Online Texts for Craig White's Literature Courses

 Of Plymouth Plantation (selections)

by
William Bradford (1590-1657; governor of Plymouth Plantation)

The Mayflower in Harbor

A Puritan Couple

Readings for 1st meeting: Chapters I-IV

Readings for 2nd class meeting

Overview of Chapters I-IV Chapter 1. Bradford’s history of the Protestant Reformation in England  Chapter 2. Of their departure into Holland and their troubles thereabout . . . Anno. 1608 Chapter Three. Of their settling in Holland, and their manner of living, and entertainment  there Chapter 4. Showing the Reasons, and Causes of Their Removal from Chapters 5 & 6: [the Pilgrims plan their voyage] from Chapters 7 & 8: [leaving Holland & England for America] Chapter 9. Of Their Voyage [and] Safe Arrival at Cape Cod Chapter 10 . . . a Place of Habitation . . .

from Chapter 11. . . . remainder of Anno 1620. [Mayflower Compact; Squanto; Starving Time] from Chapter 12. [Mayflower returns; Indian relations; first Thanksgiving] from Chapter 13. [Indian trade; Squanto’s dealings and death] from Chapter 14. [Socialist Commonwealth > Individualist Capitalism] from Chapter 15. [Self-seeking versus community] from Chapter 19. [Intercolonial trade; “wampum bubble”; Morton & Merry Mount] from Chapter 21. "out of small beginnings" & Chapter 23. "no longer any holding them together"  from Chapter 28. [The Pequot War] from Chapter 32. ["wickedness did grow"] & Chapter 33. ["Thus was this poor church left . . . "]

Instructor's notes and acknowledgements:

• Not a critical or scholarly text but a reading text for a seminar

• Bradford's history, written in the 1620s-1650s, was first published in 1856.

• Gratefully copied and adapted from a variety of internet sources, including Early Americas Digital Archive: http://www.mith2.umd.edu/eada/html/display.php?docs=bradford_history.xml, scanned from the version edited by Samuel Eliot Morison; and the Plymouth Archive Project, University of Illinois-University Circle: http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/bradford.html

• Changes may include paragraph divisions, highlights, modernized spelling, bracketed annotations, & elisions (marked by ellipses . . . )

• I have consulted but not copied the updated version edited by Francis Murphy (Modern Library, 1981)

"Certain Verses" by William Bradford