William Bradford was a Puritan man born to a Yeoman farmer in Yorkshire. He was not educated formally, but read quite a bit, mainly the Bible. At thirty, he came to Plymouth and signed the Mayflower Compact.
Bradford was the definition of a Puritan, even thinking himself an "instrument" for God, choosing who was to be in his colony, choosing to exile them, and how their paths should go in life. Everything that happened during the trip to Plymouth and when they arrived there was praised to God, even if it was someone being struck down.
"...it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard. Thus his curses light on his own head, and it was an astonishment to all his fellows for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him."
When his men found a stream and a house with corn in it, they did not bat an eye to take it even though it was stealing from the Native Americans.
As for the Native Americans, Bradford referred to them as savages and as cowards. Once they saw the white men, they would run as far as they could.
"...they espied five or six persons with a dog coming towards them, who were savages; but they fled from them and ran up into the woods, and the English followed them, partly to see if they could speak with them, and partly to discover if there might not be more of them lying in ambush. But the Indians seeing themselves thus followed, they again forsook the woods and ran away on the sands as hard as they could..."
Thomas Morton was an Anglican man who mocked the ways of the Puritans. He was arrested twice by Puritans, deported back to England, and acquitted both times and returned. Him and his men erected a maypole and celebrated with drinks, in which Bradford strongly looked down upon.
Morton wanted to raise the spirits of his men, which were thousands of miles away from their families. Bradford, with his Puritan ways, looked down, because with this merriment, it would include drinking and most likely sex.
"...harmless mirth made by young men that lived in hope to have wives brought over to them, that would same them a labor to make a voyage to fetch any over, was much distasted of the precise Separatists: that keep much ado about the tithe of mint and cummin, troubling their brains more than reason would require about things that are indifferent, and from that time sought occasion against my honest Host of Ma-re Mount to overthrow his undertakings, and to destroy his plantation quite and clean."
Then there are the Native Americans, which Morton was able to talk to and observe how they live. He still refers to them as savages but in a much severe form then that of Bradford. He describes how they live and how they share their food with each other.
"...if any one that shall come into their houses, and there fall asleep, when they see him disposed to lie down, they will spread a mat for him, of their own accord, and lay a roll of skins for a bolster, and let him lie. If he sleep until their meat be dished up, they will set a wooden bowl of meat by him that sleepeth, and wake him saying, "Cart up keene Meckin": that is, if you be hungry, there is meat for you, where if you will eat you may. Such is their humanity."
Bradford was into his religion hardcore and thus judging others if they were not the same. Morton on the other hand, had a realistic view of things and gave the Indians a chance.
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