When the pioneer mission to Hawai‘i departed from Boston in October, 1820, their ship, the Thaddeus, was known as the Mayflower of the Pacific. Two-hundred years earlier the Plymouth Pilgrims arrived in the New World to settle New England. In this notable painting, the Pilgrims are pictured on the deck of the ship Speedwell on July 22, 1620, prior to departure from Delfs Haven, Holland, for Southampton, England, to sail with the ship Mayflower on a voyage across the North Atlantic to North America. Here Pilgrim pastor John Robinson (right center) kneeling, face towards heaven seeks divine guidance. Pilgrim leader William Bradford wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, the first book known to have been written in New England. Bradford portrayed the missionary nature of Robinson’s vision for the Pilgrim settlement, based on words prayed by Robinson at the final gathering of his flock departing from Holland for England: “(Look to) advancing ye gospell of ye kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but evan as stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work.”

Peter Marshall was the co-author of the landmark 1977 providential history of America book The Light and the Glory.

In one of his last television interviews, in 2002 with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) Marshall tells of how he concluded the Mayflower Pilgrims were sent to New England by the Lord on a missionary journey as much if not more so than seeking religious freedom, the common, somewhat simplistic reason best known among Americans. Watch Peter Marshall make his case for the Pilgrims being harbingers of missions domestic and foreign from the United States, including being a significant root of the 1820 Sandwich Islands Mission to Hawai‘i.