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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this day in

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Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from

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Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you missed in History Class. It's

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Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

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Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

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Speaker 1: in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

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Speaker 1: and it's November twenty one. The Mayflower Compact was signed

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Speaker 1: on this day in sixteen twenty under the Gregorian calendar.

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Speaker 1: In the old style Julian calendar, it's marked just November eleven.

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Speaker 1: Parts of the world had already adopted the Gregorian calendar

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Speaker 1: by sixteen twenty, but England had not, and that's why

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Speaker 1: you'll sometimes see two different dates used in discussions of

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Speaker 1: the Mayflower and the Plymouth Colony. As its name suggests,

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Speaker 1: the Mayflower Compact was signed by people who had come

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Speaker 1: to North America aboard the Mayflower in sixteen twenty. They

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Speaker 1: had a contract with the Virginia Company of London that

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Speaker 1: authorized them to colonize a particular piece of land, but

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Speaker 1: they wound up off course far north of their original

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Speaker 1: course on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this was territory where

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Speaker 1: the Virginia Company of London didn't have any jurisdiction. This

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Speaker 1: put them in a predicament. They weren't where they were

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Speaker 1: supposed to be. They had no outside authority giving them

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Speaker 1: the right to be there. When it was unclear who

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Speaker 1: was in charge of them. There were some arguments among

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Speaker 1: the passengers about whether their contract was still valid and

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Speaker 1: whose jurisdiction they were under, if any, And this is

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Speaker 1: aside from the fact that there were already indigenous people

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Speaker 1: living there. The people aboard the Mayflower are often described

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Speaker 1: as Pilgrims, and there were forty one Pilgrims out of

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Speaker 1: the one passengers aboard. The Pilgrims are trying to get

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Speaker 1: away from the religious authority of the Church of England

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Speaker 1: so that they could worship freely, but the rest of

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Speaker 1: the passengers were from a variety of other walks of life.

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Speaker 1: So with all this together in mind, these people needed

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Speaker 1: some kind of framework for a functioning community, and the

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Speaker 1: result was what's now known as the Mayflower Compact, which

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Speaker 1: was signed by forty one adult men, two of them

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Speaker 1: indentured servants. The original document has been lost, but a

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Speaker 1: number of copies surviving colonists personal records, including one that

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Speaker 1: was written down by William Bradford, who was a governor

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Speaker 1: of Plymouth Colony. Later on, the signatory has declared themselves

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Speaker 1: to be loyal subjects of their dread sovereign Lord King James.

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Speaker 1: They combined themselves into what they called a civil body politic,

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Speaker 1: and this compact went on to say, quote for our

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Speaker 1: better ordering and preservation, and further into the ends after said,

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Speaker 1: and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such

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Speaker 1: just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from

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Speaker 1: time to time as shall be thought most meat and

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Speaker 1: convenient for the general good of the cay unto which

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Speaker 1: we promise all due submission and obedience. This agreement basically

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Speaker 1: gave them a common purpose and a general framework for

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Speaker 1: self governance. It probably helped them survived their first incredibly

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Speaker 1: difficult winter. By the time spring arrived, a lot of

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Speaker 1: the colonists were still living aboard the Mayflower, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of those who weren't were in dwellings that could

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Speaker 1: barely be considered permanent. Their first governor, John Carver, survived

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Speaker 1: that winter, along with about half of the colonists, but

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Speaker 1: he died the following spring, and that's when William Bradford

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Speaker 1: succeeded him. The Mayflower went back to England that April,

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Speaker 1: carrying with it a request for a new patent that

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Speaker 1: would give the Mayflower colonists the authority formally to colonize

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Speaker 1: the area where they had landed. This request was granted

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Speaker 1: in the form of the Second Pierce Patent of sixty one.

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Speaker 1: The Plymouth Colony continued until it was absorbed into the

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Speaker 1: Massachusetts Bay Colony in sixte and that was after a

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Speaker 1: long and convoluted series of shifts and wars in both

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Speaker 1: England and North America. Thanks to Eve's Jeff Cope for

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Speaker 1: her research work on this podcast, and Casey Pigraham and

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Speaker 1: Chandler Maze for their audio work on the show. You

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Speaker 1: can subscribe to the Stay in History Class on Apple podcasts,

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Speaker 1: Google Podcasts, and wherever else you get your podcasts, and

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Speaker 1: you can tune in tomorrow for the Death of a

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