English · Lycée général (C1 to C2), Bac pro (B1 to B2)

Session 3: Plymouth, 1620: the Mayflower Compact

Recap check
  1. What happened in Jamestown in July 1619?
  2. What happened in Virginia in August 1619?
  3. Whose land was Jamestown built on?
Answer key
  1. The first representative assembly met.
  2. Enslaved Africans arrived.
  3. The Powhatan.
Question: What kind of society did the Mayflower passengers promise to build, and for whom?

Objectives

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

The Mayflower Compact 1620, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899). Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Mayflower Compact 1620, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899). Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.

Activities

  1. Find the words showing that the agreement is collective and voluntary.
  2. What do the signers promise to create? What do they promise in return?
  3. Who did not sign: think of the women on board, the servants, and the Wampanoag.
  4. Summary: the Compact creates authority by agreement among settlers; the people of the land are not part of it.

Exercise

Answer in full sentences: 1. Why can we call this text a social contract? 2. Which word shows that it is meant for the whole colony?
Answer key1. Because political authority is created by an agreement between individuals, not imposed by a king. 2. “the general good of the Colony”.

Gap-fill worksheet

Word bank: covenant, body politic, consent, signed, Wampanoag

  1. To ______ means to make a solemn promise.
  2. The signers form a civil ______.
  3. Authority comes from the ______ of the signers.
  4. Forty-one men ______ the Compact.
  5. The ______ were not asked.
Answer key
  1. covenant
  2. body politic
  3. consent
  4. signed
  5. Wampanoag

Homework

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

Levels

LevelAdjustment
PremièreKey words highlighted, three questions.
TerminaleCompare with Rousseau's Social Contract (1762).
C1/C2 extensionRead the full text on the Avalon Project and discuss its religious vocabulary.
Bac proCompare with the rules of a workplace or a team.