William Bradford

Seminar blog

William Bradford

The William Bradford short biography is important to American Civilization because His background as one of the people on the Mayflower is one of many. Each person on that has traveled to the America's has a story and a reason for the trip. And those reasons have shaped the America's.

William was an orphan child at a young age. Both his parent dead he was shunted from one relative to another never staying in one place for too long. By the age of twelve William became fascinated with Puritan faith and the lack of formal ceremony. Without the death of his parent's and traveling from place to place it is unlikely that Bradford would have come across the Puritan church.

The Religious persecution of any other religion other then the Church of England in England is what lead many people to the “New world,” including William Bradford a devout member of the “Church of Ancient Purity,”. Bradford was very devout and lead the church during Sunday mass as their spiritual leader. Since most of the people that came on the Mayflower were Puritans, they gave the most power to their spiritual leader, making Bradford the First Governor of Plymouth. Bradford had much power in Plymouth because the governor over saw many important thing in the settlement, making sure that they were done right. Bradford had this position for 30 years until his death. HE had much influence over Plymouth during the first thirty years of it's existence.

The existence of the Puritans to the Church of England was a blasphemy Any other religion even the a splinter from it's own beliefs must have been purged. (http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=5&sid=a66c370b-5592-4310-bac7-b3a758dd0c04%40sessionmgr11)

William Bradford's account of his experience of the America's is the seed from which others can see the growth of millions of ideas coalescing into American Civilization.

Gould, Philip. Drexler, Michael. “William Bradford 1590-1657”

Kelso ,Dorothy. “ WILLIAM BRADFORD” http://www.pilgrimhall.org/bradfordwilliam.htm

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=5&sid=a66c370b-5592-4310-bac7-b3a758dd0c04%40sessionmgr11