It’s a great story and I’ve read it before.
My only question is regarding the one-acre parcel of land “given” to each person.
Weren’t they perched on the edge of a fairly empty continent of immense size?
I wonder how they settled on a one-acre limit?
The continent wasn’t empty, there were Indian tribes - friendly or hostile - living in the surrounding area. The early settlement was tightly clustered around the fort on Burial Hill for defensive purposes. Despite their decimation by illness, the local tribes still had significant numbers, and it was only as successive waves of migrants boosted the population of the colony that the settlement began to grow outward.