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Historic Document
The
When they arrived at what is now
Plymouth, Massachusetts in the late fall of 1620, the Pilgrims had
been expecting to land in a much warmer clime -- Virginia. Their
pilot's error, coupled with a shortage of supplies, resulted in the first colony established in the
northern states.
Upon their arrival, they assembled in the tiny cabin of the Mayflower and created this Compact, by which they agreed to live together in a community governed by laws and by their faith. They spent that first hard winter aboard the Mayflower, staving off starvation through the luck of finding a buried store of Indian corn. Nonetheless many of them died before spring arrived. Our knowledge of the Compact and the
tribulations of the Pilgrims is derived from the writings of William
Bradford, Mayflower passenger and second governor of
Plymouth.
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