Each of the thirteen colonies had a Charter, or written agreement with the king of England or Parliament. Charters of royal colonies provided for direct rule by the king. When the Pilgrims came to the New World, Plymouth did not lie within the boundaries of the Virginia colony. So they drafted the Mayflower Compact, which in essence declared that they would rule themselves. England regulated trade but allowed colonists the right to levy their own taxes. Taxes levied by the Crown in the 1760s alarmed the colonists. Puritans, Pilgrims, Quakers and Catholics represented the religious diversity in the colonies which required an insistence on freedom of religion. Over the course of about 150 years, American colonists practiced these rudimentary forms of self-government, so when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Americans understood what he was talking about. 370 pages
