Session 3: Plymouth, 1620: the Mayflower Compact

Read one step, do it, then move on.

Step 1

Recap check

What happened in Jamestown in July 1619?
What happened in Virginia in August 1619?
Whose land was Jamestown built on?

Answer key

The first representative assembly met.
Enslaved Africans arrived.
The Powhatan.

Step 2

Objectives

Analyse a seventeenth-century primary source
Identify the idea of government by consent

Step 3

Documents

Key document

“We, whose names are underwritten, [...] do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic [...] and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, 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.” The Mayflower Compact, November 1620. It was signed by forty-one men before landing.

Read the source: Yale Law School, Avalon Project

Step 4

Task 1

Find the words showing that the agreement is collective and voluntary.

Step 5

Task 2

What do the signers promise to create? What do they promise in return?

Step 6

Task 3

Who did not sign: think of the women on board, the servants, and the Wampanoag.

Step 7

Gap-fill worksheet

Word bank: covenant body politic consent signed Wampanoag

To means to make a solemn promise.
The signers form a civil .
Authority comes from the of the signers.
Forty-one men the Compact.
The were not asked.

Answer key

covenant
body politic
consent
signed
Wampanoag

Step 8

Homework

Rewrite the Compact in modern English for a class poster (five short sentences), then add one sentence on who is missing.

Answer key

Model answer: We, the people who sign here, agree to live together as one community. We will make fair laws for the good of the colony. We promise to obey them. We sign before God and before each other. We sign in November 1620. Missing: the women, the servants and the Wampanoag, whose land it was.