Remembering Dorothy May Bradford's Death and Reframing "Depression" in Colonial New England

In December 1620, Dorothy May Bradford fell off the Mayflower and drowned off the coast of Cape Cod. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, fictional and historical accounts began reporting her death as a suicide, suggesting without any real evidence that she was involved in a love triangle, or that she was not prepared to cope with the harsh realities of colonial life. The narrative of her alleged suicide is so pervasive that even scholars who reject the notion often mention it as a possibility. This essay argues that, in seeking to give Bradford a voice, readers inadvertently erase Bradford's agency, instead creating a caricature of a "Pilgrim" wife and mother. Reframing Bradford's death using the lens of psychohistory forces critics to interrogate the underlying stereotypes about Pilgrim woman- and motherhood that inform speculations about her death, as well as the latent misogyny in accounts that primarily identify colonial women as struggling with mental health issues. This essay explores the limits of analyzing Dorothy Bradford's mental health and challenges us to remember all of Plymouth's colonists as fully realized people, with complex physical and mental health.