It is a mistake to claim that “the pilgrims emigrated to this continent to seek religious freedom” is a lie.
In order for it to be a lie, it would have to be false and that those who said it was so would have had to know it was false.
First the claim that the pilgrims emigrated to this continent to seek religious freedom would need to be shown to be false. In order to do so the various histories which advance this idea would need to be refuted. No account of which I am aware challenges the idea that they left England in order to worship as they preferred. They went first to the Netherlands, and when that society also proved unsatisfactory, they left Europe for a New World.
Here is
the history of one of these people
Here is
a teaching resource at Scholastic.com
Here is
a general history site. Scroll down to [
Pilgrims, English Part I and II], or to [
Puritans, Great Exodus]
Here is
the entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica
Here is
the entry from Wikipedia
Note that in each instance the idea that the pilgrims emigrated to seek religious freedom, or the equivalent – to escape religious harassment and persecution, is either explicitly stated or clearly implied.
This is
not to say that there are no other opinions on the subject, but to claim it is FALSE? Well, that is another matter altogether, and I would be interested to read the substantiating historical analysis.
Assuming for the sake of discussion that the task of refuting all these and the host of other references had been accomplished, then it would need to be demonstrated that the claim “the pilgrims emigrated to this continent to seek religious freedom” had been made by those who knew it to be false when they made the claim.
Here is one of those claims; made by
Daniel Webster 22-DEC-1820, as reported in the NT Times.
It might be tricky to demonstrate that Mr. Webster knew that his claim “They sought to enjoy a higher degree of religious freedom and what they esteemed a purer form of religious worship than was allowed to their choice or presented to their imitation in the Old World.” (second column, third paragraph) was false and that he knew it was false when he made it.
All in all, I find the claim ‘It unfortunately propogates the lie that the pilgrims emigrated to this continent to "seek religious freedom".’ a bit hard to take – other than perhaps if it is to be taken as an article of faith.