Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation is a journal written by William Bradford between 1630 and 1651 that tells the history of the pilgrims from when they left England in 1608 and settled in the Dutch Republic through the year 1647. The document goes by several names: most commonly it is named Bradford’s History Of Plymouth Plantation but is also been called William Bradford's Journal. The journal was not intended for publication; Bradford wrote that he hoped that "their children may see with what difficulties their fathers wrestled in going through these things in their first beginnings, and how God brought them along notwithstanding all their weaknesses and infirmities”. The document has a dramatic history: it disappeared from the Old South Meeting House in Boston during the Revolutionary War and was lost until discovered in the Bishop of London's library in 1856 and brought back into print. After some years of controversy, the document was returned to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1897 and is now deposited in the State Library of Massachusetts. The Bradford journal is regarded by historians as the preeminent work of 17th century America. Samuel Elliot Morrison wrote that Bradford’s simple, yet vivid account made the pilgrims the "spiritual ancestors of all Americans".

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