Governor of the Plymouth Colony, 1621–57. He left in manuscript a “History of Plymouth Plantation,” the leisurely composition of 20 years, which was drawn from by Morton, Prince, and Hutchinson as a basis for their respective histories, and after being lost for nearly a century was found in the library of the Bishop of London in 1855, and published soon after. He was the earliest American historian, and his work exhibits judicial impartiality, broad conceptions, and a direct, vigorous style.

History of Plymouth Plantation

  Governor Bradford’s reputation as an author is decidedly of a posthumous character. He left a MS. history, in a folio volume of 270 pages, of the Plymouth colony, from the formation of their church in 1602 to 1647. It furnished the material for Morton’s Memorial, was used by Prince and Governor Hutchinson in the preparation of their histories, and deposited, with the collection of papers of the former, in the library of the Old South Church, in Boston. During the desecration of this edifice as a riding-school by the British in the Revolutionary war, the MS. disappeared. A copy of a portion closing with the year 1620, in the handwriting of Nathaniel Morton, was discovered by the Rev. Alexander Young in the library of the First Church, at Plymouth, and printed in his “Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth,” in 1841. A “letterbook,” in which Bradford preserved copies of his correspondence, met with a similar fate, a portion only having been rescued from a grocer’s shop in Halifax, and published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 1794, vol. iii. of the first series of Collections, with a fragment of a poem on New England. These, with two other specimens of a few lines each, first published by the same Society in 1838, form, with the exception of some slight controversial pieces, the whole of his literary productions.

  William Bradford, of the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock, deserves the pre-eminence of being called the father of American history. We pay to him also that homage which we tender to those authors who even by their writings give to us the impression that, admirable as they may be in authorship, behind their authorship is something still more admirable—their own manliness…. Governor Bradford wrote of events that had passed under his own eye, and that had been shaped by his own hand; and he had every qualification of a trustworthy narrator. His mind was placid, grave, well-poised; he was a student of many books and of many languages; and being thus developed both by letters and by experience, he was able to tell well the truth of history as it had unfolded itself during his own strenuous and benignant career. His history is an orderly, lucid, and most instructive work; it contains many tokens of its author’s appreciation of the nature and requirements of historical writing; and though so recently published in a perfect form, it must henceforward take its true place at the head of American historical literature, and win for its author the patristic dignity that we have ascribed to him.

  Though not enjoying special educational advantages in early life, Bradford possessed more literary culture than was common among those of similar occupation to himself. He had some knowledge of Latin and Greek, and knew sufficient Hebrew to enable him to “see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native beauty.” He was also well read in history and philosophy, and an adept in the theological discussion peculiar to the time. He employed much of his leisure in literary opposition.

  Bradford was a forerunner of literature, not a historian. He stands not as an early Palfrey or Bancroft, but ranks with the useful company of annalists, diarists, and autobiographers, few of whom have equalled him in strength of character and fidelity of purpose. He was the first Pilgrim writer in America, the first recorder of doings in New England, and a story-teller of considerable power, as well as of absolute truthfulness in matters of fact.