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• Mayflower compact
  Mayflower compact

  noun

  an agreement to establish a government, entered into by the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620.
• Mayflower Compact
  Mayflower Compact

  An agreement reached by the Pilgrims on the ship the Mayflower in 1620, just before they landed at Plymouth Rock. The Mayflower Compact bound them to live in a civil society according to their own laws. It remained the fundamental law of their colony of Plymouth until the colony was absorbed into Massachusetts in the late seventeenth century.

Mayflower compact

American  

noun

1. an agreement to establish a government, entered into by the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620.

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Mayflower Compact Cultural  

1. An agreement reached by the Pilgrims on the ship the Mayflower in 1620, just before they landed at Plymouth Rock. The Mayflower Compact bound them to live in a civil society according to their own laws. It remained the fundamental law of their colony of Plymouth until the colony was absorbed into Massachusetts in the late seventeenth century.

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The Mayflower Compact was the first written constitution in North America.

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Mayflower compact Mayflower Compact

See also Immigration, Royal province Mayflower compact, 4 Mercantile theory, 69 Merchants.

From History of the United States by Charles A. (Charles Austin) Beard

"In the name of God, Amen," are the opening words of the Mayflower compact, and that document ends with these words, "For the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith."

From The Call of the World or, Every Man's Supreme Opportunity by W. E. Doughty

Mayflower, compact signed in her cabin, 35; object of her voyage, 143.

From The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style by Daniel Webster

They were replaced with images inspired by the Mayflower Compact, the Revolutionary War and the Gettysburg Address.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025

The law also “authorizes” — but does not require — the display of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance in K-12 public schools.

From Seattle Times ● May 30, 2024

The show acknowledges certain uncomfortable facts: that European newcomers supplanted native inhabitants, and that the Mayflower Compact was written by and for “adult Christian males.”

From Washington Post ● Jan. 18, 2023

Schmitz said the team had become aware of the German magazine only after it had settled on the name, which was meant to invoke the Mayflower Compact.

From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2022

Pilgrims at Scrooby, Gainsborough, and Austerfield, 137; removal to Leyden, 137; Use at Leyden, 137; causes of removal from Holland, 137; Mayflower Compact, 138.

From The Colonization of North America 1492-1783 by Herbert Eugene Bolton