Elizabeth Raum - The Mayflower Compact

1603
James I becomes king of England.

1607
Scrooby Separatists are arrested trying to leave England.

Spring 1608
Separatists begin to successfully leave for Holland.

1609
The Scrooby congregation settles in Leiden.

1611
The King James Bible is published.

1617
The Pilgrims decide to go to North America.

1620
The Pilgrims leave Leiden for a brief stop in England. More passengers jointhem there.

August 15, 1620
The Pilgrims leave England on two ships: the Speedwell and the Mayower .The leaky Speedwell soon turns back.

September 16, 1620
The Mayower leaves for North America, carrying all the remainingpassengers.

November 9, 1620
The Mayower crew spots land.

November 11, 1620
The Mayower reaches Cape Cod. The Mayower Compact is draftedand signed by passengers. John Carver is elected governor of Plymouth.

November 21, 1620
The Pilgrims sign the Mayower Compact.

December 21, 1620
The Pilgrims arrive at Plymouth.

Fall and winter 16201621
Illness claims over 50 lives.

March 6, 1621
Samoset enters Plymouth.

March 22, 1621
John Carver signs a treaty with Massasoit.

April 1621
John Carver dies. William Bradford is elected governor of Plymouth.

April 5, 1621
The Mayower leaves Plymouth to return to England.

May 12, 1621
Edward Winslow marries Susanna White. It is the rst marriage in Plymouth.

June 1621
The Virginia Company provides a new patent granting the Pilgrims rightsto Plymouth and the surrounding land. The Mayower Compact is no longer needed.

October 1621
What becomes known as the rst Thanksgiving is held in Plymouth.

November 1621
The Fortune arrives with 35 passengers.

1622
Mourts Relation is published in England.

1630
About 1,000 new Puritan settlers reach Massachusetts. The Puritans establishMassachusetts Bay Colony.

1637
The Massachusetts colonists ght the Pequot Wars against American Indians.

1650
Bradford nishes his book, Of Plymouth Plantation.

16751676
The Massachusetts colonists ght King Philips War against American Indians.

1776
The colonies declare independence.

1855
Of Plymouth Plantation is discovered in England.

1897
Of Plymouth Plantation is returned to Massachusetts.

1947
Henry Hornblower plans a living history museum at Plymouth.

1957
The Mayower II arrives in Plymouth.

Today
About 350,000 people visit Plimoth Plantation each year.

Find Out More

Books

Englar, Mary, and Peter McDonnell. The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving . Mankato,Minn.: Capstone, 2007.

Fradin, Dennis B. The Mayower Compact . New York: Benchmark, 2007.

Harness, Cheryl. The Adventurous Life of Myles Standish and the Amazing-But-TrueSurvival Story of the Plymouth Colony . Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society,2008.

Waxman, Laura Hamilton. Why Did the Pilgrims Come to the New World?: And Other QuestionsAbout the Plymouth Colony . Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner, 2011.

Websites

The Pilgrim Society
www.pilgrimhall.org
Visit Pilgrim Hall to see items that belongedto the Pilgrims.

Plimoth Plantation
www.plimoth.org
To learn more about the Plymouth colony, visitPlimoth Plantation, a living history museum.

Plimoth Plantation: Thanksgiving Interactive
www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/interact/thanksgiving-interactive-youare-historian
Investigate the rst Thanksgiving at this website.

Secretary of the Commonwealths Kids Zone
www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/ciskid/kididx.htm
Visit the Kids Zone sponsored by the state of Massachusetts.

Yale Law School
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayower.asp
See a copy ofthe Compact and the list of signers.

Recording Important Events

Today, when something important happens, television cameras roll and the event iscaptured on lm. News stories reach people around the world in a matter of minutes.In 1620, when a ship called the Mayower and its passengers landed at Plymouth, inpresent-day Massachusetts, there were no cameras or reporters to greet them.

This painting shows an artists idea of how the Mayflower looked when it sailed toNorth America in 1620.

Pilgrim accounts

The Pilgrims found their own ways to record important events. They wrote letters,diaries, and journals. In 1622 several Pilgrim men published a small book that includedletters and journal entries about their lives in Plymouth. It had a very long title: A Relation or Journall of the beginning and proceedings of the English PlantationSetled at Plimouth in New England . This book provides a rst-hand account of thePilgrims arrival and early life in Plymouth. Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim, probablywrote most of the book and had it printed in England.

Winslows book includes a copy of the Mayower Compact , one of the earliest documentsin U.S. history. By signing the Mayower Compact, the passengers agreed to work togetheras a community. The Compact also set up a form of government for the new colony .

Know It!

In 1796 a historian renamed Winslows book. He gave it a shorter name: Mourts Relation:A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth . This title is used today.

Primary sources

Historians use primary sources to study the past. Primary sources include ofcialdocuments, diaries, journals, letters, speeches, photographs, maps, and drawings.

The Mayower Compact is a primary source document. Winslows book, now called MourtsRelation , is also a primary source. So is a book called Of Plymouth Plantation , writtenby Plymouth governor William Bradford. The authors were eyewitnesses to history.John Smiths map (below) is also a primary source.

Know It!

The word relation in the title Mourts Relation means journal. It comes from theword relate or tell . Mourt was the name of one of the men mentioned in the book.Notice how the spellings of the words journall and setled in the original title havechanged over the years.

The Pilgrims studied Captain John Smiths map of New England before setting sailon the Mayower.

This sword belonged to Mayower passenger John Carver.

Artifacts such as guns, ships, furniture, and clothing are also primary sources.For example, when historians study an artifact such as John Carvers sword (see thephoto), they gain a better understanding of how the Pilgrims protected themselves.Understanding small details of everyday life helps historians form a clearer pictureof what happened.

Secondary sources

Historians use primary sources to write encyclopedia articles, textbooks, and nonctionbooks about the past. These new works are called secondary sources . Secondary sourcesprovide important information about particular people, places, and events.