He wrote a JOURNAL for the family - all in one book. When it was finally found in the late 1800's (in the private library of the Bishop of London) and brought back to Plymouth - it was printed, as Bradford wrote it. (The original is in the Plymouth Hall Museum) I have one of late 1800's edition, titled: "The Bradford History".
Gradually, it became 'lost' again, in that it was out of print for another 50 years or so. It was republished in 1952 and has been in print ever since, available from many sources, including Amazon, both in hard and paperback.
This book IS the source...along with the first book that Bradford and Winslow wrote and sent back to England that first spring to be published as "Mourt's Relations" -
As a descendant of Governor Bradford (7th great-great granddaughter) and many others from the Mayflower, I have spent decades researching their remarkable adventure - and as a writer, have published articles for decades, trying to separate fact from fiction about them. The hardest to educate is the educators. Even this year, magazine, newspaper and TV articles proclaim that they very likely did NOT have turkey that first Thanksgiving - and there are certainly no records of it.
Duh. Only in Bradford's own eye witness account, for one. He wrote about the men going out and getting plentiful fowl, "including wilde turkey" of which they took many.
Now a great grandmother, I had all but given up on the true story of original Pilgrims being told. But I was mighty surprised this week to watch, on the History Channel, an amazingly faithful movie: "Desperate Crossing" - Top notch production, photography, casting. And it follows Bradford's Journal as faithfully as I have ever seen a movie stick to a book. They use the Bradford character as narrator - telling his story, as he wrote it.
If you want the most faithful example yet done of that hardy band of people who, unlike those before and after them, came to this new land in search of a place to live in freedom - not for riches or power - this docudrama is it.
If you want to see a group that felt no compunction to 'convert the heathen savages' but valued them as friends and allies, even admired them, this is the one to see.
It will be shown tomorrow on the History Channel - in my area from 8 in the morning to 11. "Check your local listings" (The DVD can be purchased on the History Channel website.)