This silver wine cup belonged to Pilgrim leader and Mayflower passenger William Bradford, who governed Plymouth Colony for thirty years. Made for Bradford in London, the cup bears his initials on one side.
The idea of America as a religious refuge originates with the Pilgrims, a group of English separatists who founded a colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. While the Pilgrims sought freedom to practice their own form of Protestantism, they were often intolerant of other kinds of worship in their settlement.