William Bradford (1590-1657)

by Lily Boatman

William Bradford was born on March 19th, 1590 in Yorkshire England to Alice and William Bradford. Throughout Bradford’s life, many horrendous things happened. When William was just one year old his father died. Later in his life, William’s mother remarried and he was sent away to live with his grandparents. When Williams grandfather died he moved back with his mother, until her death two years later. Therefore making William an orphan as a small child. Throughout Bradford’s childhood, he was perpetually sick, which was common back then. This led young William to take up reading and writing. When William Bradford was in his teenage years he then left his family to join the separatist puritans. Bradford then got on the Mayflower and came to America in 1620. A year later Bradford would be elected as the governor of Plymouth colony in 1621.

During this time, Bradford wrote a couple of works, but his most famous one was “Of Plymouth Plantation”. This writing was in a journal. The reason these writings are so important is that it gave historical context when he was not writing as a historian. This work was not even published until he was dead. These writings are also an example of “plain” style which is very common in America. This writing also includes the writings of the Mayflower compact, which some see as the very first document that started America. In this story, he talks about the first Thanksgiving and all of the hardships they faced. While the first Thanksgiving was good, and the resources were plentiful, that did not last long. Bradford writes about how the colonist was in debt to bankers and had to send them animal skins and other goods to pay them off. This was another example of just how hard it was to be a colonist. However, by 1630 some of the colonists had actually grown wealthier and started to buy land far from the colony. Bradford thought this was weakening the Christian community they had worked so hard to build. Bradford’s account ends in 1646 saying that the colonist had paid off all of their debts and at the moment they were safe from war with the Native Americans. Bradford’s writings will forever be known as the greatest historical document from this era. William Bradford was an excellent writer and significantly helped people understand what the colonist went through, how much we helped the community, and gave such great information that let us see into the past.

Questions:
1). How does Bradford speak of religion in these writings? What beliefs does He hold true? Provide examples from his works.
2.) What did Bradford want Plymouth colony to achieve? Provide specific examples from his writings.

Text provided with the permission of the author.

Image: Public Domain