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When a ship called the Mayflower set sail for the Americas on August 1, 1620, no one would have thought that a historical lesson in politics would be learned by those who gave up everything for a chance at a new life in a new world. 102 passengers set sail with William Bradford that day and once they were on the high seas they all signed an agreement. This agreement, or contract if you may, established what was to be a just and equal law for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. What the settlers signed was a contract we now recognize as the Mayflower Compact. It was a mutual agreement that was entered into by the settlers and their merchant-sponsors back in London England.
Basically what the settlers formed was the first social commune of the New World, something that anyone growing up in the 1960s and 70s would easily recognize as a community where all land, houses, farming and other goods were distributed equally amongst all the inhabitants regardless of religious or political beliefs or station. It was the world's first society that was truly set up in a way that nobody would own anything and everyone who was in need would have what they required if it existed. In essence, the Mayflower Compact was a concept that would be popularized 255 years later in 1875 by Karl Marx's slogan,
"from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."
What many do not realize is that the ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact were thought to have come from the Bible. The Pilgrims were Godly Christians who understood and followed the Scriptures and wanted to do what they thought was right by God. So they looked to the ancient Israelites as the example of how to begin their new society in the new world. After all, if it worked for God's people it should work for them too, right? And, because they thought that they were following what the Biblical precedents had set forth in the Scriptures, they never doubted that their experiment would work. Unfortunately they misread the Scriptures, and their experiment in the new world would almost destroy everything they had hoped and prayed for within their first year together in the new land.