The Plymouth Colony Archive Project

In the absence of a royal charter, the Plymouth colonists initiated their organization of a government and legal structure by formulating a self-declared "combination" in which the necessity of forming a "civill body politick" was set forth. This "combination" was signed on November 11, 1620, by 41 adult men of the original settlers, and it provided a first step toward setting up a government which could claim legitimate authority to impose constraints on the conduct of Colony inhabitants. The declarations of the Plymouth Colony government would later cite this combination, the land patents received from the New England Council (a private corporation established by the Crown), and the settlers' pursuit of the greater "glory of God" as the foundations for the Plymouth government's authority in issuing laws to govern the colony and manage an expanding settlement over the years.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. 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: 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; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

Mr. John Carver Mr. William Bradford Mr Edward Winslow Mr. William Brewster Isaac Allerton Myles Standish John Alden John Turner Francis Eaton James Chilton

John Craxton John Billington Joses Fletcher John Goodman Mr. Samuel Fuller Mr. Christopher Martin Mr. William Mullins Mr. William White Mr. Richard Warren John Howland

Mr. Steven Hopkins Digery Priest Thomas Williams Gilbert Winslow Edmund Margesson Peter Brown Richard Britteridge George Soule Edward Tilly John Tilly

Francis Cooke Thomas Rogers Thomas Tinker John Ridgdale Edward Fuller Richard Clark Richard Gardiner Mr. John Allerton Thomas English Edward Doten Edward Liester

Source: Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, compiled and edited under the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906, by Francis Newton Thorpe, Washington, D.C.

Go to Yale University's Avalon Project for similar colonial charters and land patents. Our thanks to the Project for presenting this instrument from the public records, which we include here for access by our search engine.