Customer Reviews

Of Plymouth Plantation 1620 - 1647

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I came across this book quite by accident and didn't think it would be much of a read. Generally speaking I don't read histories and one from the early 1600's was a pretty daunting task - or so I thought. In fact, it was a great tale of adventure and faith and an extremely insightful and thought provoking book about how this country was started and what it must have looked like to those who arrived here some 350 years ago.I really did love this book.

Bradford is an engaging writer whose prose isn't hard to understand. In places his understatement about the death and hardship faced almost constantly is even amusing. Nothing of the kind of challenges that the Leyden pilgrims faced in Massachusetts will seem familiar to a modern reader. Just the same, the fact that it all happened is fascinating. One can almost imagine being there, looking over the decks of the Mayflower and facing all that December gray and wilderness and wondering what you were doing coming here. Told in first person it reads like an adventure as much as a history.

The pilgrims here are also quite human and not at all the diorama characters of a first graders Thanksgiving craft project. They face social challenges and the horrors of death and disease. Attacks by natives actually occured on occasion. The dream of a sort of providence is one that proves difficult in the real world. Bradford mourns the loss of these ideals and the people who imported them. There's something a little sad in his later passages, whether it be age or a truly lost paradise one never really knows. But what Bradford imagined as a sort of religious nirvana clearly doesn't pan out in the end. Nevertheless it is well worth the journey. I highly recommend a read of this American classic.

William Bradford spends the entire first chapter of his book describing the Separatist religious movement--he was NOT a Puritan, contrary to the previous review. Bradford's writing style, while sometimes introspective and monotone, is in many instances the most eloquent of all early American authors, using very thoughtful and beautiful metaphors. To describe the success of the Plymouth Colony after about 20 years, he wrote "Thus out of small beginnings greather 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". Bradford describes those small beginnings in his book, from the Pilgrims troubles in England to their departure and life in Holland. After twelve years in Holland, the Pilgrims made a teary departure from their friends to come on the Mayflower to America. As they are about to board the ship that will take them to England and on to America, Bradford in a sentimental outpouring writes "they went aboard and their friends with them, where truely doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound . . . But the tide, which stays for no man, calling them away that were thus loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees with watery cheeks commended them . . . And then with mutual embrases and many tears they took their leave one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them." It was a "last leave to many", because after Bradford writes the only existing first-hand account of the Mayflower's voyage, and describes briefly some of the explorations made by the Pilgrims, he then describes the horrible first winter which killed half the Pilgrims: "it pleased God to visit us daily with death, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead, and the well not in any measure suffiient to tend to the sick". Written in an English that is easier to read than Shakespeare, yet old enough to remind the reader of the books historical value and place in American history. It's plain style should remind us that Bradford was not an English elitist governor like those that would come later such as Winthrop, Sewell, Winslow, and Cotton, but was in fact a simple subsistence farmer by trade. If you want a fluffy, inaccurate, and childish portrayal of Pilgrim life, read a high school history book. If you want the real thing, read "Of Plymouth Plantation" by William Bradford. It's the first American classic

Contrary to a previous review, Bradford can in all accuracy be labelled a Puritan, though he himself would not have appreciated the title, it being a word used as a jibe by their opponents. Nowadays, the word has come to refer to a theological standpoint, independent of political positioning. Hence an Anglican might be a Puritan (see Master Alden who came over on the Mayflower), and a Separatist would be even more likely to be one. Puritans might also be called "the hotter sort" of Protestants, for their strictness in matters scriptural, and Puritan theology is entirely in keeping with Bradford's position and beliefs, both political and religious, as a Separatist.

Previous reviewers seem to have approached the book with differring expectations. If you want to read about John and Priscilla, go to Longfellow, and if you want to read about Constance of the Mayflower, then you won't find her here (except in the records for the 1623 land division, maybe) - and indeed few of the myths of the Pilgrim Story can be found in Bradford's history. This might dissappoint some people who like to paint their history with honest toil and romance, Plymouth Rocks and Thanksgivings, but to a more attentive reader, Bradford has delights enough to keep anybody satisfied. His style is at times cumbersome, and the language of the 1640s(ish) can often obscure the already confusing legal language of some of the letters and contracts in the book. The language and style, though, are part of the book's character. Bradford's reticence in always referring to himself as either "The Governor" or "Governor Bradford" is not only quaint but also instructive, and to dismiss is as tedious is not to give it its due attention.

Overall, Bradford still keeps a sense of adventure and dedication: adventure that the reader may share when confronted with sudden unfamiliar truths of the divisions which separated the Pilgrims, or the decidedly economic flavour to some of the reasons for their departure from Holland. Even to witness on a page before you the first time in any known source that the word "Pilgrims" was used to describe the settlers at Plymouth, is enough to make the reader feel privileged.

Morison's notes now look somewhat dated - his anachrinistic mention of Communism sticking particularly in the throat, but the reader might share some of his admiration which obviously emerges for the governor and his people. The Pilgrims at Plymouth can in many ways be regarded as adventurers and even (rather more dubiously) pioneers. Maybe if more people were exposed to Bradford's work they would see that although they weren't quite what popular culture would have us think of them, they were all the same resolute and brave people in most untoward circumstances.

Although this account of the pilgrams of Plymoth Plantation's first few years in the new world may not be entertaining to the student who is unfamiliar with first hand accounts from original source documents; for those of you who cherish these treasure troves, you have found a gold mine! I especially loved the carefull choice of words with which Bradford as well as other pilgrams from this era were known for. It would do our society well if we were to employ thier thoughtful and skillful use of words. I mention the above because it is so foreign to us, but it in no way eclipses the raw content of the book with respect to the first hand accounts of our fledgling country's history. This book will dispell many of the myths which in recent years have surfaced about the pilgrams motives for coming to America. This book is not only well worth the money, but it is also worth the time to read it!

Excellent book! I read this in combination with the Governer William Bradford's Letter Book and Mourts Relations and Good Newes from New England by Edward Winslow. I am really glad that I have done it this way, because there is further information in the Good Newes from New England that fills in the gaps of certain events.
This is William Bradford's point of view, and the information in it is amazing. If you are into history, then it doesn't get any better than this. Its not very often that you have the opportunity to see events through someone elses eyes, and this does it.

This book is 1 of 2 firsthand accounts written about Plymouth Colony that I have read.
Both are in the language of the 17th Century and Shakespeare, and therefore hard to read for comprehension, the first time.
William Bradford wrote this book many years after the fact, but it covers the period of time the Separatists left England for Holland, Holland to America, and the settlement of Plymouth Colony through its first decades.

I recently taught this book to a group of five high school boys, and it was an amazing experience. We were able to move beyond our stereotyped ideas of the Pilgrims to see an account of them from the perspective of their leader. We were struck with the through-and-through integrity of these people who were willing to suffer so many ways for the cause of their Lord. So many times they gave the other guy the advantage and did not press their rights, while we moderns were becoming frustrated at their passivity. But in the end we saw the aggregate worth of their "long obedience in the same direction," as mocking sailors and the Indians and many others saw that they truly lived out the faith they claimed.

The detailed account of anyone's life, personal or corporate, will have tedium and unnecessary (to our thinking) minutiae, and Bradford's account does have a lot of material I might have edited out. But it is a real story, a journal, presented in its entirety, and there is value in that as well.

We used discussion questions to guide us, from Omnibus III: Reformation to the Present.

I was pleased to find this book about a relative of mine. Hard to believe that it was actually in print

William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation is perhaps the most boring and vexatious book I have ever read. The plain style employed by Bradford is, undoubtably, because of his Puritan backgroud, but that is still no excuse for the tedious and often archaic redition of events. I should think that a high-school text book would give a more lively presentation of life in the "New Jerusalem", as Bradford calls it. The antidiluvian vocabulary and monotonous recording of events made this a very difficult book to get through. I would not recommend it to my peers

I was suprised at how gossipy William Bradford was. He told tales about his neighbors and friends and described how the pilgrims constantly bickered with traders and their benefactors over money. My whole fantasy about what I thought the Pilgrims were like has completely changed. Now I consider them petty, self-righteous gossip mongers. The book was good for general information about preparation for their trip and what they actually did when they got here, but as far as historical fact goes, I was unimpressed. Bradford discusses people who stray from the flock, "outsiders" who get girls pregnant, drunkards, and preachers who were not to his liking. It was more like a "dish" session n the Jenny Jones show than something I would be proud to uphold as historical fact to the rest of the nation.