Bradford, William (1590-1657), was the second governor of Plymouth Colony, the settlement established by the Pilgrims in 1620. Bradford served as governor from 1621 to 1657, except for five different years when he was an assistant to the governor. Under his leadership, the colony survived droughts, crop failures, and crippling debt. In 1621, Bradford organized the celebration of the first Thanksgiving Day in New England. His book Of Plimoth Plantation is the chief record of Pilgrim life. This book remained in manuscript form for more than 200 years until it was finally published in 1856 as History of Plymouth Plantation.
The Pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower and set up their colony on what is now Plymouth Bay, a part of Cape Cod Bay. Bradford probably helped write the Mayflower Compact, a document that set forth the governmental policies of the Pilgrims in the new land (see Mayflower Compact). He became governor after the death of the first governor, John Carver.
In 1623, Bradford ended the program that had required the Pilgrims to share the ownership of land, food, and tools. The colony then adopted Bradford’s plan of dividing the land and cattle among individual families. This division encouraged the colonists to work harder and to improve their property.
In 1627, Bradford and seven other Pilgrims helped most of the Pilgrims gain financial independence. English merchants had paid the passage to America for the majority of the Pilgrims. But those colonists had not been able to pay their entire debt. Bradford and his group assumed responsibility for the debt and eventually sold some of their own property to help settle it.
Bradford generally maintained peace with the local Indians. In 1637, Plymouth avoided involvement in the Pequot War, in which soldiers from Massachusetts and Connecticut defeated the Pequot Indians of Connecticut.
Bradford was born in Austerfield, England, near Sheffield. As a youth, he joined the Separatists, a group that had left the Church of England, the nation’s official church. The Separatists held secret prayer meetings in defiance of King James I. In 1608, Bradford fled to Holland with a band of Separatists in search of religious freedom. Some of the Separatists later sailed to America and became known as the Pilgrims. He died on May 9, 1657.
See also Pilgrims; Plymouth Colony.
