The Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower carried a mix of religious Separatists — who had broken from the Church of England — and other passengers recruited by the colony’s investors. Their voyage was meant “to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia,” but they made landfall at Cape Cod, outside the territory their patent covered. To establish lawful authority where none existed, the leaders drew up an agreement for the adult men to sign before landing.

The Compact is brief. The signers, describing themselves as loyal subjects of King James, declare that they undertook the voyage “for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country.” They then “solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick,” with power to enact “just and equal Laws” for the general good, to which they promise “all due Submission and Obedience.”

Its ideas drew on Puritan church covenants, in which congregations bound themselves together by mutual agreement. It did not create a democracy — women, servants, and Native people had no part in it — and it acknowledged the king’s sovereignty. But it rested government on the consent of the governed.