William Bradford attended two schools: the school of hard knocks, and
the school of Christ. He lost his father at sixteen months old. Shortly
after that, he was sent to live first with a grandfather and then with
other relatives. He became a devout student of the Bible when just
twelve, reading it through. When he was seventeen, he joined a group
that wanted to pull out of the Church of England.
Betrayed as he
attempted to leave England, he was thrown into prison. But when he was
twenty, Bradford left England in the company of other Separatists and
settled down to hard work as a weaver in the Netherlands. Well-read, he
became a leader of the Pilgrims who sailed to Plymouth in 1620.
The voyage to the New World was stormy. Intending to sail to
Virginia, the Pilgrims blew off course and found themselves in New
England. Their instructions from the Virginia company did not anticipate
this changed circumstance, and so William Bradford, with other leaders,
drew up and signed the
Mayflower Compact.
They had named John Carver their governor. But Carver "came out of
the field very sick, it being a hot day. He complained greatly of his
head and lay down, and within a few hours his senses failed, so as he
never spake more till he died, which was within a few days after (April
5, 1621)."
On this day, April 21, 1621, the
colonists chose William Bradford as Carver's replacement. He proved to
be a gentle but firm ruler and served thirty one-year terms. This was
not by his own choice. He rejoiced on the few occasions when someone
else could be convinced to take a term.
Thanks to Bradford's high position and his persistent early efforts
to educate himself, he was well-equipped to write a history of the
plantation. He completed this in 1651, six years before his death. In it
he gives the reasons why the Pilgrims felt it necessary to leave Leyden
for the New World. One was the Pilgrim's concern for their children, who
were not only crushed by hard labor but were drawn away from Christ by
the temptations of their adopted city, and "drawn away by evil examples
into extravagant and dangerous courses."
But the Pilgrims' paramount reason for transplanting to the New World
was "a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good
foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating
and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts
of the world--yea, though they should be but even stepping stones unto
others for the performing of so great a work."
Bibliography:
- Avery, Elroy McKendree. History of the United States and its
People. Cleveland: Burrows Bros, 1904.
- Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620 - 1647.
[a.k.a History of Plymouth Plantation.] Many editions available.
- "Bradford, William." Dictionary of American Biography.
New York: Scribner, 1958-1964.
- Kunitz, Stanley. "Bradford, William." American
authors, 1600-1900: a biographical dictionary of American
literature. New York: The H. W. Wilson company, 1938.
- Ruttman, Darrett B. "Bradford, William." Encyclopedia
of American Biography, edited by John A. Garraty and Jerome L.
Sternstein. New York, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1974.
- Willison, George F. Saints and Strangers. New York:
Ballantine, 1965, especially chapter VII.
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