The Father of the New England Colonies
William Bradford’s birthday, we celebrate on the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. We do not know the exact date of his birth.
He was just an ordinary boy living in a small English village. He was brought up by relatives, for his father and mother had died when he was a child. They had left him a small fortune, so he was not in want.
When about twelve years old, he began to read the Bible. It interested him so much, that when older he attended the meetings of some neighbours who were studying the Bible and worshipping God in their own little Assembly. Separatists, they were called, for they had separated from the Established Church of England.
In those days, it was a crime in England for any one to hold or attend religious meetings of Separatists. The Bible printed in the English tongue, had long been forbidden reading, but in William Bradford’s days, it was beginning to be read quite widely, specially by Separatists.
These poor people’s Assemblies were watched by spies and informers. Separatists were arrested and imprisoned, while some were executed. Others fled into Holland—brave liberty-loving Holland—where there was no persecution for religion’s sake.
William Bradford became a Separatist. When about eighteen years old, he, too, fled into Holland, where he might serve his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in full liberty of conscience.
For ten years or more he lived in Holland. He was a member of an English Separatist Church in Leyden, under the gentle rule of its beloved pastor, John Robinson.
The Separatists believed that every man in the church-congregation should have a voice in its management; thus they elected their pastor.
The time came when a part of Pastor Robinson’s congregation decided to emigrate and seek a home in the New World. The leaders of this little band of Pilgrims—the Pilgrim Fathers, we call them—were William Bradford, John Carver, and Edward Winslow. With them went William Brewster, who was to be their pastor in the New World. Miles Standish, also, went with them, and became the Captain of their small army, which defended them against the Indians.
So the Pilgrim Fathers, together with their wives, little ones, and men and maid servants, said farewell to Holland’s hospitable shore. Soon after, they sailed from England in the Mayflower, to found a settlement in the savage New World, under the rule of England.
They took with them the seeds of American Independence. They had left England so that they might have the freedom which was theirs by rights. They were come to America so that they might govern themselves, every man having a voice in the government of the new settlement as well as in the management of his own congregation. This principle of self-government, the Pilgrims embodied in the famous Mayflower Compact, an agreement which they drew up and signed the day they reached New England.
Meanwhile, far to the South of New England another Colony of Englishmen had planted and was fostering other seeds of American Independence.3
But let us see what became of William Bradford, since we are celebrating his birthday. We will let Cotton Mather tell it in his own quaint style:—
“The rest of his days were spent in the services and the temptations of that American wilderness. Here was Master Bradford, in the year 1621, unanimously chosen the Governor of the Plantation. The difficulties whereof were such that if he had not been a person of more than ordinary piety, wisdom, and courage, he must have sunk under them.” He served for thirty-seven years, “in every one of which he was chosen their Governor, except the three years wherein Master Winslow and the two years wherein Master Prince, at the choice of the people, took a turn with him.... But the crown of all was his holy, prayerful, watchful, and fruitful, walk with God.... He died May 9th, 1657, in the 69th year of his age, lamented by all the Colonies of New England as a common Blessing and Father to them all.”