Discovery and Settlement of the New World 13the Burgesses together each year, a recognition of what had already
become regular practice.
Not all the settlers who came to America searched for gold or
other forms of financial gain. A great number came in pursuit of reli-
gious freedom. Following the Protestant Reformation and the religious
wars between the various sects and creeds, persecution of opposing re-
ligious beliefs became standard practice. In England the Anglican
church was established by the monarchy in opposition to the Roman
Catholic church, although Anglicanism retained many Catholic cere-
monies and rituals. As a consequence, any number of Protestants felt
that the Church of England needed to be purified of such trappings,
and they became known as Puritans. Others, more radical in their
thinking, felt compelled to separate themselves from the Anglican
church altogether.
A group of English separatists sought even more religious freedom
and fled to Holland in 1608 , only to find life in this foreign country
totally unsuited to their needs and temperament. They decided to relo-
cate. They gained permission from the London Company to settle in
Virginia. Thus authorized, they departed Holland and sailed aboard
the Mayfl ower to the New World.
They never got to Virginia. They landed at Plymouth on Cape Cod
on November 21 , 1620 , and before they left the ship to establish their
colony, forty-one of them signed a compact by which they pledged al-
legiance to their “dread sovereign, the King” and did “covenant and
combine” themselves into “a civil Body Politick.” They further prom-
ised to obey what ever laws were thought “meet and convenient for the
general Good of the Colony.” This Mayflower Compact thereby be-
came the authority by which the settlers made their own laws and
chose their own officials. They then disembarked.
It is interesting to note that these settlers made an agreement that
they committed to paper, stating their position on government and the
means by which they had formed their society. The Mayfl ower Com-
pact became one of many more such documents to follow, by which the
people of this New World spoke openly about the ways they would