November 21, 1620-
Background
In 1620, the governing document of Plymouth Colony was signed by forty-one Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower, an English sailing ship owned and captained by English merchants, most notably Captain Christopher Jones. The passengers had financing from the London Virginia Company and other merchant investors. They had a patent to settle near the Hudson River, within the northern boundary of the Virginia Colony, but circumstance and weather had made them renegades. Differing from their contemporary Puritans (who sought to reform and purify the Church of England), the Pilgrims chose to separate themselves from the Church of England, which forced them to pray in private. They believed that its resistance to reform and Roman Catholic past left it beyond redemption. They anchored in Provincetown Harbor at the northern tip of Cape Cod. Fortuitously, this location was north of its intended destination - being outside the territory granted by the patent, this created a legal grey area - which is why the people aboard the Mayflower needed a formal document to establish self-government and avoid lawlessness.
The passengers, who were primarily Puritans, other Protestant Separatists, adventurers, and tradesmen, created the Mayflower Compact as a brief but essential agreement. Although the Compact included a pledge of loyalty to the King ("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"), its signers were dissatisfied with the Church of England's state, the limited progress of the English Reformation, and King James I's unwillingness to implement further reforms.
In our timeline, the Mayflower Compact faded from direct use - superseded by more formal colonial charters and largely forgotten until the 18th century, when it was rediscovered and mythologized. Instead of fading into symbolic value, the Compact could have been amended or expanded into a broader set of laws and institutions - like a proto-constitution. In our alternate history timeline, it is an expression of protest that evolved from a brief covenant into a living charter of governance that adapted with the colony's growth.
Re-routed History
One of those Separatists, an unknown republican radical, convinced the others to remove a pledge of loyalty to the King, compelling them with fervent words: "Sign! If the next moment, the gibbet's rope is around your neck! Sign! If the next moment this hall rings with the echo of the falling axe! Sign! By all your hopes in life or death- as husbands, as fathers, as men - sign your names to the parchment or be accursed forever!"
This agreement marked a radical break with English political norms - essentially turning the document from a mutual civil covenant into a declaration of proto-independence. Once ashore, the leaders of Plymouth formed a proto-constitution that formalized election procedures, a Bill of Rights, and rules for succession and amendment. In one sense, the revision hardly mattered because the English Crown had no intention of formally recognizing the document as a valid charter. This denial backfired, as the settlers steadfastly refused to accept a royal charter as the enduring foundational law of the colony.
Inevitably, the settlers' protest would be suppressed by the Crown. However, instead of being viewed as naïve for removing the pledge of loyalty to the King, these brave men had created an enduring foundation of liberty. Their protest would lead to the formation of a "League of Compact Colonies," rooted in covenanted self-rule, which turned the Compact into a regional constitution.
Author's Note:
According to a popular story, on July 4, 1776, the delegates at the Continental Congress were finally convinced to sign the Declaration of Independence by a rousing speech made by an "unknown patriot," who exhorted the delegates. This story is widely considered a work of historical fiction. It appeared in George Lippard's Washington and His Generals; Or, Legends of the Revolution. According to Anna Berkes referencing American National Biography, Lippard "wrote many semi-fanciful 'legends' of American history, mythologizing the founding fathers and retelling key moments of the American Revolution so vividly that several of the legends ... became part of American folklore." The story was further popularized by Manly P. Hall, a writer and mystic, who used it in a lecture published in The Secret Destiny of America. Ronald Reagan also later used the story in his commencement speech at Eureka College on June 7, 1957. Both Hall and Reagan claimed that the story is related in Thomas Jefferson's records, but no such story has ever been found in Jefferson's writings.
Provine's Addendum:
While the Pilgrims considering themselves legally part of the Virginia colony, the settlers at Jamestown were unimpressed until seeing their written agreements of rights pertaining to work agreements, land ownership, and representation, especially the Polish craftsmen who had initially been denied the right to vote in elections for the House of Burgesses but won full rights with the first strike in American history. Representatives from Massachusetts arrived to participate in the House, a practice followed soon with settlers further north in New Hampshire and then Maryland, many of them Catholics who enjoyed the religious freedoms. More colonies came into the Virginia system, creating a united front with enough political might to elect its own President, wealthy Virginia planter Nathaniel Bacon, in 1676, an office that would cooperate with (and ultimately supersede) the Crown-appointed governor. A century on, a few radicals calling for independence from Britain were a laughable lot, since issues of taxation and encroachment on native lands could be handled readily at home and with liaisons in London.
