William Bradford (1590-1657)
Overview
 
William Bradford was an English leader of the settlers of the Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...

 in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, and served as governor for over 30 years after John Carver
John Carver
John Carver was a Pilgrim leader. He was the first governor of Plymouth Colony and his is the first signature on the Mayflower Compact.-Mayflower:...

 died. His journal (1620–1647) was published as Of Plymouth Plantation
Of Plymouth Plantation
Written over a period of years by the leader of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation is the single most complete authority for the story of the Pilgrims and the early years of the Colony they founded...

. Bradford is credited as the first civil authority to designate what popular American culture now views as Thanksgiving in the United States.
William Bradford was born to William and Alice Bradford in Austerfield
Austerfield
Austerfield is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster , on the border with Nottinghamshire. It lies to the north-east of Bawtry on the A614 road to Finningley, and is located at 53° 26' 30" North, 1° 0' West, at an elevation of around 7 metres above sea level...

, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, England in 1590.
Quotations

So they committed themselves to the will of God and resolved to proceed.

Ch. 9

Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.

Ch. 9

Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness.

Ch. 9

The loss of...honest and industrious men's lives cannot be valued at any price.

Ch. 12

But it pleased God to visit us then with death daily, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead.

Ch. 12

Cold comfort to fill their hungry bellies.

Ch. 13

Behold, now, another providence of God. A ship comes into the harbor.

Ch. 13

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.

Ch. 21

 
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