Saturday Nov. 21 marked — virtually unnoticed — the 400th anniversary of the beginning of self-government in the American continent, the signing of the “Mayflower Compact” onboard the first ship to bring Puritan colonists to America, prior to its landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was a framework of government written and enacted in what is now the United States of America and free of any taint of slavery.
The Mayflower’s destination was believed to be the mouth of the Hudson River but storms blew the ship well north to Cape Cod. The colonists were therefore not under the jurisdiction of the charter gained by their English sponsors from the Virginia Company, which had allowed them to leave England. Friction therefore arose between the Pilgrims and the rest of the travelers, some of whom threatening to leave the group because it had no royal law.
But its leaders could have recourse to natural law. To diffuse the conflict and preserve unity, Pilgrim leaders (including William Bradford and William Brewster) drafted the “Mayflower Compact” before going ashore. This document (only about 200 words) bound the signers into a compact to form a “civil body politic, and by the 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” on the 21st day of November, 1620. Nearly all of the Mayflower’s adult males (41 of a total of 102 passengers) signed while the ship was anchored at Provincetown harbor.