William Bradford Research Paper

Thanksgiving a time where people sit around the table and be thankful for the things they have. However, many people know of how it became a holiday, but people don’t know is who started this holiday. The man who had started Thanksgiving was named William Bradford; It started from his marriage ceremony in the New World where the (Johnson) Wampanoags Native Americans (Whitehurst and Ruffin 18) brought over turkeys and deer to feast on (Johnson). William Bradford was the second governor of Plymouth for his wisdom and leadership; he ran for governor for thirty years with a five year break. To learn more about this person and how important this man was to the pilgrims we have to look at his childhood, Adulthood, and his role as governor. The early years of this Explorer life was not what many would expect. As stated by Whitehurst “William Bradford was born in the small farm village of AusterField, England, in March 1590” . His father had

At the time Bradford was in charge of giving plots of land and assigning it to the pilgrims. On the first winter that the Pilgrims had many of them died including the first governor of Plymouth and with the death of the governor the pilgrims wanted Bradford to become the next governor( Christensen). In the responsibility that Bradford already had he decided to add more to his list of things to do. When Bradford was governor he kept peace between the pilgrims and the Native American group Wampanoags so that there wouldn’t be any trouble between them. Than nearing the end of his life Bradford told the people around him that he was going to pass and go on soon and to the surprise to them he was correct and died the following day on May 9, 1657 at the ripe age of sixty-eight (Johnson) and was buried at Plymouth Burial Hill (Christensen). In figure 1 below it shows what William Bradford most likely looked like at that time in