Preview

What Was the Mayflower Compact and What Is Its Significance in American History?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
342 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Was the Mayflower Compact and What Is Its Significance in American History?
The Mayflower Compact had great significance to American history. The compact kept peace for the people of Plymouth and set limits to the pilgrims. The signing was a historic event and was depicted in writings and pictures. The Mayflower Compact was an extremely important part of American history. There were many pictures and writings that depict the signing of the Mayflower Compact and how important it was to the Pilgrims. In the picture by Allyn Cox, the Pilgrims are gathered inside the Mayflower and writing the compact. The painter was for the creation of the document and it impacted the painting in the fact that there is no aggression between the pilgrims and the Indians. The painting represents a good description of what the scene could have been like when signing the document. The painter shows all points of view in order to present a fair standing of what could happen. In the painting it has the women doing chores and taking care of the children while the men were deciding the fate of the colony. There have been many significant documents in American history, the Mayflower Compact being one of them. The document was a contract that the colonists would follow in order to survive and prosper. Originally the colonists were set to land in present day Virginia but storms forced them off course and made them land at Cape Cod and create the colony there. Since the king only warranted that the pilgrims settle in the Colony of Virginia, they settled in present day Massachusetts and wrote the compact. In conclusion, the mayflower compact was a significant document to American history. The document allowed the pilgrims to organize and survive even though they didn’t land where they intended. It allowed the colonists to have a general Idea of rules to follow and how to survive on their own. The art of this era has also depicted the event in many ways but with a general idea of the colonists working together to survive with help from the Native

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1620, a ship called the Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod on the Massachusetts coast. The Mayflower was blown north of its course, the ship landed at a site that had been named Plymouth. Aboard the Mayflower signed an agreement called the Mayflower Compact. In it, they vowed to obey laws agreed upon for the good of the colony. The Mayflower Compact establish the idea of self-government and majority rule.…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mayflower Compact was the first written document of self government in North America. The document was sign to prevent the disagreements of opinion amongst the puritans.…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the early 1600's, 102 people called pilgrims left England for America because of religious reasons. During the journey across the ocean they all singed the Mayflower Compact, which…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1.03 English Journal

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Part I: Answer the following questions on Bradford. (These are the same questions from the Observe page.) 1. In complete sentence format, list three specific details you learned about William Bradford from this reading.1a. What I have learned about William Bradford is that he two marriages, one of them was to Dorothy on May, 10th December 1613, in Amsterdam. The second marriage was to a woman named Alice (Carpenter) Southworth, on August 14th 1623, in Plymouth. Also, he died May 9th, 1657, in Plymouth. Lastly, he had 4 children in total between his two wives. 2. In two sentences, explain why you think Bradford is significant in American history.2a. I believe that William Bradford is significant to American History, because he is one of the only settlers from the Mayflower to write about colonizing Plymouth. Not only that but when he remarried his friends threw a “marriage feast” with Indians which may have started Thanksgiving. 3. What personal tragedy occurred while the Mayflower was anchored off Provincetown Harbor? (Remember, use complete sentences please)3a. A personal tragedy that occurred while the Mayflower was anchored off Provincetown Harbor to Bradford was, when Bradford came over on the Mayflower with his wife, Dorothy. They left their son, John, behind in Holland. December 7, 1620, Dorothy fell off the Mayflower while the ship was anchored at Provincetown Harbor and died. The marriage that started in 1613 had ended.Part II: Write your own journal entry!Write your own journal entry using the information below. Choose one of the following perspectives:…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the Pilgrims did not intend to settle at Cape Cod, they did not have a land patent, (a document that granted land to a colony, but didn't give permission to establish local law there), to settle in that area. The pilgrims worried that they did not have permission to settle there and they were concerned that without any social order, the colony would fail, much like earlier colonies did. Since some of the passengers on the ship were not separatists, they questioned the pilgrims’ authority. As a result the colonists wrote a social contract called The Mayflower Compact that established a local government and obliged the people to follow the rules of this government until they could obtain a new patent. The colony of Plymouth thus…

    • 146 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Government Documents: The Mayflower Compact, The Charter of Massachusetts Bay, and the letters from Christopher Columbus to the Queen.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Politics, governance and leadership, play an enormous role in the day to day living of all societies, and communities all over the globe, from back in historic times to the modern world. In the book “Mayflower: a story of Courage, Community and War”, by Nathaniel Philbrick; there is a detailed account of how political events and complications contributed to the relationship between the Wampanoag people and the pilgrim settlers from Europe. The two communities engaged in both mutually beneficial and dangerous unstable relationships. These relations contributed to the changing of the entire region. For instance, the Wampanoag people provided means for the pilgrims to resettle and survive in the New England region while the pilgrim people resettled themselves as a regional power. The Pilgrim alliance with the Wampanoag people led to the emergence of a powerful political entity in politics of the tribes of New England (Philbrick 172).…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    From the time each ship set off from England, both the New England and Chesapeake colonies were bound to be different. In the Chesapeake region, where Jamestown was founded, the people had unrealistic expectations. They hoped that gold would be plentiful and easy to find, while also expecting the Native Americans to bow to their wishes. Contrary to their wishes, there was no gold to be found, and the Native Americans became less pleasant as the English became lazier. Believing that they were superior to the Native Americans, the English refused to grow crops, and expected the Native Americans to supply it all, creating rising tensions among them. On the opposite view, the settlers of the New England region had no such hopes. They set out from England to practice their religion more freely. John Winthrop had this idea of a “City on a hill” believing that the people of New England should show England itself how they should live, surrounded by their religion. In fact, upon arriving in New England, the puritans made their Mayflower Compact which allowed them to create their own government. Coming from this compact, the puritans also created the Covenant of Grace, which was to live scandal free and prove scriptural knowledge, and the Social Covenant, which was amongst the people, requiring a mutual watchfulness and no privacy. Unlike the Chesapeake colonies, the New England colonies also came with a family basis, while the…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Mayflower Compact influenced the US by providing the basis for the concept of a social contract. It also influenced the US by referencing God and using Christianity as the reason for creating the contract. The Pilgrims who created the covenant believed that it was important to focus on the creating a society that is an agreement with God as well as agreements among man. This was based on the concept of Puritanism, for which they left England in the first place.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    JR-102C

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The colonization of the New World was first an attempt to conquer uncharted land, discover new unique crops, and collect riches such as rare minerals like gold. Some of the first contacts weren’t great, most starved, some even died. They needed help, therefore, the fragile pilgrims of what was left of the colony sent for help. The colonials sailed on the ship which took them many months just to get back to Europe, and it would take even longer for these colonials to return back to the New World. They explained to the Virginia Company that they were determined to go so that they may “live and die as English men and women” and they were sick and tired of the dutchification of their children. As these colonists sailed the Mayflower, by their peppery and stocky Captain Myles Standish they lost track of where they were headed and landed many miles north of Jamestown at Plymouth Bay. After arriving in this unknown, unpopulated area, a group of separatist created the Massachusetts Bay Company. This was the beginning of the Massachusetts Bay colony.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Mayflower was a ship headed for the Virginia colony but due to natural events that occurred, it was blown off course too far north. It landed in Provincetown Massachusetts. London Company authorized the voyage of the Mayflower but didn’t give permission for them to settle that far north. The settlers signed a compact, The Mayflower Compact, which would be governed by majority rule.…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story of the Mayflower tends to make you think of large black hats, buckle shoes, and these people sharing a harvest meal that consists of the things we eat for Thanksgiving. Nathaniel Philbrick describes the Mayflower journey as something deeper than just the discovery of Thanksgiving. He views it as complex strategies that came to control a world made when the English appeared revolutionists confronted the power between Native American tribes.…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Jamestown Dbq Analysis

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages

    These problems caused the death of hundreds of settlers in Jamestown. Without the resources they needed, the colonists would starve to death and become desperate for food and freshwater. They also struggled with unsanitary conditions due to the brackish water they lived off of the festering wastes they dumped into the James River. This may have caused the spread of deadly diseases. There was also the fact that the Natives would ambush and kill the settlers because of their evasive taking of the native’s land and their violent dealings when trading with them along with many other offenses against the opposing sides causing disputes. These factors into the many deaths of the early Jamestown settlers are significant even today because the knowledge of the past is important in understanding how we got here and what tribulations and “necessary” evils had to be taken for the settlement of Jamestown leading to the eventual settlement of the Americas which led to the creation of the United States of America, which we all call home now. The settlers went through so much and almost didn’t survive their endeavor in order to create Jamestown. They came anyways, despite the extreme risks of starvation, dehydration, native ambushes, and disease. Many of them didn’t survive. It can help us understand how the badly the settlers wanted a change. They wanted the freedom to make their own way, which translated into a lot of today’s beliefs. Scores of colonists depart this life before they even made it to the “New world” and many died while going through the extreme task of colonizing a strange new land filled with strange things and limitless possibilities. It can make us understand how much work went into the creation of the world, as we know it…

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    American Colonies Dbq

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages

    During the late 1600’s and early 1700’s things like migration of many immigrants to the colonies in search of economic, religious and political burgeoning and freedom. When they arrived some came to the south, some in the middle and some in the north. When the people landed in the north near MA colony they were out of the charters jurisdiction so they created a temporary gov. like agreement called the Mayflower Compact which in a way was like an attempt to break from the mother country and sort of make their own identity. They colonist started to develop a sense of their identity and unity as Americans as the revolution neared because of British imposed stuff. Along with that each section of colonies, south, middle, and north, all developed…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jamestown is the most important settlement in the history of America. Why? If not for the brave men (and women) who completed the long journey from Europe to the Americas, we might be speaking Spanish. If not for their integrity and determination, there might still be wars going on between the Spanish, French, English, and the Indians.…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics