William Bradford is one of the main reasons that the Puritan Movement got
rolling. William Bradford was born in 1590 in the Yorkshire farming community of
Austerfield, England. Both of his parents died when he was very young. He spent the
early part of his life living with many different relatives. When Bradford was twelve he
attended a service in which rituals were not the same as he was accustomed to and the
preaching was mainly about the separation from the Church of England. The leaders of
this movement were usually imprisoned by English authorities. Bradford had this to say
of the religious beliefs of the Puritans:
"The one side [the Reformers] laboured to have ye right worship of God & discipline of Christ established in ye church,
according to ye simplicitie of ye gospell, without the mixture of mens inventions, and to have & to be ruled by ye laws
of Gods word, dispensed in those offices, & by those officers of Pastors, Teachers, & Elders, &c. according to ye
Scripturs. The other partie [the Church of England], though under many colours & pretences, endevored to have ye
episcopall dignitie (affter ye popish maner) with their large power & jurisdiction still retained; with all those courts,
cannons, & ceremonies, togeather with all such livings, revenues, & subordinate officers, with other such means as
formerly upheld their antichristian greatnes, and enabled them with lordly & tyranous power to persecute ye poore
servants of God."
Bradford had to flee to the Netherlands with many other Puritan followers due to the fact
that King James I was forcing them out due to their religious beliefs. Due to the fact the
Bradford was not making much money just like most of the Puritans and the Dutch
government, pressured by King James I, was harassing the religious refugees, he decided
something was to be done. Bradford decided that the Puritans needed a fresh start and he
thought the perfect place for this was the New World. At the age of thirty, Bradford
started organizing government permissions, financing, ship hiring, and also needed to
secure enough provisions for the trip. If it was not for Bradford the Atlantic passage
might have never happened. On the decision to leave their home for the New World,
Bradford had this to say:
"all great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and
overcome with answerable courages. It was granted ye dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties
were many, but not invincible. For though their were many of them likely, yet they were not cartaine; it might
be sundrie of ye things feared might never befale; others by providente care & ye use of good means, might
in a great measure be prevented; and all of them, through ye help of God, by fortitude and patience, might
either be borne, or overcome. True it was, that such atempts were not to be made and undertaken without
good ground & reason; not rashly or lightly as many have done for curiositie or hope of gaine, &c. But their
condition was not ordinarie; their ends were good & honourable; their calling lawfull, & urgente; and therfore
they might expecte ye blessing of god in their proceding. Yea, though they should loose their lives in this
action, yet might they have comforte in the same, and their endeavors would be honourable. They lived hear
but as men in exile, & in a poore condition; and as great miseries might possibly befale them in this place, for
ye 12. years of truce [the truce between Holland and Spain] were now out, & ther was nothing but beating of
drumes, and preparing for warr, the events wherof are allway uncertaine."
There were many rough decisions that were made before and during the trip and Bradford
was faced with many of them. The first problem was that he had to leave his four year
old son behind as he made the dangerous voyage to the New World. The second was the
passage to the New World was not the smoothest ride and around the half way mark the
Mayflower sustained a broken mast and most people wanted to turn around. Bradford
convinced the passengers and crew that they must push on because they had already had
made it half way there so why not push on.
He was the one that negotiated a patent to give legal permission for a settlement
in the New World. Bradford managed to convince the King that the community that they
were going to set up in the New World would still be under the control of the king and
the people living in the New World would still follow the King’s laws. He was also in
charge of finding the financial backing for the trip and also record keeping. If it was not
for Bradford who knows if the Puritan movement would have been as successful as it
was.