The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard the Mayflower in 1620.
The document was created after the ship anchored at Provincetown Harbor on Cape Cod in November 1620. Many passengers had expected to settle under a Virginia Company patent, but storms pushed the ship north of its intended destination. The compact provided an agreement for organizing the community in the new settlement.
The signers promised to combine themselves into a political body and follow laws made for the general good of the colony. Forty-one male passengers signed it; the Mayflower carried 101 passengers in total. The signers included Separatist Puritans, other settlers, and tradesmen.
The Mayflower Compact was not a constitution for the entire future United States, and it did not create modern democracy. It was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony and an important example of an early English colonial self-government agreement. The colony was later absorbed into the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.