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Compare And Contrast William Bradford And John Smith

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People leave their homeland for many reasons, and these reasons are often expressed in the records of their journeys to the new land. William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and John Smith’s General History of Virginia are both exploration narratives that convey their reasons for moving to the New World. Although both Bradford and Smith write about God’s incorporation in their respective settlements and the struggles of building those settlements, Bradford’s purpose—religious freedom—is conveyed through his positive presentation of the aforementioned aspects while Smith’s purpose of monetary gain is portrayed through his negative tone towards struggle. Through their diction concerning God, the influencing factors of Bradford and Smith’s …show more content…

Bradford begins with a description of the settlers’ thoughts upon arrival: “…they had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain [them]… a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men… a wild and savage hue…” (83). He uses words with negative connotations to emphasize their environmental struggles. This emphasis leads to the impression of loss of spirit and motivation amoung the settlers. However, Bradford continues with their response to the struggles, using positive diction to convey an increasingly positive attitude toward the New World. The effect this creates is that of a phoenix rising above ashes or success against the odds. By acknowledging God’s help in survival, Bradford also expresses his purpose for writing his narrative. This record is not only for himself and the present settlers, but also for their posterity, in hopes that they will remember the debt they owe to God for sustaining the first settlers, their ancestors. This presentation of his struggles also reflects his attempt to reassure himself in being one of God’s chosen. While passing through these struggles, Bradford believes that the settlers are simultaneously proving that they can handle the tests God is giving them and therefore they are worthy of being God’s chosen. In juxtaposition, Smith emphasizes his struggles. On labor, he writes “…our extreme toil… so strained and bruised us… the extremity of the heat had so weakened us…” (1). While the labor may have been strenuous, his strong diction such as extreme, so strained, bruised, and weakened suggests an exaggeration of the difficulties the settlers faced. The impression this conveys is a negative attitude toward challenge as well as a willingness to exaggerate and complain. However, Smith writes in this way not to be negative, but

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After reading the Journals of both Robert Robe and Mary Stuart Bailey I have a better understanding of daily life, common struggles, and attitudes during the 1850’s while traveling westward. Robert Robe’s journal begins in May of 1851 and continues into June. Mary’s Journal starts April 13, 1852 with the last entry on November 8th. These journals clearly highlight the stresses that were developed during there travels. The traveler’s attitudes changed circumstantially as the uncertainty of their future unfolded, depending on the day they could be admiring god’s beauty, determined on surviving, or mourning the loss of their previous life, family, and home (Text 386, 387).

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As students, one usually sees a positive view on what life was like back then. Usually, one fails to realize that perhaps these pilgrims, or puritans who sailed across the Atlantic, were more complex than the simpleton title the standard textbooks give them. Thus, one is able to realize that there are perspectives from both sides of the spectrum. As Vowell composes her book, she gives a witty outlook on the governing of John Winthrop in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and how his puritan ideals affected the society around them. One thing that The Wordy Shipmates does suggest to the reader is how one must not take things for face value.

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Bradford describes how bleak the people’s situation was, “especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases which the long voyage and their inaccommodate condition had brought upon them” (lines 10-12). The strategy of imagery used in the excerpt paints a picture of the Separatist’s trials and sufferings. The imagery allows the younger generations to mentally see the setting and scenery of the events and how it affected the people of the time. With great diction, Bradford explains how “in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven persons who to their great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health… did all the homely and necessary offices… willingly and cheerfully” (lines 13-15,16,17). In this example, Bradford uses the strategy of illustrative diction to establish a writing style that will emphasize these men and their importance during the winter.

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One also sees how each author, in their own ways (with more or less emphasis), describe both the economic motivations, as well as the cultural motivations, which drove the westward expansion. In a sense, their very words become pictures of the kind of socio-economic pressures shared by many Americans to expand westward, as well as the Manifest-Destiny fever in many of those same Americans, hungry for land, desirous for expansion, driven by the ideal of spreading their own culture’s ways into other lands (sometimes onto their indigenous inhabitants). But in the end, they all perceive westward expansion as being, somehow, the only option for early Americans to find the good life; no doubt because of the economic and cultural influences on their thinking.

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In Allison Games’, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World, Games creates a new understanding of the Atlantic world that shows how the impermanent migration of the English people ultimately formulated what the Atlantic world was known to be. Unlike other historians, Games creatively gathered together her book through an extensive study of the 1635 London Port register list along with other primary sources such as wills, personal letters, and business contracts from personnels on the list to add a humanistic touch in presenting the Atlantic migration history. However the selection of these sources did not come without a heavy cost. The use of these informative, yet limited, documents resulted in misleading statistics, constant

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The basis of understanding of the “wilderness” was that it represented the devil’s landscape and was ever devouring, therefore necessitating the need to conquer not only for God but for own personal gain and gratification in a new environment. To the colonists, nature was something to conquer, and as mentioned in Taylor’s Wasty Ways, “…settlers meant to amass the property that endowed independence, with all its promises of material comfort, social respectability, and political rights. They also found encouragement in the precedent of their parents and grandparents, who had persevered through similar travails” (Taylor 300). Colonizing the environment not only became a conquest for salvation, but the chance of living a better life as their ancestors have. This chance, in the “New World”, was a chance to secure an individual’s future prosperity in a new environment.

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Soon, despite the very fact that the government had encouraged this move itself, officials and important peoples found the settlers to be troublesome, even more so than the natives themselves(Page 20). But while the tenacity of these people was perceived as troublesome, there was very little reason why they shouldn’t be, considering that the prolonged existence of these people was because of their collective wariness of government and oppression and would only pledge loyalty to direct blood (Pages 20-21). If anyone were to survive in those lands, it would be these hardy people that have known no easy times and desired the solitary ways of life that the Appalachian Range provided (Page 22). Despite the acclamations from the Little America Party that the, *The Little America Party opposed the early settlement of the Appalachian region.

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In the westward expansion of America, not just Protestants were compelled to cross the nation by the power of God; the people of America believed God had called upon them to accomplish their “high destiny” (para. 7). In the 1800’s American propaganda and numerous documents of the time were full of telling Americans that they were a superior people. It was not long before the American’s adapted this way of thinking and saw themselves excellent enough to be selected by God to carry out His pious tasks. For example, in 1839, the editor of the widely circulated Democratic Review newspaper, John L. O'Sullivan, proclaimed that America was “the nation of progress, individual freedom [and] universal enfranchisement” and was “destined for better deeds” (para. 4 and 7). Not only did O’Sullivan speak highly of America as the nation of “unparalleled glory,” but he went on to declare that moving Westward was the American people’s foreordination to “manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles” (para.

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Thomas Morton and William Bradford are both famous for their accounts of New England. Thomas Morton and William Bradford practiced different religions. Thomas Morton was a conservative Anglican, which meant that he believed in the Church of England. William Bradford was a Puritan, which meant that he wanted separate congregations from the Church of England. Both men based their accounts of New England off of their religious views.

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For example, in Line 8, the chief emphasized how dependent the settlers are towards the tribe, and what would happen if the tribe shows the same hostility the British show them (“We can hide our provisions and fly into the woods. And then you must consequently famish by wrongdoing your friends”). The use of ‘friends’ in the line ‘fly into the woods’ is noteworthy, due to how it emphasizes how (1) the tribe’s congenial actions and aid should be enough to be considered as friends and emphasizes their hospitality and encourage; and how (2) the tribe can take away their help just as easily as they went and helped them. In addition, the word ‘fly’ in ‘fly into the woods’ not only demonstrates movement, but the word is ironic in the sense of how the the word implies an oppressed connotation, not a freed connotation as it is usually used for. In addition to this line, Lines 18-19 (“Captain Smith, this might soon be your fate too through your rashness and unadvisedness.”).

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As evidence, in one of his poem he uses the word “flames” to indicate the harshness of life to the new world. He uses the all those elements to describe how bad things need to happen so things could get better for the new world, just like the Bible indicates. In addition, Bradford used the theme of history in most of his literature. Like in one of his poems named, “A Word to New Plymouth”.

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Captain Smith shows how much he cares by teaching the settlers important life skills they will need in order to survive in the Virginia wilderness. Not only did Captain Smith teach the settlers lessons, he also gave support to the settlers as well. Captain Smith is not only

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He claimed: “If a man work but three days in seven, he may get more than he can spend, unless he will be excessive.” Bradford, however, warned of the dangers of prosperity, and that too much prosperity can destroy community, as he said here: “For now as their stocks increased, and the increase vendible, there was no longer any holding them together…” Bradford believed that community was the best form of prosperity, while Smith valued wealth and success. John Smith wrote in a way that exaggerated about New England, so that people would come there to seek their fortunes and build cities, “…they fish but an hour a day, to take more than they eat in a week…” whereas, Bradford’s writing was simply a narrative, recounting the stories of the puritan

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In The Pioneers, Cooper’s main theme is destruction of the beautiful wilderness and it’s animals. In chapter XXII the ‘Slaughter of the Pigeons’ scene in The Pioneers, Cooper vividly describes the heartless and gruesome war between man and pigeon. He starts with detailed descriptions of the land so the reader can fully grasp how wonderful this part of the wilderness was. He writes, “the green wheat fields were seen in every direction, spotted with the dark and charred stumps that ad, the proceeding season, supported some of the proudest trees of the forest” (Cooper 832). Then he goes on to explain the authority of the United States symbolic bald eagle and the migration of the flocks of birds.

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