Which of the following explains the historical significance of the mayflower compact?

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The Mayflower Compact is a collection of self-government laws created by the English immigrants known as the Pilgrims who sailed to the New World using the Mayflower ship. They planned to anchor in northern Virginia, and after dangerous shoals and storms forced them off their boat, they landed in Massachusetts. Knowing that living without rules may be disastrous, colonist leaders drafted the Mayflower Compact to safeguard available social order.

See the fact file below for more information on the Mayflower Compact or alternatively download our comprehensive worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Facts & Information

Mutiny on the Mayflower

• The Mayflower ship has 50 men, 19 women, and 33 young people and children among the 102 passengers on the Mayflower. Only 41 Pilgrims were actual religious separatists seeking independence from the Church of England. The Pilgrims referred to the others or orphaned as “strangers,” including merchants, craftsmen, indentured enslaved people, and orphaned youngsters.
• The Pilgrims and the Virginia Company had signed a contract. This contract was for the Pilgrims to settle on property near the Hudson River, which was then part of northern Virginia, to have the freedom to worship as they chose.
• The Virginia Company was a trading company founded by King James I to conquer areas of the New World’s eastern coast. Assuming they would reimburse profits from the new colony, stockholders in London sponsored the Pilgrims’ expedition.
• However, trouble began before the occupants stepped off the ship when the Mayflower arrived in Massachusetts rather than Virginia. The strangers claimed that the Virginia Company contract was null and invalid, and they believed the company’s charter no longer bound them because the Mayflower landed outside Virginia Company territory.
• Because there was no formal government over them, the stubborn strangers refused to acknowledge any regulations. “Several strangers made dissatisfied and mutinous statements,” Pilgrim commander William Bradford later recounted. The Pilgrims recognized that if they did not move fast, every man, woman, and family might be.

The Mayflower Compact

• Pilgrim leaders intended to put down the revolt before it spread. After all, creating a colony in the New World would be challenging enough without internal strife. The Pilgrims realized they needed as many dynamic, law-abiding individuals as possible to make the settlement successful.
• They set out to construct a temporary set of laws for self-government based on majority agreement. The Mayflower Compact was not yet named then and was signed by 41 adult male colonists, including two indentured enslaved people, on November 11, 1620.
• The authorship of the Mayflower Compact is unknown, but the well-educated Separatist and clergyman William Brewster is commonly credited. Myles Standish was a well-known colonist who signed the Mayflower Compact. He was an English military officer recruited by the Pilgrims to accompany them to the New World and act as the colony’s military commander. Standish was instrumental in implementing the new rules and safeguarding colonists from hostile Native Americans.

Purpose of the Mayflower Compact

• Nobody knows what happened to the first Mayflower Compact. William Bradford’s diary, Of Plymouth Plantation, is the only recognized translation in which he reported his colonial experiences.
• The Mayflower Compact established regulations for both Mayflower Pilgrims and non-Pilgrims to benefit their new community. It was a brief document that showed:
  • Despite their desire for self-government, the colonists would remain faithful subjects of King James.
  • The colonists would make and enforce “rules, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices…” for the welfare of the colony.
  • The colonists would establish a single civilization and collaborate to advance it.
  • The colonists would live according to their Christian beliefs.

Plymouth Colony

• The arduous job of establishing the colony began after the colonists decided to collaborate. On November 21, 1620, they chose John Carver as ruler of their territory.
• Carver had helped collect funding for the Mayflower mission and had acted as a commander on the trip to America. He gets credited with helping to write the Mayflower Compact.
• The search groups then proceeded ashore to identify a suitable location to dwell. They settled on Plymouth and named their settlement Plymouth Plantation. They had to undergo a harsh winter. Moreover, half of the colonists perished due to malnutrition, sickness, and a lack of shelter, yet Plymouth Colony survived.
• William Bradford, 31, took Governor Carver’s place when he died after a year. Every year following that, the “Civil Body Politic,” comprised of all adult males save indentured enslaved people, met to elect the governor and a limited number of helpers. Between 1621 and 1656, Bradford got re-elected 30 times.
• As the colony’s population developed due to immigration, numerous new settlements emerged. The roaming and more dispersed population made it impossible to attend the General Court, as the ruling gatherings in Plymouth were known.
• By 1639, each town had dispatched a representative to represent them in the other General Court sessions. Not only had self-governance taken root in America, but so had representative government.

Importance of the Mayflower Compact

• The Mayflower Compact was significant because it was the first agreement in the New World to create self-government. It was operational until 1691 when Plymouth Colony got absorbed into the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• The Mayflower Compact was an early and successful attempt at democracy that influenced future colonies seeking permanent freedom from British control and forming the nation that became the United States of America.

The Text of the Mayflower Compact

• The Mayflower Compact wording:

In the name of God, amen. We, the Loyal Subjects of our dreadful Sovereign Lord King James, King of Britain, France, and Ireland by the Grace of God, Protector of the Faith, and so on:

Having undertaken a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia for the Glory of God, advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and Country; do by all these presents, solemnly and consensually, in the presence of The lord, and one another: agreement and combine ourselves into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and retention and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to implement, constitute, and frame, such.

In testimony, we subscribed our names at Cape Cod on November 11, 1620, in the year eighteenth of the rule of our Sovereign Lord King James, of Britain, France, Ireland, and Scotland.

The Mayflower Compact Worksheets

This bundle contains 11 ready-to-use Mayflower Compact Worksheets that are perfect for students who want to learn more about the Mayflower Compact which was signed on November 11, 1620 aboard the ship of the same name: the Mayflower. The Mayflower Compact was the first written government document in the United States.

Download includes the following worksheets

• Mayflower Compact Facts
• America’s First Constitution
• Probe Into Pilgrims
• Sign Scramble
• Mayflower Crossword Puzzle
• All About Cape Cod
• Bookmark It
• Fact Or Fake
• Mayflower Word Search
• Present Day Constitution
• Class Constitution

Frequently Asked Questions 

What is the Mayflower Compact in simple terms?

Simply put, the Mayflower Compact is a collection of rules for self-government formed by the English Settlers who sailed to the New World aboard the Mayflower.

Who signed the Mayflower Compact and why?

Forty-one male Pilgrims, on November 11, 1620, signed the Mayflower Compact, which became the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony.

What is so special about the Mayflower?

The Mayflower ship carried Pilgrims from England to Plymouth, in modern-day Massachusetts, where they established the first permanent European settlement in 1620.

Who made the Mayflower Compact?

The authorship of the Mayflower Compact is unknown. Still, the well-educated Separatist and clergy members William Brewster, William Bradford, and John Carver, who both became the governor of Plymouth Colony, are credited for writing Mayflower Compact.

What did the Mayflower Compact do?

It obligated the signers to form a “Civic Body Politic” to adopt “just and equal laws… for the public interest of the Colony.”

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