The Mayflower Compact

November 11, 1620 | The forty one signers | Aboard the Mayflower, off Cape Cod

Headnote, written for Huzzah

The Mayflower was bound for the northern parts of Virginia and made land at Cape Cod instead, hundreds of miles outside the patent that gave the voyage its authority. Some aboard had already said that when they went ashore nobody would have any power to command them. The compact is the answer to that, written in a ship’s cabin before anyone landed.

It is not a theory of government. It is a practical solution to a specific problem, agreed by the men who had the problem, and that is what makes it the beginning. They combine themselves into a civil body politic, promise to frame just and equal laws, and promise obedience to what they frame. Nothing in it is philosophical. Every word of it is a commitment they had to keep the next morning.

Forty one signed. They were not all of one mind, and several were servants bound to others aboard. What they had in common was that nobody else was coming to govern them.

The document

Ask Poor Richard

IN the name of God, Amen. We whose names are vnder-written, the loyall Subiects of our dread soueraigne Lord King IAMES, by the grace of God of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c.

Having vnder-taken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of our King and Countrey, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the Northerne parts of VIRGINIA, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in the presence of God and one of another, covenant, and combine our selues together into a civill body politike, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such iust and equall Lawes, Ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the generall good of the Colony: vnto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnesse whereof we haue here-vnder subscribed our names. Cape Cod 11. of November, in the yeare of the raigne of our soueraigne Lord King IAMES, of England, France, and Ireland 18. and of Scotland 54. Anno Domino 1620.

John Carver
William Bradford
Edward Winslow
William Brewster
Isaac Allerton
Miles Standish
John Alden
Samuel Fuller
Christopher Martin
William Mullins
William White
Richard Warren
John Howland
Steven Hopkins
Edward Tilly
John Tilly
Francis Cook
Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker
John Ridgdale
Edward Fuller
John Turner
Francis Eaton
James Chilton
John Craxton
John Billington
Joses Fletcher
John Goodman
Digery Priest
Thomas Williams
Gilbert Winslow
Edmond Margeson
Peter Brown
Richard Bitteridge
George Soule
Richard Clark
Richard Gardiner
John Allerton
Thomas English
Edward Doten
Edward Liester

Source and provenance

Copy text from A Relation or Iournall of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation setled at Plimoth, London, printed for Iohn Bellamie, 1622, the book usually called Mourt's Relation. Read from the page images of the John Carter Brown Library copy, call number [R] D622 .M931r, on 20 September 2026. This is the earliest printing, and it introduces the compact by saying that the company agreed to "set our hands to this that followes word for word", which is the printer telling a reader that what comes next is a transcript rather than a summary. The 1622 printing carries NO NAMES. It ends at the year and runs straight on into the next day's events. The list of forty one names below is therefore not part of this text and is set apart from it: it is taken from Nathaniel Morton, New-Englands Memoriall, Cambridge in New England, printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson for John Usher, 1669, read from the page images of the John Carter Brown Library copy, call number D669 .M819n. Morton prints the names in three columns across two pages, and the spellings here are his: Craxton, Ridgdale, Bitteridge, Liester, Doten. Whether any list was subscribed on the day is a question these two printings cannot settle, and nothing here claims it was. Morton also prints the compact itself, in the spelling of 1669 rather than of 1622, so the words above and the names below come from two different books and the notes say which is which. The long s is not reproduced, and neither is the black letter. The u and v and the i and j are the printer's: "vnder-written", "selues", "iust", "Subiects", "soueraigne". Mourt's prints "Anno Domino" where a reader expects "Anno Domini", and that stands as printed. The date is Old Style, and falls on November 21 by the calendar we now use.

Read next: The Reformation and the Crossing, 5 books in The Formation Library.

This is the covenant movement: people writing down how they would govern themselves, locally, because nobody else was going to. Civic is the same question in your own county.

This is step 1 of 6 in How the free American mind was built, which says what changed before it and what to watch for in it.

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