Wk 3 englit | english

Bradford’s Early Life and Religious Beliefs

Bradford was born in 1590 in Austerfield, a farming community in Yorkshire, England.
Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by relatives. A long illness left him too weak to do
much farm work, and instead, he focused on reading the Bible and other religious texts. As
a teenager, Bradford was drawn to a growing Puritan sect known as the Separatists, and a
congregation led by William Brewster and John Robinson in the nearby village of Scrooby.
The Separatists sought to recreate what they saw as the simpler, more pious life of the
earliest Christians by freeing themselves from the rituals and hierarchies of the Church of
England.

Under threat of prosecution from King James I, the group fled to the Netherlands in 1608,

Home / Topics / Colonial America / William Bradford

As a longtime member of a Puritan group that separated from the Church of
England in 1606, William Bradford lived in the Netherlands for more than a
decade before sailing to North America aboard the Mayflower in 1620. He served
as governor of Plymouth Colony for more than 30 years, chronicling his
experiences in a journal that became the authoritative account of the Pilgrims
and Plymouth Colony.

Did you know? William Bradford’s descendants include Noah Webster, Julia Child and
Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.

William Bradford

BY: HISTORY.COM EDITORS
UPDATED: JUNE 23, 2023 | ORIGINAL: OCTOBER 27, 2009

living in Amsterdam briefly before settling in the smaller city of Leiden in 1609. Bradford
and his fellow exiles lived there for more than a decade under the leadership of Brewster
and Robinson. Bradford owned a workshop in the cloth trade, and in 1613 married Dorothy
May, the daughter of a prosperous English family living in Amsterdam.

Journey to the New World

By 1619, many of the Scrooby exiles had embraced the idea of emigrating to America,
where they could form their own colony and raise their children according to English
customs, rather than Dutch. After sending emissaries back to England, the group received
permission to form a settlement in the northern parts of the Virginia Colony, which at the
time extended all the way to the Hudson River.

In July 1620, William and Dorothy Bradford left their three-year-old son behind with her
parents and sailed for England aboard the Speedwell. In need of money, Bradford’s
Separatist group (who called themselves “Saints”) had been forced to join with so-called
“Strangers,” people outside the church who were seeking economic opportunities in the
New World. Eventually, the group numbered 102 people, including 35 children.

In England, the group was forced to leave behind the Speedwell, which had developed
leaks, and cram aboard the Mayflower, the other commercial vessel chartered for the
voyage. The Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620, and took
66 days to cross the Atlantic before sighting land on November 9.

Despite attempts to sail further south to their planned destination in Virginia Colony,
strong weather drove them back to what is now Provincetown Harbor, o! Cape Cod.
Shortly before the ship dropped anchor, Bradford became one of 41 of the ship’s male
passengers to sign the Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of their new
colony.

Forming of Plymouth Colony

Early that December, Bradford joined an expedition to explore the region and find the best
place to settle. The group chose a spot on the southern shore of Massachusetts that had
been home to a now-deserted Native American village called Patuxet. When Bradford
returned to the Mayflower, he learned that his wife had fallen from the ship’s deck and
drowned in the frigid waters.

The Mayflower sailed south from Provincetown and arrived at their settlement site in
Plymouth Bay on December 20. They began building the colony’s first houses, but many of
them were soon struck by an illness that had begun spreading aboard the ship. Half of the
company died that first harsh winter, including John Carver, the colony’s first governor.
Bradford, who fell ill but survived, was elected to succeed Carver in April 1621. He was
reelected more than 30 times, and except for a five-year interval would serve as governor
of Plymouth Colony until his death more than 35 years later.

Bradford’s Leadership and Writing of Pilgrim
History

Under Bradford’s leadership, the colony survived its early years, thanks to largely friendly
relations with the local Wampanoag people, led by Massasoit. More settlers arrived in the
1620s, and in 1623 Bradford married Alice Southworth, a newly arrived young widow with
two sons who had been a member of the Separatist congregation in Leiden. Bradford’s son
John eventually joined his father in Plymouth, and Bradford and Alice would have three
more children together.

In 1630, Bradford began writing the account of the Mayflower voyage and the colony’s early
years that would later become Of Plymouth Plantation. As more and more settlers arrived in
Plymouth, fewer of them were members of the Separatist faith, and by the early 1630s,
Bradford noted that the original colony was beginning to disperse as settlers moved
further afield. He remained governor of the colony until 1656, working to manage relations
with Native Americans as well as with Dutch settlers in New York and fellow Puritans in the
much larger and more prosperous Massachusetts Bay Colony. After a long illness, Bradford
died in May 1657 at the age of 68.

Bradford had stopped writing his journals in 1650; he brought the record of Plymouth
Colony up to 1646, including a list of Mayflower passengers and their status at the time. His
family preserved the manuscript of his history of Plymouth Colony, and later Puritan
historians borrowed and copied it. Stolen by the British during the Revolutionary War, the
document was rediscovered by American historians in London in 1855, transcribed and
finally published for the first time in 1856. It remains the authoritative account of the
Pilgrims’ voyage and the founding and early years of Plymouth Colony.

Sources

Bernard Bailyn. The Barbarous Years – The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of
Civilizations, 1600-1675 (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012)

Dorothy Honiss Kelso. Beyond the Pilgrim Story: William Bradford. Pilgrim Hall Museum.

Martyn Whittock. Mayflower Lives (Pegasus Books, 2019)

BY: HISTORY.COM EDITORS

HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and
informative content. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the
HISTORY.com team. Articles with the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have been written
or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt
Mullen and Christian Zapata.

Citation Information

Article Title William Bradford

Author History.com Editors

Website Name HISTORY

URL https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/william-bradford

Date Accessed November 1, 2023

Publisher A&E Television Networks

Last Updated June 23, 2023

Original Published Date October 27, 2009

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to
contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

A+E
Networks

Contact Us Copyright Policy Privacy Policy Terms of Use Ad Choices Accessibility Support

© 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.