Of Plimoth Plantation (in the title's original spelling) was written between 1630

and 1651 by William Bradford, who lived from 1590 to 1657. Bradford was the
leader and 5-time governor of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. The
work describes the story of the pilgrims from when they lived in the Dutch
Republic in 1608 through the Mayflower voyage and up to the year 1647.
Bradford also discusses his thoughts on religion and the bible compared with
the mission of the pilgrims. It ends with a list of the Mayflower passengers and
what happened to them as of 1651. Some historians would call the work a
journal. However, it is truly more his account of past events written in the form
of two separate books rather than a day-to-day synopsis.
The first book was written in 1630. It begins: 'And first of the occasion and
inducements 'hereunto; the which, that I may truly unfold, I must begin at the
very root and rise of the same. The which I shall endeavour to manifest in a
plain style, with singular regard unto the simple truth in all things; at least as
near as my slender judgment can attain the same.' This book focuses mainly on
the journey of the pilgrims from England to North America and discusses the
founding of the Plymouth settlement. It gives his opinions on the biblical
importance of the pilgrims reaching America and their struggles.
The second book was not completely finished because of Bradford's death. This
book began in 1646. It discusses the struggles of the pilgrims in North America
in day-to-day living and his concerns about the health and spiritual welfare of
the colonists. The two books are held together in one volume that most
modern scholars call a journal. The journal itself is a vellum-bound book
measuring 11 1/2' by 7 3/4.' There are 270 pages numbered, sometimes
incorrectly, by William Bradford in his own handwriting. The journal is
browning and has age spots but is still completely legible. The work has carried
many different names. It was originally written as Of Plimoth Plantation, but
now the modern spelling of Plymouth is used. It has also been published as
History of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford's Journal and The Bradford
History. It is evident from reading the work that Bradford had intended it to be
kept and read for future generations despite not having published it himself in
his lifetime. At the end of chapter six, he notes, 'I have been the larger in these
things, and so shall crave leave in some like passages following, (though in
other things I shall labour to be more contract) that their children may see with
what difficulties their fathers wrestled in going through these things in their
first beginnings, and how God brought them along notwithstanding all their
weaknesses and infirmities.' Today, the book is regarded by historians as one of
the most important works of the 17th century.
William Bradford (1590-1657) was a founder and longtime governor of the
Plymouth Colony settlement. Born in England, he migrated with the Separatist
congregation to the Netherlands as a teenager. Bradford was among the
passengers on the Mayflower’s trans-Atlantic journey, and he signed the
Mayflower Compact upon arriving in Massachusetts in 1620. As Plymouth
Colony governor for more than thirty years, Bradford helped draft its legal code
and facilitated a community centered on private subsistence agriculture and
religious tolerance. Around 1630, he began to compile his two-volume “Of
Plymouth Plantation,” one of the most important early chronicles of the
settlement of New England. Born of substantial yeomen in Yorkshire, England,
Bradford expressed his nonconformist religious sensibilities in his early teens
and joined the famed Separatist church in Scrooby at the age of seventeen. In
1609 he immigrated with the congregation, led by John Robinson, to the
Netherlands. For the next eleven years he and his fellow religious dissenters
lived in Leyden until their fear of assimilation into Dutch culture prompted
them to embark on the Mayflower for the voyage to North America. The
Pilgrims arrived in what became Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621 with a large
number of non-Separatist settlers. Before disembarking, the congregation drew
up the first New World social contract, the Mayflower Compact, which all the
male settlers signed. Bradford served thirty one-year terms as governor of the
fledgling colony between 1622 and 1656. He enjoyed remarkable discretionary
powers as chief magistrate, acting as high judge and treasurer as well as
presiding over the deliberations of the General Court, the legislature of the
community. In 1636 he helped draft the colony’s legal code. Under his guidance
Plymouth never became a Bible commonwealth like its larger and more
influential neighbor, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Relatively tolerant of
dissent, the Plymouth settlers did not restrict the franchise or other civic
privileges to church members. The Plymouth churches were overwhelmingly
Congregationalist and Separatist in form, but Presbyterians like William Vassal
and renegades like Roger Williams resided in the colony without being
pressured to conform to the majority’s religious convictions.
After a brief experiment with the “common course,” a sort of primitive agrarian
communism, the colony quickly centered around private subsistence
agriculture. This was facilitated by Bradford’s decision to distribute land among
all the settlers, not just members of the company. In 1627 he and four others
assumed the colony’s debt to the merchant adventurers who had helped
finance their immigration in return for a monopoly of the fur trading and
fishing industries. Owing to some malfeasance on the part of their English
mercantile factors and the decline of the fur trade, Bradford and his colleagues
were unable to retire this debt until 1648, and then only at great personal
expense. Around 1630 Bradford began to compile his two-volume Of Plymouth
Plantation, 1620-1647, one of the most important early chronicles of the
settlement of New England. Bradford’s history was singular in its tendency to
separate religious from secular concerns. Unlike similar tracts from orthodox
Massachusetts Bay, Bradford did not interpret temporal affairs as the inevitable
unfolding of God’s providential plan. Lacking the dogmatic temper and religious
enthusiasm of the Puritans of the Great Migration, Bradford steered a middle
course for Plymouth Colony between the Holy Commonwealth of
Massachusetts and the tolerant secular community of Rhode Island.