by Peter Ruzzo

Created on: November 03, 2009

The Mayflower Compact, taken at face value is a symbol of the first American's religious and political values, but the legacy of the Compact brings to light our selfish and self-aggrandizing nature towards the Native peoples.

The Pilgrim Separatists of the New World sailed from England to practice religious freedom and established one of the first democratic governments of the "American" tradition. Unbeknownst to the Plymouth colonists their newly formed government and colony would not interest the Crown in England. Plymouth was neither a Royal colony nor did it have a colonial charter. To England the colony was a menagerie of farmers that had been granted cause to broker a treaty with the Wampanoags.

The Wampanoags were enemies with the Narragansett's, the other local tribe. If a brokered peace were not established by the Pilgrims, a successful colony would not have ever thrived. The Wampanoag tribe had sought a treaty with the new comers to give them an advantage over the Narragansett's. The Wampanoag tribe taught the colonists to harvest corn and their local knowledge proved valuable to the colonists. Consequently a feud that existed between the Narragansett's and the Wampanoags would be exacerbated as the colonists curried favor with the Wampanoags. That being said, the establishment of white settlements in the New World would continually encroach upon the Native peoples. Eventually, disease and war would seriously endanger the existence of both the Wampanoag and Narragansett's. More and more colonists came as they established New England.

Eventually our democratic documents through out the first two hundred and fifty years of the establishment of a European presence in this country would lead to the displacement of millions of Native peoples. The Mayflower Compact was rather benign as far as relations with the Native peoples go but it set a precedent. The government established by the colonists excluded Native peoples. It was created to establish political uniformity within the colony. The government created by the Compact was intended to serve the needs of the white male landowners. Subsequently only landowners would hold political power for the next two hundred years. This would prove costly to the indigenous people as their land was stripped from them.

The Mayflower Compact is an important document in our American history. It's the result of a courageous people who held to their convictions and forged ahead with undaunted courage. However it is difficult to ignore the ramifications that the settlement of Europeans had on indigenous peoples. Perhaps the Indians would have forged ahead with their existence until at some point in time the new world was colonized by another more sophisticated people other than the white settlers. Who knows? But history has played itself out and our manifest destiny has been fulfilled.

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