If you survived the American public school system, you probably remember a sanitized, construction-paper version of the First Thanksgiving. There were buckles on hats. There was corn. Everyone smiled. But if you actually sit down and read Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, you realize pretty quickly that the real story wasn't a holiday special. It was a gritty, terrifying, and often depressing survival journal.
William Bradford didn't write this for us. He wrote it for the next generation of settlers because he was worried they were becoming too materialistic and soft. He wanted to remind them of the "starving time" and the literal blood, sweat, and tears it took to keep the colony from folding in its first year.
Honestly, it’s a miracle they survived at all.
Why Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford is the Original American Diary
Most history books are written by people looking backward. This is different. Bradford was the governor of Plymouth Colony for about 30 years. He was there when the Mayflower hit the Atlantic storms. He was there when half the population died in a single winter. When you read his account, you aren't getting a polished historical narrative; you're getting the raw perspective of a man who believed God was either rewarding or punishing him with every wave that hit the ship.
The manuscript itself has a wild history. It wasn't even published until the mid-19th century. During the Revolutionary War, the British actually stole the notebook from the Old South Meeting House in Boston. It ended up in London, and it took decades of diplomatic nagging to get it back to Massachusetts in 1897.
Think about that. The foundational text of American history was a prisoner of war for over a hundred years.
The Myth of the "Clean" Departure
We like to imagine the Pilgrims as a unified group of "Saints" looking for religious freedom. That’s only half the truth. In Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, he’s very clear that the Mayflower was packed with two very different groups: the "Saints" (the religious separatists) and the "Strangers" (the tradesmen and laborers hired to make the colony profitable).
They didn't always get along.
In fact, the Mayflower Compact—that famous document we're told was the "seed of democracy"—was actually a panic response. Some of the "Strangers" noticed they were landing in New England instead of Virginia (where their legal patent was for). They basically said, "Since we aren't in Virginia, the laws don't apply, and we can do whatever we want." Bradford and the leaders realized they needed a legal tether immediately, or the colony would dissolve before they even stepped off the boat.
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The Brutal Reality of the First Winter
Bradford’s writing gets heavy when he describes 1620 and 1621. Imagine being stuck on a wooden ship in the middle of a New England winter with no houses, no medicine, and scurvy rotting your gums.
He records that at the height of the sickness, only about six or seven people were healthy enough to do the work of fetching wood, making fires, and dressing the dead. He specifically praises William Brewster and Miles Standish for their "lowly and gentle" service during this time. They were doing the "homely" tasks that nobody else could.
It’s easy to look at a map now and see a vacation spot. For Bradford, it was a "hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men." His words, not mine. He describes the landscape as a spiritual vacuum.
Squanto: The Man, The Legend, The Complicated Reality
Every kid knows Squanto (Tisquantum). But Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford gives us the nuance that the cartoons skip. Squanto wasn't just a friendly neighbor who popped up with some fish. He was a survivor of a literal apocalypse.
Before the Pilgrims arrived, a plague (likely leptospirosis or smallpox brought by earlier European explorers) wiped out 90% of the coastal indigenous population. Squanto had been kidnapped years earlier, taken to Europe, learned English, and eventually made his way back only to find his entire village—the Patuxet—gone. Dead.
When he met Bradford, he was a man without a home. Bradford calls him "a special instrument sent of God." From a strategic standpoint, Squanto was the only reason the Pilgrims understood how to plant corn using fish as fertilizer (a technique he likely learned or refined based on the specific sandy soil of the region).
The Thanksgiving That Wasn't a "Thanksgiving"
Here is a weird fact: The 1621 feast we call Thanksgiving? Bradford barely mentions it.
He devotes maybe a paragraph to it. He mentions they had a good harvest, they got some turkeys, and Massasoit arrived with about 90 men who brought five deer. They ate for three days. But Bradford never uses the word "Thanksgiving." To a Puritan, a "Day of Thanksgiving" was a solemn day of prayer and fasting, not a party. This was just a harvest celebration.
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The myth-making happened much later. We've projected our modern ideas of harmony onto a moment that was really just a brief reprieve from the constant fear of starvation.
What happened to the "Common Course"?
In the early chapters of Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, he talks about the "Common Course and Condition." Basically, they tried a form of communal living where all food went into a common bin and was distributed equally.
It failed. Miserably.
Bradford writes that it "bred much confusion and discontent." The young, strong men didn't want to work if they got the same amount of food as the elderly or the sick. The women felt it was a form of slavery to cook and wash for men who weren't their husbands.
By 1623, Bradford scrapped the system and gave every family their own parcel of land. He notes that suddenly, everyone was working. Even the women and children went into the fields. It’s one of the earliest recorded critiques of communal labor in the Americas, and Bradford doesn't mince words about how it almost killed them.
The Long-Term Fallout and the "Great Migration"
As the years went by, Plymouth wasn't the only game in town. The Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Puritans) arrived in 1630 with way more money and way more people.
Bradford’s later chapters are actually kind of sad. He laments that the original Plymouth community was breaking up. People were moving away to find better land for their livestock. The "holy experiment" was being diluted by prosperity. He uses the metaphor of a candle: Plymouth was the candle that lit the others, but in doing so, it burnt itself out.
He stopped writing the journal in 1647. He never finished it. The last few pages are just lists of the passengers and where they ended up. It feels like he realized the world he tried to build was already gone.
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Why You Should Care About This Text in 2026
You might think a 400-year-old diary is irrelevant. You'd be wrong.
Everything about the American identity—the obsession with work ethic, the tension between individual rights and the common good, the complicated and often tragic relationship with indigenous nations—is right there in Bradford's ink.
If you want to understand the "why" behind American culture, you have to look at the "how" of its survival. Bradford doesn't hide the ugly parts. He talks about the executions for crimes. He talks about the "wickedness" that crept into the colony. He talks about the fear.
Common Misconceptions to Throw Out
- They wore all black. Nope. They actually liked colors like "Lincoln green" and "brick red."
- They came for total religious freedom. They came for their religious freedom. They weren't exactly big on diversity of thought.
- They were the first settlers. Not even close. Jamestown had been around since 1607, and Spanish settlements in Florida were way older.
How to Read Of Plymouth Plantation Without Falling Asleep
If you try to read a 17th-century manuscript cover-to-cover, the "thees" and "thous" will eventually make your brain melt.
Focus on the highlights. Read the account of the voyage (Chapter 9). Read about the first encounter with the Nauset tribe. Read the section on the 1623 shift to private property.
Use a modern-spelling edition. There is no reason to struggle through "y" being used for "th" (like "Ye Olde") unless you're a linguist. You want the heart of the story, not a headache.
Actionable Insights from Bradford's Journal
If you’re looking for the "so what" of this historical deep dive, consider these points for your own research or visiting the sites:
- Visit Plimoth Patuxet Museums: Seeing the scale of the houses (they are tiny) makes Bradford’s descriptions of the winter much more visceral.
- Check the Primary Sources: Don't take a textbook's word for it. Look at the Mayflower Compact text itself. It’s short.
- Study the Wampanoag Perspective: To understand the full scope of Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, you have to read it alongside the oral histories of the Wampanoag people. One is a story of a new beginning; the other is a story of survival after a catastrophe.
History isn't a straight line of progress. It's a messy, contradictory, and often frightening series of events. Bradford's journal is the best evidence we have of that reality. It shows that the "Founding Fathers" weren't statues; they were people who were terrified of the dark and didn't know if they'd have enough corn to make it to May.
Stop thinking of it as a dry history book. Start thinking of it as the ultimate survival guide.