Ch. 3.2. Primary Source: The Mayflower Compact, 1620

The Mayflower Compact was very unusual as a founding document because it was not a royal charter, but rather an agreement made by a group of settlers themselves (but see also ch. 3.4, on the founding of Connecticut). According to early versions of the text (whose original has not survived), it was signed by 41 of the Mayflower’s 101 passengers, while just offshore of Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.

This agreement was made because the ship had landed far north of its destination in the Virginia territory for which the expedition’s leaders had previously purchased permission (from the Merchant Adventurers of London). Many of the settlers feared disorder now that they were operating outside of their sanctioned legal authority. The 41 signers were all adult males and members of a Separatist group of Congregationalists, who came to be known as Pilgrims, led by William Bradford. The Mayflower settlers were the founders of what became the Plymouth Colony. (In 1691 Plymouth was united with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was founded after Plymouth in 1630.)

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid. And by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620.