Discuss the necessity and significance of the Mayflower Compact.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. The first New England colony was founded by the Plymouth Company in 1620 at Plymouth in what is today Massachusetts. Most of the settlers at Plymouth were Pilgrims, a group of English Protestants who came to the New World on the ship Mayflower. Even before the Pilgrims went ashore, they drew up the Mayflower Compact, in which they set up a government and promised to obey its laws.The reason for the compact was that the group was outside the territory assigned to the Virginia Company, which had arranged for them to settle in what is now New York, not Massachusetts. Fearing that some of the passengers might decide that they were no longer subject to any rules of civil order, the leaders on board the Mayflower agreed that some form of governmental authority was necessary.The Mayflower Compact was essentially a social contract. It has historical significance because it was the first of a series of similar contracts among the colonists to establish fundamental rules of government. The Compact reflected the fact that Plymouth was essentially a religious colony, and early colonial attitudes toward religion were different from those of the revolutionary era.