The Mayflower Compact
Thoughts from HowWiseThen
The famous Mayflower Compact was born of necessity. When the Mayflower passengers realized they had arrived several hundred miles north of where they intended to go, they faced a crisis. Cape Cod, where they arrived in November 1620, was beyond the northern boundary of their Virginia Company’s charter. That charter granted them permission to establish a colony for King James in the northern part of the Virginia Company, near the mouth of the Hudson River. They did not have a charter or permission to be where they arrived, nearly five months after their initial efforts to leave England.
The Mayflower brought 102 passengers: 50 men, 19 women, and 33 young adults and children. Of those, only 41 were Separatists, or religious refugees. The others, known to the Separatists as Strangers, were merchants, craftsmen, indentured servants, and orphaned children. The Separatist religious refugees longed to establish a place where they could worship according to their own understanding of Christian community. The others came at the behest of the investors financing the trip to ensure a return on their investment. These two groups, with vastly different agendas, were now stranded beyond the jurisdiction of their charter.
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
Their situation was desperate. Supplies were dwindling, and anxiety was rising. It was winter, and they had no shelter beyond the wretched, crowded ship. And now, they were anchored in the wrong place. Challenges erupted as soon as they learned they were beyond the boundary of the territory of the Virginia Company. Some argued this meant their contract with the Company was no longer valid and they were free to set out on their own. Future Pilgrim governor William Bradford later wrote, “several strangers made discontented and mutinous speeches.”
The Separatist leaders feared none of them would survive if they didn’t stay together, establish some semblance of order, and appease King James, who had granted them their charter. Disobeying or disappointing a monarch could mean being abandoned and left entirely on one's own, cut off from any future help. Worried they might all die if that were to happen, several men crafted a set of rules for self-governance. Today, we know it as the Mayflower Compact.
Treading Troubled Waters
Since King James issued their charter through the Virginia trading company, he could easily withhold sending any future supplies or settlers to help stabilize a fledgling colony. The Separatists knew they had to do something quickly to avert total chaos. We do not know for certain who actually wrote the Mayflower Compact, but the authors likely included William Brewster, the Separatists’ spiritual leader and only one with any college education, young William Bradford, who showed outstanding leadership, and John Carver, one of the older Separatists. After they agreed on the wording for the Mayflower Charter, they exerted peer pressure to secure the signatures of the adult men on board. According to Bradford’s nephew, Nathaniel Morton, in his New England’s Memorial, 41 of the 50 men signed the document. They then appointed John Carver governor of the new settlement.
The original document has been lost, but we know the contents thanks to reports about it in early American documents, including the 1622 Mourt’s Relations, written by Edward Winslow and William Bradford. The English considered themselves loyal subjects to King James, even though some of them wanted to get as far away as they could from his influence over how they should worship. Thus, they carefully crafted a document that professed loyalty to the King while asserting their right to govern themselves in their new location.
The Impact of the Mayflower Compact
The document they crafted has become an important part of our US history. It was the first document to establish self-government in the New (to them) World. Two centuries later, John Quincy Adams claimed the document was “the only instance in human history of that positive, original, social compact,” and “Here was a unanimous and personal assent by all the individuals of the community to the association by which they became a nation."
It is widely accepted that the Mayflower Compact influenced the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, but it was only intended as an interim document in effect until they obtained another official charter, which they did the following June from the English Council for New England. The wording was influenced by the pilgrim principles taught to them by Pastor John Robinson, who remained behind in Leiden. He strongly expressed the ideal of the separation of Church and State in “civil body politic” and the rule of “just and equal laws.” It applied only to how they should govern themselves and did not address the sticky reality that they lacked a legal right to establish a settlement where they did.
It reads:
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, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour 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 Politick, 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.or
John Carver William Bradford Edward Winslow William Brewster Isaac Allerton
Myles Standish John Alden John Turner Francis Eaton James Chilton John Craxton
John Billington Moses Fletcher John Goodman Samuel Fuller Christopher Martin
William Mullins William White Richard Warren John Howland Stephen Hopkins
Digery Priest Thomas Williams Gilbert Winslow Edmund Margesson Peter Brown
Richard Britteridge George Soule Edward Tilly John Tilly Francis Cooke Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker John Ridgdale Edward Fuller Richard Clark Richard Gardiner John Allerton
Thomas English Edward Doten Edward Liester
Information for this article comes in part from Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, MA.
My Editorial Comment
We are witnessing a relentless effort to restructure the policies and practices that have guided our government for centuries. Some speculate this will lead us into a new golden age like none other ever seen. Others are equally fearful that the very pillars of public life together are being systematically disassembled. I find it most troubling that some are so nonchalant about disregarding the role of the courts, the rights of all residents of this country, and the respect for the three equal, but intentionally separate, branches of our government.
The Separatist people of the Mayflower story fled England to escape the domineering dictates of a king. They traveled with people, most likely members of the Established Church of England, whom they sought to separate from. Once they realized they were in serious trouble, they set aside their differences to find a way to survive together. They were careful to keep their personal piety and faith practices separate from the government. It is a gross misinterpretation of history to claim we were founded as a Christian nation. We were not. We were founded by people who were Christian, but wanted nothing to do with government interference in matters of faith practices.
Additionally, for the first few decades, the English settlers and the established Indigenous people did their best to live together as peaceful neighbors. They did not always succeed in that effort, but that is what they hoped to accomplish.
We would do well today to learn the full and accurate account of our earliest European-influenced history and take part in advocating for the rights of everyone: Indigenous peoples, immigrants, naturalized citizens, birthright citizens, and both documented and undocumented laborers.
We surely need to review and revise the laws that govern us, but we need to do it through the established system of Congress, the presidential administration, and the Supreme Court.
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Mary Brewster's Love Life: Paperback, hardback, audio, and eBook. Bookshop.org
Mayflower Chronicles: Paper, audio, eBook. Bookshop.org
Asunder: Paper. HowWiseThen.com
A Ready Hope: Paper, eBook. Rowman & Littlefield
40 Day Journey with Kathleen Norris: Paper. Augsburg Fortress
God in the Raging Waters. Paper. Amazon.com
Married & Mobile. Paper. HowWiseThen.com