I. HISTORICAL WORKS.
From the very first, the Pilgrims seem to have been conscious of their high destiny. They never for a moment doubted that they were the pioneers of a new era, and they realized that in future years their every act would be regarded with great interest. They therefore determined that posterity should have a truthful report of all their acts and motives.
1. Willliam Bradford (1588—1657).
"The Father of American History."
No writer of contemporary history was ever more favored by circumstances than was William Bradford, the historian of Plymouth, since theHistory of Plymouth Plantation
Journal (with Winslow) greater part of the stirring scenes of which he wrote passed under his own eye. Born in Yorkshire, in 1588, he became, while yet a boy, a member of the little company of Puritans that, under the lead of their pastor, Robinson, fled to Holland. At the age of thirty-two, he was among the passengers on the Mayflower. From 1621 until his death, he was governor of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford's history is, in reality, a journal kept with extreme care. Commencing at the root of the matter, it gives a careful account of the origin of the religious dissensions in England from which the Puritan sect arose; it records the persecutions and sufferings of the
