Mayflower Compact
Plymouth colony charter
The Mayflower Compact was a governing agreement signed in 1620 by Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower before landing at Plymouth.
It established a framework for self-government by mutual consent, binding signers to follow laws made for the general good.
The document is often cited as a foundational text in American democratic thought: The Mayflower Compact introduced the idea that government derives its authority from the governed.
- William BradfordEarly colonial governor
- Plymouth ColonyEarly Massachusetts Pilgrim settlement
- PilgrimsPlymouth's founding English colonists
- Massachusetts Bay ColonyEarly Puritan New England settlement
- social contractAgreement exchanging freedom for order
Puritans · mutual consent · separatists · self-governance · written agreement · Declaration of Independence · unity · Jamestown · civic responsibility · covenant · democratic ideals · common good · American Revolution · Cape Cod · first winter · Wampanoag · pledge · rule of law
- Colonial AmericaGeorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Declaration of Independence
- historical documentsDeclaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, Emancipation Proclamation, Federalist Papers
- historical recordsdiary, census record, annual reviews, letter, government records
- New EnglandMaine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut
- Early ModernRenaissance, 1500s, 1600s, Reformation, sixteenth century
- Colonial Americanacolonial laws, almanacs, Benjamin Franklin, William Bradford, Thomas Paine
Mayflower Compactroyal decree
Official order from sovereign
absolute monarchy · divine right of kings · royal charter · imperial edict · tyranny
Mayflower CompactUnited States Constitution
America's foundational legal framework