The Signing of the Pilgrim Compact on the Mayflower (1620), by Lee Lawrie, East Facade.

English Religious Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, were headed for Virginia, but instead landed in New England, where they had no right to be.

To maintain order on board, in the face of potential mutiny, the adult males on the ship drew up and signed the Pilgrim Compact, which established law for self-governance in the Plymouth Colony.

This established the first tangible law in English America, and served as a basis for the documents to come; the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.