Bradford's History of Plimoth Plantation

About this book

William Bradford, for many years governor of the Plymouth Colony, tells the history of the Pilgrims: their persecution in England, their flight to Leiden in Holland, their voyage to America on the Mayflower in 1620, and the agreement known as the Mayflower Compact. He describes the first terrible winter, when half of them died, the help they received from the Native Americans Squanto and Massasoit, their quarrels with investors in London and with rival settlers, and the slow growth of the colony until 1647.

Context and significance

Bradford's manuscript disappeared from Boston during the American Revolution and was found decades later in the library of the Bishop of London, who returned it to Massachusetts in 1897; this edition includes the report of that ceremony. It is one of the founding documents of American history. A later New England narrative is that of Mary Rowlandson.

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