William Bradford

William Bradford
Born	19 03, 1590
Birthplace	Austerfield, Yorkshire, England
Died	Template:Death date and age Plymouth Colony (present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts)
Nationality	English
Occupation	Colonial governor, author
Known for	Governor of Plymouth Colony; Of Plymouth Plantation

William Bradford (19 March 1590 – 9 May 1657) was an English Separatist who emigrated to the New World aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and served as the governor of Plymouth Colony for approximately thirty years between 1621 and 1657. A central figure in the founding and survival of one of the earliest permanent European settlements in North America, Bradford guided the colony through its most precarious years, including periods of famine, conflict with neighboring indigenous groups, and internal dissent. He is also remembered as the author of Of Plymouth Plantation, a manuscript history of the colony that remains one of the most important primary sources for understanding early colonial New England. More than four centuries after his arrival in the New World, Bradford continues to be invoked as a symbol of perseverance and self-governance in the American historical imagination. A 2025 commentary in WV MetroNews reflected on Bradford's enduring relevance, noting that "with so much division in our own politics," the author "found myself looking back four hundred years to a leader who held a fragile" community together in the face of extraordinary hardship.

Early Life

William Bradford was born on 19 March 1590 in Austerfield, a small farming village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He was the son of William Bradford, a yeoman farmer, and Alice Hanson Bradford. His father died when Bradford was an infant, and his mother remarried shortly thereafter, leaving the young boy to be raised by his paternal grandfather and, following the grandfather's death, by his uncles. These early experiences of loss and displacement shaped Bradford's character and, by many historical accounts, contributed to his later self-reliance and determination.

As a boy, Bradford was frequently ill, which kept him from the physical labor expected of children in rural Yorkshire. During his periods of convalescence, he turned to reading, and by the age of twelve he had become a devoted reader of the Bible, particularly the Geneva Bible. This immersion in scripture led him to the Separatist movement, a radical Protestant faction that sought to break entirely from the Church of England, which its adherents regarded as insufficiently reformed. Around 1606, at the age of sixteen, Bradford began attending the Separatist meetings held at the home of William Brewster in the nearby village of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire. Brewster, a former diplomatic aide and postmaster, became a mentor and surrogate father figure to the young Bradford.

The Scrooby congregation's open defiance of the established church attracted the attention of English authorities. Separatism was illegal under the Act of Uniformity, and members of the congregation faced fines, imprisonment, and social ostracism. In 1607 and 1608, the group made two attempts to flee England for the more religiously tolerant Dutch Republic. The first attempt, organized at Scotia Creek on the Lincolnshire coast, ended in betrayal when the ship's captain turned the Separatists over to local magistrates. Bradford was among those briefly detained. A second, more successful attempt in 1608 brought most of the congregation, including Bradford, to Amsterdam and then to the city of Leiden, where they would remain for over a decade.

Education

Bradford received no formal university education, a fact that makes his later intellectual achievements all the more notable. His early schooling in Austerfield was limited to the rudimentary instruction available in a rural English village in the late sixteenth century. However, Bradford was an autodidact of considerable ability. During the Scrooby years, William Brewster introduced him to theological texts and classical works. In Leiden, Bradford continued his self-education, learning Dutch to conduct business and, later in life, teaching himself Hebrew because he wished to read the Old Testament in its original language. He also studied Latin and French. His literary output, particularly Of Plymouth Plantation, demonstrates a sophisticated prose style and a keen historical sensibility that belied his lack of formal training.

While in Leiden, Bradford supported himself as a fustian worker, producing a type of corduroy fabric. He also became a citizen of Leiden, which required a degree of integration into Dutch civic and commercial life. The intellectual and religious environment of the Dutch Republic, which was at the time one of the most tolerant societies in Europe, exposed Bradford to a wider range of ideas than he would have encountered in Yorkshire.

Career

Leiden and the Decision to Emigrate

The Separatist congregation lived in Leiden for approximately eleven to twelve years, from 1608 or 1609 to 1620. Although the Dutch Republic offered religious freedom, life there was not without difficulty. The congregation's members, most of whom were English farmers, struggled to adapt to an urban, commercial economy. Wages were low, working conditions in the textile trades were harsh, and the congregation's leaders grew concerned that their children were assimilating into Dutch society and losing their English identity and Separatist religious commitments. The approaching end of the Twelve Years' Truce between the Dutch Republic and Spain also raised the specter of renewed warfare and possible Catholic persecution.

These concerns prompted the congregation's leaders, including Brewster, John Robinson (the congregation's pastor), and Bradford, to seek a new home where they could practice their faith freely while preserving their English cultural identity. After extended negotiations with English merchants and the Virginia Company of London, the congregation secured a patent to settle in the northern part of the Virginia territory. Financial backing came from a group of London investors known as the Merchant Adventurers, who expected to profit from the colonists' labor in fishing, fur trading, and timber.

The Mayflower Voyage and Early Settlement

In September 1620, Bradford and approximately 100 other passengers departed Plymouth, England, aboard the Mayflower. Not all of the passengers were Separatists; roughly half were recruited by the Merchant Adventurers and were referred to by the Separatists as "Strangers." The voyage lasted sixty-six days and was marked by storms, cramped conditions, and illness. Bradford's first wife, Dorothy May Bradford, accompanied him on the voyage.

The Mayflower arrived off the coast of Cape Cod in November 1620, well north of the intended destination in Virginia. Before disembarking, the male passengers drafted and signed the Mayflower Compact, a brief document that established a rudimentary framework of self-governance for the new colony. The Compact, which Bradford later described in detail in Of Plymouth Plantation, is regarded by historians as a foundational document in the development of democratic governance in America. Bradford was among the signatories.

The colonists explored Cape Cod for several weeks before selecting a site for their settlement at what they named Plymouth, on the western shore of Cape Cod Bay. The first winter at Plymouth was devastating. Exposure, malnutrition, and disease — likely a combination of scurvy, pneumonia, and tuberculosis — killed approximately half of the colonists. Among the dead was Bradford's wife, Dorothy, who drowned in Provincetown Harbor in December 1620 under circumstances that remain unclear; some historians have speculated that her death may have been a suicide, though there is no definitive evidence for this.

Governor of Plymouth Colony

In April 1621, the colony's first governor, John Carver, died. The surviving colonists elected Bradford as his replacement. Bradford was only thirty-one years old at the time of his election, yet he would serve as governor for most of the remaining thirty-six years of his life, being re-elected approximately thirty times. His tenure as governor was marked by pragmatism, diplomacy, and a commitment to the colony's survival and cohesion.

One of Bradford's earliest and most significant achievements as governor was the establishment of a diplomatic alliance with Massasoit, the sachem (chief) of the Wampanoag confederation. This alliance, brokered with the assistance of Squanto (Tisquantum), a Patuxet man who had learned English during a previous period of captivity in Europe, provided the colony with essential knowledge of local agriculture, fishing, and geography. The Wampanoag also served as a military counterweight to the more hostile Narragansett people. The alliance endured for several decades and was critical to the colony's early survival.

In the autumn of 1621, the colonists and a group of Wampanoag held a three-day harvest celebration that is commonly regarded as the "First Thanksgiving." Bradford's account of this event in Of Plymouth Plantation is one of only two contemporary descriptions and has been central to the development of the Thanksgiving tradition in American culture.

Bradford also oversaw the transition of Plymouth Colony's economic model. The initial communal system, in which all land and production were shared, proved unproductive and generated discontent. In 1623, Bradford instituted a reform that assigned individual plots of land to each family, allowing colonists to grow their own crops. He later wrote that this change was highly effective in increasing agricultural output and morale. In 1627, Bradford and several other leading colonists, known as the Undertakers, assumed the colony's debt to the Merchant Adventurers in exchange for a monopoly on the fur trade. This arrangement allowed the colony to achieve financial independence, though the debt was not fully discharged for many years.

As governor, Bradford also dealt with a range of internal and external challenges. He managed disputes with Thomas Morton of Merrymount, whose trading post and unorthodox behavior the Plymouth colonists found threatening. He navigated the complex and sometimes tense relationship between Plymouth and the larger Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was established in 1630 by Puritan (as opposed to Separatist) settlers. He also dealt with the aftermath of the Pequot War in 1637, in which Plymouth Colony participated as an ally of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Connecticut Colony against the Pequot people.

Author of Of Plymouth Plantation

Bradford began writing Of Plymouth Plantation around 1630 and continued working on the manuscript intermittently until approximately 1651. The work is divided into two books: the first covers the Separatist movement's origins, the Leiden years, and the voyage of the Mayflower; the second provides a year-by-year chronicle of the colony's history from 1620 to 1647. Written in a plain, direct prose style that reflects Bradford's Calvinist sensibility and his self-education, the manuscript is valued by historians for its detailed and generally reliable account of events, as well as for its insights into the mentality and motivations of the Plymouth colonists.

The manuscript of Of Plymouth Plantation had a remarkable and circuitous history. It remained in the Bradford family for several generations before being deposited in the library of the Old South Church in Boston. During the American Revolution, it was taken by British soldiers and eventually ended up in the library of the Bishop of London at Fulham Palace. It was rediscovered there in the mid-nineteenth century, and after diplomatic negotiations, the manuscript was returned to Massachusetts in 1897. It is now held in the Massachusetts State Library in Boston. The work was first published in full in 1856 and has since been recognized as one of the most important documents of early American history.

Personal Life

Bradford married Dorothy May in Amsterdam in 1613. The couple had one son, John, who was left behind in Leiden when his parents sailed on the Mayflower and later joined his father in Plymouth. Dorothy died by drowning in December 1620, shortly after the Mayflower arrived at Provincetown Harbor. The circumstances of her death have been the subject of historical debate.

In 1623, Bradford married Alice Carpenter Southworth, a widow who had also been a member of the Leiden congregation. Together they had three children: William Jr., Mercy, and Joseph. Alice Bradford survived her husband and was a prominent figure in the Plymouth community.

Bradford was a devout Calvinist throughout his life. His religious convictions informed his governance, his writing, and his personal conduct. He believed that the Plymouth Colony was part of a divine plan and interpreted both the colony's successes and its hardships through a providential framework. He died on 9 May 1657 in Plymouth Colony and was buried on Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The Bradford name has persisted in the Plymouth area for centuries, reflecting the deep roots the family established in the region.

Recognition

William Bradford's contributions to American history have been recognized in numerous ways over the centuries. The town of Bradford, Massachusetts, is among the communities named in his honor. His grave on Burial Hill in Plymouth is a site of historical pilgrimage, and monuments and markers throughout the Plymouth area commemorate his role in the colony's founding.

Of Plymouth Plantation is widely assigned in American history and literature courses and is considered essential reading for the study of colonial America. The manuscript's return from England to Massachusetts in 1897 was treated as a significant cultural event.

Bradford's role in the Thanksgiving narrative has made him one of the most recognizable figures of the colonial period. His account of the 1621 harvest feast is cited annually in media, political speeches, and educational materials during the American Thanksgiving holiday. In a 2025 Thanksgiving commentary, WV MetroNews columnist highlighted Bradford's leadership during a time of extreme hardship, drawing parallels between the challenges faced by the Plymouth colonists and contemporary political divisions.

The Mayflower Compact, which Bradford signed and later described in his history, is frequently cited in discussions of the origins of American democratic governance. Bradford's pragmatic approach to governance — his willingness to adapt economic policies, negotiate with indigenous peoples, and manage diverse interests within the colony — has made him a subject of enduring interest for historians of early America.

Legacy

William Bradford's legacy is multifaceted. As the long-serving governor of Plymouth Colony, he presided over one of the earliest experiments in self-governance in the English-speaking New World. His leadership during the colony's most vulnerable years — when disease, starvation, and isolation threatened its very existence — is credited with ensuring the survival of the settlement. His decision to reform the colony's economic structure, moving from communal to individual farming, is often cited as an early example of the practical adaptation that characterized colonial governance.

As a writer, Bradford left behind one of the most important primary sources of early American history. Of Plymouth Plantation provides an unparalleled window into the motivations, beliefs, and daily experiences of the Plymouth colonists. Its influence extends beyond historiography; the work has shaped the American national narrative about origins, perseverance, and self-governance. Bradford's account of the first harvest feast has become embedded in American cultural identity through the Thanksgiving holiday.

Bradford's relationship with the Wampanoag, and particularly his reliance on Squanto and the alliance with Massasoit, is a complex aspect of his legacy. While the alliance was pragmatic and mutually beneficial in its early years, the broader trajectory of English colonization in New England — including land dispossession, cultural disruption, and ultimately King Philip's War (1675–1678), which erupted less than two decades after Bradford's death — complicates any straightforward celebration of colonial-indigenous relations during this period.

Modern assessments of Bradford reflect this complexity. He is recognized as a capable and devoted leader who operated within the moral and intellectual framework of his time, while also being situated within the larger and often violent history of European colonization. As the WV MetroNews commentary observed in 2025, Bradford remains a figure to whom Americans turn when reflecting on themes of unity, sacrifice, and the challenges of holding a diverse community together.