The Mayflower Compact was signed on November 11, 1620 on board the vessel Mayflower. The Mayflower Compact was signed by forty-one men on board the ship. The person primarily responsible for this was William Bradford. He stated the two reasons for writing the Compact was that he was afraid of mutiny, and he thought they needed a form of self-government. This document was the first colonial agreement that formed a government by consent of the governed. The compact gave the settlers a plan to frame and enact laws for the general good of the organized settlement. Most of the Pilgrims were members of the Separatist congregation that had split from the Church of England. However, some were not, and these people sought independence from the Separatists. To prevent this, Separatist leaders wrote the Compact, which was formed after the covenant that had established their Separatist faith. Each male adult signed the document. The signers agreed to follow all "just and equal" laws that the settlers enacted and to be ruled by the will of majority. Plymouth Colony did not receive an English royal charter, and so the compact determined governmental authority in the colony until it became part of the Massachusetts colony in 1691. They thought that they needed to this to survive, because they needed rules. Without this they might have ended up killing each other. People thought with Brown 2 this it would give equal power to the separatist and the people who was against them. Was also good because it kept mutiny contained. The Pilgrims had many reasons for writing the Mayflower Compact. The Pilgrims declared their purposes for writing and forming the colony and the compact was "for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith". Following by what the compact says, they declared that they had the authority " to enact constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts". Following by what the compact says that they had to authority to create "constitutions and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most convenient for the general good of the Colony".
