Week 2 — Primary Source Workshop · "Reading the Mayflower Compact"

Course: U.S. History to 1877 (HIST 1301) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Hartwell
Objective: Objective 2 — colonization, Jamestown, Plymouth, Chesapeake vs. New England · SLO A (historical thinking & source analysis)
Worth 50 points · Primary Source Workshops group = 15% of the grade · Workshop 2
Format: a guided analysis of one real document — you'll run the four moves on it, then catch the AI's mistakes when it interprets the source.

This is the course's signature weekly component. Every instructional week has one Primary Source Workshop. This week's source is the founding governance document of Plymouth Colony, signed in November 1620 aboard the Mayflower. All sources are links to external archives — nothing to buy or download.

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Last week you learned the historian's four moves — sourcing, contextualization, close reading, corroboration. This week you'll run all four on the document the Plymouth settlers wrote to explain what they were building — before anyone set foot on shore.

The guiding question:

"What did the Mayflower Compact actually promise — and to whom?"

A founding document is powerful and partial: it announces a vision, but that vision belongs to specific people at a specific moment, and it excludes as much as it includes. Your job is to read the Compact for both what it says and what it leaves out.

Part 2 — The Source (read it first)

Document: The Mayflower Compact, signed November 11, 1620 (Old Style calendar — sometimes given as November 21 in the New Style), aboard the Mayflower, anchored in Cape Cod harbor.
Author(s): the document was agreed upon by the 41 male passengers who signed it, representing both Separatist ("Pilgrim") and non-Separatist ("Stranger") passengers.
Type: a governance covenant — a written agreement among the signers to form a self-governing body before going ashore.

Read the full text at an authoritative archive (links only):
- 🔗 Avalon Project, Yale Law School (authoritative transcription): https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp
- 🔗 Commonwealth of Massachusetts — background and text: https://www.mass.gov/news/the-mayflower-compact
- 🔗 General Society of Mayflower Descendants — background and significance: https://themayflowersociety.org/history/the-mayflower-compact/

Two excerpts you'll close-read here (quoted exactly from the Avalon Project transcription — verify them against the link above before citing):
- Excerpt A (the preamble and the covenant): "We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid."
- Excerpt B (the stated purpose of the laws): "…and by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony."

The Compact was signed by 41 of the 101 passengers on the Mayflower. The signers were adult men. Women did not sign. Most indentured servants and employees did not sign. No Wampanoag person signed or was consulted.

Part 3 — Source-Analysis Scaffold (fill this in)

Complete each box in a sentence or two. This is the heart of the workshop.

Part 4 — Analysis Questions

Answer in a few sentences each:
1. The legal vacuum: The Compact was signed before anyone went ashore. Using Excerpt A, explain why the signers needed a governance document at this particular moment — what legal problem were they solving?
2. Close-reading "equal laws": Excerpt B promises "just and equal Laws … for the general Good of the Colony." Who was actually in the room when this was signed — and who wasn't? Does that change how you read the word "equal"?
3. Stated purposes: Excerpt A names three reasons for the voyage: "Glory of God," "Advancement of the Christian Faith," and "Honour of our King and Country." In what order do these appear, and what does their sequence suggest about the signers' priorities? Be careful — don't over-read, but do notice.
4. Corroboration — who was left out: Women (19 aboard the Mayflower) did not sign. Most indentured servants did not sign. The Wampanoag people already living in the region were not consulted. Why does the corroboration move matter for reading this document's claim to speak for the "general Good of the Colony"?
5. Significance: The Mayflower Compact is often described as an early example of self-governance and consent-based government. Based on your close reading, is that description accurate, incomplete, or misleading — and what specific words from the document support your answer?

Part 5 — AI-Critique Moment (required — this is the BYOAI step)

Now bring in your approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) and be the historian who checks its work.

1. Ask it: "Quote the key phrase from the Mayflower Compact about self-government, word for word. Then tell me who signed it and who was excluded."
2. Check everything it says against the real document linked in Part 2:
   - Did it give an accurate quotation that appears in the actual Compact — or did it fabricate a phrase? (Search the linked Avalon Project transcription for the exact words. Common errors: inserting "government by the consent of the governed" [from the 1776 Declaration of Independence, not this document], paraphrasing "civil Body Politick" into modern political science language, or citing phrases that do not appear.)
   - Did it accurately describe who signed (41 adult men, both Separatists and "Strangers") and who was excluded (women, most servants, Indigenous peoples)?
   - Did it confuse the 1620 Separatists/Pilgrims with the 1630 Massachusetts Bay Puritans — two distinct groups? (This is the most common AI error with New England colonies.)
3. Write 2–3 sentences reporting what the AI got right and at least one thing you had to correct or verify against the source. (If it happened to get everything right, explain how you verified each claim against the document — that's the skill.)

The habit all term: the tool drafts, you verify against the source. Chatbots are particularly prone to inserting later political language (from the Declaration of Independence) into early colonial documents, and to collapsing "Pilgrims" and "Puritans" into one undifferentiated group. Catching these errors is the point.

Part 6 — What to Submit

Submit a single document (or text entry) with: your completed Part 3 scaffold (all four moves), your Part 4 answers, and your Part 5 AI-critique paragraph (naming the specific thing you checked). Due Sunday, Sep 13, 11:59 p.m. (50 points).

Instructor answer key & model responses — REMOVE BEFORE PUBLISHING TO STUDENTS

Every fact and quotation below is verified against the Mayflower Compact (Avalon Project transcription) and the historical record.

Part 3 scaffold (model):
- ① Sourcing: Signed November 11, 1620, aboard the Mayflower in Cape Cod harbor, by 41 adult male passengers (both Separatists and non-Separatist "Strangers") to create a self-governance framework before going ashore. The signers' purpose was practical: they had landed outside their Virginia Company patent and had no legal authority to govern themselves. They needed a covenant to establish order and legitimacy.
- ② Contextualization: The Mayflower was anchored at Cape Cod, far outside its intended destination in Virginia, in November 1620 — the start of winter. The passengers had no patent or charter applicable to this location. Some "Stranger" passengers had reportedly argued that since they were outside the patent, no one had authority over them. The Compact was the signers' answer: a voluntary covenant to create that authority themselves.
- ③ Close reading: Excerpt A — "covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation" — defines the colony as a governing entity created by mutual agreement. The language is practical and covenantal (a promise before God). Excerpt B — "just and equal Laws … for the general Good of the Colony" — promises impartial governance for collective benefit. But neither excerpt defines who counts as part of the "Colony" or what "equal" means in practice.
- ④ Corroboration: 41 of 101 passengers signed; women, most servants, and Indigenous peoples were absent. To corroborate: William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation (the governor's own account) gives context on the Compact's origins and the personalities involved; Wampanoag oral history and archaeology give the land's prior occupants a voice; English legal records clarify what a "patent" was and why its absence mattered.

Part 4 (expected):
1. Legal vacuum: Excerpt A states they undertook the voyage "to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia" — but they landed at Cape Cod, outside that patent. Without a patent in this location, there was no legal basis for government. The Compact created that basis by covenant, before anyone stepped off the ship.
2. "Equal laws": The signers were 41 adult men — both Separatist and non-Separatist. Women (19 aboard), most servants, and the Wampanoag were not signers. "Equal" applied to the male signers; it did not define equality across all people in the colony or region. This is not a moral critique of 1620; it's accurate close reading of what the document actually promised and to whom.
3. Order of purposes: "Glory of God" first, then "Advancement of the Christian Faith," then "Honour of our King and Country." The religious framing comes before the political — consistent with a Separatist congregation that saw their voyage as divinely sanctioned. But students should be cautious about over-reading the sequence; a formal document often opens with the most elevated framing regardless of what was practically uppermost in people's minds.
4. Who was left out: The absence of women, servants, and Indigenous peoples means the "general Good of the Colony" was defined entirely by free adult men — a small fraction of the 101 aboard, let alone of the people already living in the region. Corroboration matters here: Bradford's account, women's diaries (scarce but not entirely absent), and Wampanoag perspectives all complicate the Compact's claim to represent the common good.
5. "Self-governance" — accurate but incomplete: The description is accurate in that the signers voluntarily consented to governance and laws — that is consent-based government among those who signed. It is incomplete in that fewer than half the passengers signed, no women signed, and the people whose land the settlers were about to occupy had no role. Full credit for any answer that reads the actual document carefully and distinguishes what it did from what later generations have said it did.

Part 5 (AI-critique): full credit for a specific catch — most commonly: (a) the AI inserts "government by the consent of the governed" or similar 1776 language not in the 1620 document; (b) the AI says all passengers signed (41 of 101 is accurate, not "all"); (c) the AI conflates Pilgrims (Separatists, Plymouth) with Puritans (Massachusetts Bay, 1630). Full credit also for verifying that the AI did get something right — if the student searched the Avalon Project text and confirmed the phrase, that's the skill demonstrated.

Grading rubric — 50 points

Quality gate (self-checked) — Historical-accuracy gate PASS:
- The Compact's date (November 11, 1620, O.S., aboard the Mayflower in Cape Cod harbor) is verified.
- The number of signers (41 adult males out of 101 passengers) is verified against the Wikipedia list of signatories and Britannica.
- Both excerpts are transcribed exactly from the Avalon Project's authoritative text (avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp); verified word-for-word.
- The Pilgrim/Puritan distinction (Separatists/Plymouth/1620 vs. Puritans/Massachusetts Bay/1630) is accurate.
- The exclusion of women, most servants, and Wampanoag peoples from signing is accurate.
- No fabricated phrase appears anywhere in this workshop. The workshop correctly flags AI insertion of later political language (especially from the 1776 Declaration of Independence) as the primary error to catch.