A Dramatic Monologue

My name is Silas. I am one of the original 103 pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower from England to America, in the year of our Lord, 1620. I have now been in the new world for ten years, and each year since we first arrived we have celebrated three days of Thanksgiving in November. It is on that first day of thanksgiving, November 29, 1630, that I wish to recount some of the trials and tribulations we underwent in our journey to this new land.

I need to tell you why we made the 10-week journey across the vast and turbulent ocean. To do that, I must recount some of our history as Separatists (the title given to us many years ago in England). When Henry the Eighth broke with the Roman Catholic Church in 1531, shortly after the Protestant Reformation in Germany, many t…