Metropolitan Library System

ow did America begin? That simple question launches the acclaimed author of In the Hurricane's Eye and Valiant Ambition on an extraordinary journey to understand the truth behind our most sacred national myth: the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony.

William shivered and his teeth chattered. Out on the water it was bone-chillingly cold. He could no longer feel his toes, and the spray splashing over the side of the shallop left a glaze of ice on his jacket. If the cold kept up much longer, William feared that the weather might accomplish what the Indians had tried to do—kill them all.

Growing up in a small town in England, William Bradford lived during a time of upheaval and opportunity.

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