The Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony and the Mayflower Compact
- Date
- November 1620
- Category
- Exploration & colonisation
- Region
- North America (New England)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
In September 1620 about a hundred passengers, including English Separatists later known as the Pilgrims who sought to worship outside the Church of England, sailed from England aboard the Mayflower.
Blown off course from their Virginia patent, they made Cape Cod, and on 21 November 1620 (11 November Old Style) forty-one men signed the Mayflower Compact, a brief agreement to form a 'civil body politic' and govern themselves by just and equal laws. They founded Plymouth Colony, surviving a brutal first winter that killed roughly half their number with crucial aid from Wampanoag people such as Tisquantum (Squanto). Though small and soon overshadowed by the larger Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth and its Compact became powerful symbols in American memory of self-government, consent and religious dissent, while the harvest celebration of 1621 entered national legend as the first Thanksgiving. The settlement also marked an early stage in the displacement of New England's indigenous peoples.
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Empires active in November 1620
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
Related exploration & colonisation events
- Champlain founds Quebec and New France3 July 1608
- Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America14 May 1607
- Torres Navigates the Strait Between New Guinea and AustraliaOctober 1606
- Abel Tasman's Voyage: First European Contact with New Zealand, Tonga and FijiDecember 1642 - February 1643
- Cook's First Voyage Charts New Zealand and Eastern Australia1769-1770
- Spanish Conquest of the Philippines and Founding of Colonial Manila24 June 1571
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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