Of Plymouth Plantation-William Bradford

During the discovery of the new world, many people came for many different reasons. Some came for the adventure and for the excitement, while others came to get away from Puritanism. Back in England, many people were being confronted by Puritans to conform to their way and go to the Catholic church. That is why many people called "Pilgrims" came to the new world, they came to start over and search for a new religion. They wanted the freedom to choose for themselves and not be forced to go to the Catholic church.

I am fortunate to have been born in this "new world" just later on when it had been more settled. Once they had enough of a community created, they set a couple rules including: not harming the Native Americans, treating each other fair, helping each other in a time of war, and more. This was the start for a free country. Benefits of having their own freedom, the Pilgrims were able to practice their own religions, do whatever they wanted, and not have to pay any taxes (at least for a while). If I were able to go back to that time, I would have claimed lots of land and tended to it and keeping it until later on in the settling of America. The reason being, I could have sold the land to the government and made lots of money considering I got it for free. All of the things I have said have sounded great and not too bad, but reality was many of the Pilgrims didn't have it easy. They had many encounters with different hardships throughout. While on the boats/ships, many of the settlers to the new world had to deal with sea sickness and starvation (Bradford 15). There were only a select few that didn't get sea sickness and one of these was a man who took advantage of his healthiness and antagonized the others. He would say that he wished to throw their bodies overboard one day and that he would be pleasured to not have them (Bradford 15). As it turns out Karma came back to hurt him, as he became terminally ill soon after all of this and died within a month. The people then got to throw his body over as it was the first to go.

Throughout the story I learned about the different hardships the Pilgrims went through and I learned how much people don't realize about the colonization of the new world. Many people think it was a just a breeze and that being a Pilgrim was great because you didn't have to conform to the practices of the Catholic Church, but really it wasn't that way at all. Many people died during this time and I respect them as soldiers as the essentially died for our country. I feel that we should treat them with respect and we do in a way when we celebrate Thanksgiving. It was first celebrated by the Pilgrims, thanking God for their safe travels and essentially everything, but I think that we should also include thanking the Pilgrims on this day.

Bradford, William. "from of Plymouth Plantation". Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009.