John Winthrop

John Winthrop (12 January 1587/8–26 March 1649) led a group of Puritans to the New World and joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. He was elected governor of his colony on April 8, 1630. Between 1631 and 1648 he was voted out of governorship and re-elected a total of 12 times. Although Winthrop was a respected political figure, he was criticized for his obstinacy regarding the formation of a general assembly in 1634.

He was born in Edwardstone, England, the son of Adam Winthrop (1548–1623) and his wife, Anne Browne. Winthrop briefly attended Cambridge, then studied law at Gray's Inn, and in the 1620s became an attorney at the Court of Wards in London.

Winthrop was extremely religious and subscribed fervently to the Puritan belief that the Anglican Church had to be cleansed of Catholic ritual. Winthrop was convinced that God would punish England for its heresy, and believed that English Puritans needed a shelter away from England where they could remain safe during the time of God's wrath.

Other Puritans who believed likewise obtained a royal charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company. Charles I of England was apparently unaware that the colony was to be anything other than a commercial venture to America. However, on March 4, 1629, Winthrop signed The Cambridge Agreement with his wealthier Puritan friends, essentially pledging that they would embark on the next voyage and found a new Puritan colony in New England.

Winthrop had been elected governor of the colony prior to departure in 1629 and he was re-elected many times. As governor he was one of the least radical of the Puritans, trying to keep the number of executions for heresy to a minimum and working to prevent the implementation of more conservative practices such as veiling women, which many Puritans supported.

Yet Winthrop's moderation should by no means be taken as a sign that he was a religiously tolerant man. The reality is that like his Puritan brethren, Winthrop strove to establish a Christian community that held uniform doctrinal beliefs. It was for this reason that in 1638 he presided over the heresy trial and banishing of Anne Hutchinson from the colony. During this trial Winthrop referred to Hutchinson as an "American Jezebel."[1] Winthrop also subscribed to the belief that the native peoples who lived in the hinterlands around the colony had been struck down by God, who sent disease among them, because of their non-Christian beliefs: "But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection."[2]

Winthrop is most famous for his "City on a Hill" sermon (as it is known popularly, its real title being A Model of Christian Charity), in which he declared that the Puritan colonists emigrating to the New World were part of a special pact with God to create a holy community. This speech is often seen as a forerunner to the concept of American exceptionalism. The speech is also well known for arguing that the wealthy had a holy duty to look after the poor. Recent history has shown, however, that the speech was not given much attention at the time of its delivery. Rather than coin these concepts, Winthrop was merely repeating what were widely held Puritan beliefs in his day.

Contemporary American politicians, like Ronald Reagan, continue to cite John Winthrop as a source of inspiration. Unfortunately, however, praise of Winthrop fails to note his strident anti-democratic political tendencies. Winthrop stated, for example, "If we should change from a mixed aristocracy to mere democracy, first we should have no warrant in scripture for it: for there was no such government in Israel ... A democracy is, amongst civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government. [To allow it would be] a manifest breach of the 5th Commandment."[3]

It should also be noted that he eventually presided over the slaughter of hundreds of Pequot Indians and the enslavement of many others for export to the Bahamas where they were exchanged for sugar and rum.

The Town of Winthrop, Massachusetts, is named after him, as is Winthrop House at Harvard University, though the house is also named for the John Winthrop who briefly served as President of Harvard.

Family

He married his first wife, Mary Forth, on 16 April 1605 at Great Stambridge, Essex, England. She bore him six children and died in June 1615. He married his second wife, Thomasine Clopton, on 6 December 1615 at Groton, Suffolk, England. She died on 8 December 1616. On 29 April 1618 at Great Maplestead, Essex, England Winthrop married his third wife, Margaret Tyndal, daughter of Sir John Tyndal and his wife Anna Egerton. Margaret Tyndall gave birth to six children in England before the family emigrated to New England (The Governor, three of his sons, and eight servants in 1630 on the Arbella, and his wife on the second voyage of the Lyon in 1631, leaving their small manor behind). One of their daughters died on the Lyon voyage. Two children were born to them in New England. Margaret died on 14 June 1647 in Boston, Massachusetts. Winthrop then married his fourth wife, Martha Rainsborough, widow of Thomas Coytmore, sometime after 20 December 1647 and before the birth of their only child in 1648. He died of natural causes. His son, John Winthrop, the Younger, whose mother was Mary Forth, later became Governor of Connecticut.

See also

• Dudley-Winthrop Family
• Robert Seeley

References

1. Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 299.

2. *The Myth of Thanksgiving

3. R.C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop (Boston, 1869), vol. ii, p. 430.

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