William Bradford Quotes

Have we even so much as discovered and settled the shores? Let a man travel on foot along the coastand tell me if it looks like a discovered and settled country, and not rather, for the most part, like a desolate island, and No-Man's Land.

Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.

We were then in a dangerous, helpless situation, exposed daily to perils and death amongst savages and wild beasts, not a white man in the country but ourselves.

This land was our land; it was taken from us illegally …. John Smith did not bring a civilization here. There was already civilization here…. We should have burned the boat and killed them. all.

The American land was more like a widow than a virgin. Europeans did not find a wilderness here; rather, however involuntarily, they made one.

Soon you’ll be whirled along by steam in a country now only inhabited by wild beasts and Indians

Since (by the good providence of God) a country in America is fallen to my lot, I thought it not less my duty than my honest interest to give some public notice of it to the world, that those of our own, or other nations, that are inclined to transport themselves or families beyond the seas, may find another country added to their choice

We Beate the Savages outt of the Island burned their howses Ransaked their Temple Tooke down the Corpes of their deade kings from out of their Toambes And caryed away their pearles.... The Salvages still contineweinge their mallice Ageinste us.

Civilization or death to all American savages!

I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.

empty and closed, hovering in some frozen netherworld neither sun nor rain could thaw.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution.

If you study my paintings, there are no signs of human life.

There is in every American, I think, something of the old Daniel Boone - who, when he could see the smoke from another chimney, felt himself too crowded and moved further out into the wilderness.

One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like.

God drove Cain out of his presence and sent him into exile far away from his native land, so that he passed from a life of human kindness to one which was more akin to the rude existence of a wild beast.

The lands granted were in the occupancy of savages and situated in a wilderness, of which the government had never taken possession, and of which it could not with its own citizens ever have taken possession.

Eight and twenty canoes, full of men, women and children seemingly very glad of our coming …. The people of the country came aboard of us and making show of love, and gave us tobacco and Indian wheat, and departed for that night; but we durst not trust them.

…if you suffer the Englishmen to dwell in your midst, their diseases and poisons shall destroy you utterly and you shall die.

If not for patriotism, barren lands would be deserted.

Treaties were expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people were induced without bloodshed to yield up what civilized peoples had a right to possess.

Many men of excellent wits and of divers singular gifts, overthrown by ... by some folly of youth, that are not able to live in England, may there be raised again, and do their country good service; and many needful uses there may (to great purpose) require the saving of great numbers, that for trifles may otherwise be devoured by the gallows. Many soldiers and servitors, in the end of the wars, that might be hurtful to this realm, may there be unladen, to the common profit and quiet of this realm, and to our foreign benefi there, as they may be employed. The frye [children] of the wandering beggars of England, that grow up idly, and hurteful and burdenous to this realm, may there be unladen, better bred up, and may people waste countries to the home and foreign benefit, and to their own more happy state.

Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.

The causes of their [Indians’] degradation and diminution, are principally to be found in their baneful communication with the man of Europe, which has contaminated their morals, destroyed their population, robbed them of their country, and deprived them of their national spirit. Indeed, when we consider, that the discovery and settlement of America, have exterminated millions of the red men, and entailed upon the sable inhabitants of Africa, endless and destructive wars, captivity, slavery and death, we have reason to shudder at the gloomy perspective