Download Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1608-1650 AudioBook Free
Bradford's history is a mixture of fact and interpretation. The Bradford journal records not only the events of the first 30 years of the Plymouth Colony, but also the reactions of the colonists. That makes historians regard this book as the preeminent work of 17th century America. Bradford's journal is a straightforward yet vivid story. Though Bradford never made an attempt to publish the manuscript, he did intend for it to be preserved and read by others:
"I have already been the larger in these things, therefore shall crave leave in a few like passages following, (though in other activities I shall labour to be more contract) that their children may see with what difficulties their fathers wrestled in going right through these things in their first beginnings, and exactly how God brought them along notwithstanding all their weaknesses and infirmities."
William Bradford (1590-1657) was an English Separatist migrating on the Mayflower in 1620 to Plymouth Colony, and became its governor for thirty years. Harold Paget (*1876) was an American historian.
