at Plymouth in order to conserve the remaining beer supply.

As author Nathaniel Philbrick notes, however, the passengers brought provisions for a journey that was expected to take about a month. As the delays piled up due to bad weather, food and water began to run low. Compounding the problem was a lack of firewood and the fact that they couldn't build fires during the really inclement weather, which meant there was very little hot food. The passengers began to suffer from various mystery illnesses related to malnutrition, most notably scurvy, marked by loose teeth and bleeding gums.

Miraculously, just one of the passengers, William Burton, died on the voyage despite these challenges. Although as Scholastic notes, the Pilgrims' lack of nutrition on board no doubt contributed to their terrible first winter in the New World, when many of the Pilgrims did, in fact, die of malnutrition.

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