William Bradford was born on March 19, 1590 in the town of Austerfield, Yorkshire. During his early childhood, he began to be interested in the congregational church in Scrooby, and eventually became a member of a Separatist Church. In 1609, James I began prosecuting all separatists in the region at which point Bradford along with other people in the congregation, fled to the Netherlands where they eventually settled in Leiden. Due to the shifting alignments of several European powers, the Dutch began to fear the potential of war with Spain and allied with James I. Pressure again began to build against the separatists under the Dutch power, so the leader, John Robinson, came up with idea for the separatists to form their own colony. Their goal was to get as far away from the Church of England, but still hold their honor and rights of being Englishmen.
In 1620, Bradford, his wife, and about one hundred others, began their venture on the Mayflower in hopes of starting a colony in the New World, America. Prior to the colony being established however, his wife died while the Mayflower was at anchor in Provincetown Harbor. Later stories have lead to the belief that his wife, Dorothy May, possibly committed suicide, relating to the fact that the Mayflower was referred to by many as a moored vessel. During the first winter the colony endured; nearly half of the colonists perished which included their leader, John Carver. Shortly after this during the spring of 1621, Bradford was chosen as the replacement for their former director. He married his second wife, Alice Carpenter, on August 14, 1623 and soon after had three children of their own. William Bradford died on May 9, 1657, and his gravestone reads, “What our forefathers with so much difficulty secured, do not basely relinquish.”
