<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Eleutheran Adventurers were a group of English Puritans and religious Independents who left Bermuda to settle on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas in the late 1640s . The small group of Puritan settlers, led by a man named William Sayle, had been expelled from Bermuda for their failure to swear allegiance to the Crown, and were searching for a place in which they could freely practice their faith . This group represented the first concerted European effort to colonize the Bahamas . </P> <P> The mid-17th century was a period of constant religious and political turmoil in England and in Europe which culminated in the English Civil War, a series of conflicts, the first of which was fought between King Charles I and Parliament, and led ultimately to the Protectorship of the Puritan general, Oliver Cromwell . This conflict spread to Bermuda where a period of civil strife resulted in a victory for the supporters of the Loyalist party in the English Civil War . The struggle eventually led to the expulsion of the colony's Puritans and independents to the Bahamas, which the English had laid claim to in 1629, but had not permanently settled . Earlier in 1644, the Bermudian Independent Puritans had sent an expedition to explore these new islands, but one vessel was lost and the other failed to find a suitable island . </P>

Who was the leader of the eleutheran adventurers