The Mayflower Compact set up self-government for the Pilgrims
On this day · 11 November 1620
Anchored off Cape Cod outside any legal charter, 41 men signed a pledge to govern themselves by 'just and equal laws.'
On November 11, 1620 (Old Style; November 21 by the modern calendar), 41 male passengers aboard the Mayflower signed a short agreement while the ship lay anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor, at the tip of Cape Cod.
The Pilgrims had aimed for northern Virginia but were blown off course, landing beyond the bounds of their patent. With no legal authority over them, some passengers grumbled they owed no one obedience. The compact was a fix: the signers agreed to “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick” and to enact “just and equal laws.”
It was less a grand constitution than a practical truce — but a striking one, with government drawn from the consent of the governed.
No original survives; we know the text from William Bradford’s manuscript. Later Americans, including John Quincy Adams, hailed it as an early seed of self-rule in the New World.
Sources & references
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