William Bradford: A Primary Source Analysis

A primary source is some sort of documentation that was created at the time that one is studying. For example, when studying the Holocaust, an example of a primary source is Anne Frank’s diary. When people study the Holocaust today, they can read her diary for direct, first-hand information of that time. An excerpt from Treaty with the Indians, William Bradford documents his exact experiences and daily activities, in a journal, from the time when the Pilgrims arrived in North America (1620) to about 1647. Bradford was a leader of the English settlers of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. This is a time that is studied immensely by historians, as it is essentially the beginning of our nation. Therefore, having a journal of someone documenting

Since these were his direct experiences written in a personal journal, I feel like there is no room for intended bias. It is not like he was writing a persuasive essay to try to convince people to believe something about his interactions with the Native Americans. He was simply using his journal to document “early relationships between settlers and Native Americans” (Pomeranz, 83). He is capable of conveying the truth free of these biases and ethnocentricity. Ethnocentricity is when one believes that their own cultural or ethnic group is more superior than another. Never once does he add a derogatory or degrading comment about the Native Americans. In fact, he even calls one of the Native Americas, Squanto, “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation” (Pomeranz, 84). This part of the account brought to light a pivotal encounter for the settlers and native

For example, there is a lack of specific details that people may want to know. One weakness I found with this source is that there seems to be potential of “over simplifying” the events. Overall, this source is not very detail oriented. It is short and to the point, which is great because it provides us with an account of an actual interaction that occurred, but due to the lack of details I still had many questions after reading this, especially during the initial meeting of Squanto when they made peace with him in accordance to six terms. Who initiated the peace? Who wrote each term? Was everything completely mutual? Or was it mostly one sided? Was Squanto scared of the settlers? Were the settlers scared of Squanto? Many of these details were left out in this account. I think a reason for this was because there was no original intended audience. His original personal journal was kept within his family for a century in “Boston’s Old South Meeting House” until the British troops took over the building and the journal was rediscovered in the Bishop of London’s in the 1850s. There is no documentation of him having any intent for this to be