Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

John Winthrop

 

John Winthrop, detail of an oil painting, school of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1625 – 49; …
(click to enlarge)
John Winthrop, detail of an oil painting, school of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1625 – 49; … (credit: Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.)
(born Jan. 22, 1588, Edwardstone, Suffolk, Eng. — died April 5, 1649, Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony) American colonial political leader, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1629 he joined the Massachusetts Bay Co., and he was elected governor of the colony that was to be established by the company in New England. An ardent Puritan, he envisioned a colony based on his religious beliefs. He guided the colonists on his arrival in North America in 1630 and was elected governor 12 times during the period from 1631 to 1648. Though widely respected, he was criticized for opposing the formation of a representative assembly (1634), and the colony's limitations on religious freedom were decried by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. His son, John Winthrop (1606 – 76), was an influential governor of Connecticut (1659 – 76).

For more information on John Winthrop, visit Britannica.com.

Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
US Military Dictionary: John Winthrop
Top

Winthrop, John (1638-1707) colonial military leader and governor. Born the son of the governor of Connecticut, John Winthrop was also known as Fitz or Fitz-John. He reached the rank of captain in the English Army and helped restore King Charles II in 1660. Back in the colonies, he led militia on Long Island during the third Anglo-Dutch War (1673-1674), and in 1687 was appointed major general in charge of the combined militias of Connecticut and Massachusetts. During King William's War in 1690 he led a colonial-Indian force from Albany in an unsuccessful campaign into Canada. In 1698 he was elected governor of Connecticut, a position he held until his death in Boston nine years later.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Biography: John Winthrop
Top

John Winthrop (1588-1649) was an American colonial political leader and historian. He was a very effective governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his journal constitutes an important historical record.

John Winthrop was the dominant figure in the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His actions and ideas gave the Puritan colony much of its essential character. He had close dealings with other important Puritan leaders, such as John Cotton, minister of the church to which he belonged, and Roger Williams, with whom he disagreed.

Winthrop was born on Jan. 22, 1588, near the family seat at Groton in Suffolk County, England. He was the only son of a prosperous landowner, Adam Winthrop. After an education near home, John was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1602; he studied there less than two years. At the age of 17, by family arrangement, he was married to Mary Forth. Sometime during his early years Winthrop had a religious experience. He adopted a zealous Puritanism as a result, although he decided not to enter the ministry.

Winthrop's wife produced six children before she died in 1615. He remarried but his wife died a year later. In 1618 he married Margaret Tyndale, and their relationship is one of the most attractive in history. During these years Winthrop devoted himself to the tasks of a country landholder and also to the study of law; he was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1613 for legal studies. In 1617 he was made a justice of the peace in Suffolk, where he lived at Great Stambridge on dowry lands. In 1627 he was appointed attorney in the Court of Wards and Liveries. But Winthrop found several sources of dissatisfaction. The government's religious and political policies and his unprosperous personal circumstances led to a concern to provide for his sons.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

In 1629 Winthrop agreed to go to America with the Massachusetts Bay Company, and in October, after a decision had been reached to put the government of the colony in the hands of resident leaders, he was elected governor. He was involved in all of the elaborate financial arrangements and preparation of supplies, and in April 1630 he sailed on the Arbella, one of the four ships that brought 400 Puritan men, women, and children to America. Under his direction the colonists settled in the area around the Charles River. Despite courageous and able leadership, 200 colonists died during the first winter, and 80 returned home in the spring. Among the earliest deaths was that of Winthrop's son Henry. Because of the discouragement that resulted among the colony's backers, Winthrop was obliged to invest increasing amounts of his money to provide supplies. The rest of his family did not arrive until the fall of 1631, by which time the colony was solidly established.

Winthrop provided a rationale for the colony in a sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity," which he delivered on the Arbella. Here he argued for the creation of a community covenanted with God, and "a due form of government civil and ecclesiastical." The colony was to be "as a city upon a hill" for all to observe. The key provision was that full citizenship in the colony was to be available only to church members. The churches first established adopted a congregational polity, and thenceforth only congregational churches were permitted. The government took great authority unto itself, though it was based on a principle of representative government. Though in 1634 the citizens elected Thomas Dudley as the colony's governor, Winthrop continued to be the most influential man in the colony.

In 1630 Winthrop had begun keeping a diary, which he continued to the year of his death. It is a dry, cold, and impersonal document in style, but it is of immense interest because of its contents. He referred to it as a journal, though it has been called The History of New England. In it he reports nearly all important events of the day; he also offers profound insights into the essential nature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Religious Controversies

Among the problems that Winthrop and the colony had to deal with was the highly individualistic Roger Williams. The separatist religious tendencies that Williams had demonstrated in Salem (he urged the church there to renounce the other churches of the colony) led to his being banished. But Winthrop, who recognized that Williams's views were potentially destructive to the colony he had helped create, also recognized the virtues of the man and maintained a friendship with him.

Winthrop was much less sympathetic to another member of the church in Boston, Anne Hutchinson. She had arrived in Massachusetts in 1634 to enjoy the preaching of the Reverend John Cotton, whom she had admired in England. As early as 1636 Winthrop began to record a list of the theological errors that she was teaching in weekly meetings. Her fundamental teaching was that "the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person," in a person called to eternal salvation, and that the presence of the indwelling spirit, not good works, was the evidence that one was of the elect. This antinomianism undercut the Puritan emphasis on the Bible as interpreted by learned ministers, and Mrs. Hutchinson went so far as to declare that only two ministers in the colony, Cotton and John Wheelwright, were among the elect.

At this time, 1636, Winthrop was not governor; the man who held the post was Henry Vane, also a member of Cotton's church and an admirer of Mrs. Hutchinson. Many of the other members of the church also admired her, but she and her views were much less popular outside Boston. Eventually Winthrop was reelected governor, replacing Vane, and Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson were banished. Though Winthrop had been in the minority in his church, his position once more triumphed. In both the Williams episode and the antinomian controversy Winthrop's role was to create unity within the colony, unity necessary for survival.

Winthrop's governorship was intermittent (he served 1630-1633, 1637-1639, 1642, 1646-1648). The General Court recognized his services in 1637 by granting him substantial acreage in Concord. Unfortunately his incapable overseer brought Winthrop deeply into debt. When he put up his Boston house and much of his land for sale, the colony gave him gifts of land and money.

Political Spokesman

The Puritan Revolution in England in the early 1640s led many American colonists to feel a sense of responsibility to their mother country. Some of Winthrop's friends urged his return. But Winthrop felt that it was his duty to remain in Massachusetts. When Dr. Robert Child announced that he was asking Parliament to reduce the colony's independence and abolish the right to limit the vote to church members, Child was promptly fined for contempt, and Winthrop announced that the colony recognized no appeal to higher authority.

One of Winthrop's most important roles in the life of the colony was his spokesmanship for its political position; he sometimes created public policy as well. In July 1645 he delivered a speech to the General Court in which he defined two kinds of liberty: natural (liberty to do as one wishes, "evil as well as good," a liberty that should be restrained) and civil (liberty to do good). It is only the latter, according to Winthrop, that is "the proper end and object of authority." In other words, it is the duty of government to stop corruption and to promote justice, not to promote the general welfare.

Winthrop died on March 26, 1649. Although circumstances in time changed the nature of the colony, many of the features of the New England way he had established remained. He more than anyone else gave the colony its distinctive character, and he was largely responsible for the flourishing state of its 15,000 inhabitants at the time of his death. Of his several children, the most notable was John, who became governor of the colony of Connecticut.

Further Reading

The best edition of Winthrop's journal, The History of New England, 1630-1649, is that of James Savage (2 vols., 1825-1826; rev. ed. 1853). The Massachusetts Historical Society's Winthrop Papers (5 vols., 1929-1947) is also of great value. Other important sources are Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop (1864-1867), and the splendid biography by Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (1958). A valuable discussion of Winthrop in relation to Boston's growth is Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop's Boston: A Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649 (1965).

British History: John Winthrop
Top

Winthrop, John (1588-1649). Governor of Massachusetts. Of a prosperous Suffolk clothier's family, Winthrop went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and then studied law at Gray's Inn. In 1630 he left for America with a group of Puritan families, having been elected governor of the tiny colony of Massachusetts, which had then no more than 700 settlers. Winthrop was governor until 1634, and then 1637-40, 1642-4, and 1645-9. He was involved in all the religious disputes of the day, gradually adopting a more austere line towards dissent.

US History Companion: Winthrop, John
Top

(1588-1649), founding governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop's contribution to the Puritan adventure in British North America would appear self-evident. He was governor of the Bay Colony almost continuously from 1630 to 1649, and in the interim years he also exerted a powerful influence over colonial affairs as a member of the Council of Assistants. Dedicating his personal funds as well as his administrative talents, Winthrop conscientiously advanced the Puritan standard of "nursing father" to the emergent wilderness theocracy.

He symbolizes the ambiguity of the Puritan mystique at the root of American national identity. Consider the importance ascribed to Winthrop's famous sermon, "The Modell of Christian Charity," which he wrote and possibly delivered on board the flagship Arbella when the Puritans were en route to America. More than the formulaic admonition that was customarily preached to shipmates at the launching of transatlantic voyages, it was the moral code for a godly society that Winthrop hoped would serve as a model for a reformed England. In later generations his prediction that "wee shall bee as a Citty upon a hill, the eyes of all people ... upon us" evoked a self-conscious ideal against which the themes of each day were measured. Still later, the image would become a republican symbol of American exceptionalism and world mission, and ultimately an ideological touchstone for imperial diplomacy in the twentieth century.

Winthrop was a third-generation son of English landed gentry, whose religious aspirations were focused on the advancement of the Protestant Reformation in England and continental Europe. His migration to Massachusetts Bay was in response to "corruptions" he perceived in English society at a time when the Puritans were threatened with persecution as well as an unpromising economic future. His life and writings reveal a man caught in the broad overlap of the late medieval and early modern eras. His Journal is both an excellent source for early Massachusetts history and the chronicle of his personal efforts to secure the commonwealth as a gentry-dominated oligarchy.

Winthrop regarded the governorship as his lifetime position. But several defeats in colonial elections revealed a significant opposition to his arbitrary methods. His political ideal presupposed an interdependent community wherein all members had a prescribed place and function in the social hierarchy. Despite his legal training at the Inns of Court, he opposed the movement to curtail magistrates' authority by enacting a code of laws. Instead, he consistently defended discretionary rule and the magisterial veto over the resistance of the town deputies. In a famous speech to the General Court in 1645 he distinguished civil from natural liberty as that which "is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority."

Winthrop's imperious treatment of dissenters may also be seen in the context of premodern social ideals that defined the religious mission of Massachusetts Bay Colony. To achieve a Puritan utopia, Winthrop and his colleagues committed themselves to a policy of intolerance. He played a leading role in prosecuting Anne Hutchinson and her supporters during the antinomian controversy (1636-1638); in ordering the capture of Rhode Island radical Samuel Gorton and his company at Shawomet to be tried and sentenced at Boston (1643); and in subduing the "Presbyterians" William Vassal, Robert Child, and Samuel Maverick for their "Remonstrance and Humble Petition" (1646), which called for a more liberal church membership policy. In each case, the possibility of English interference threatened the goals of Winthrop's godly society.

England accepted a limited toleration in the 1640s, but Massachusetts continued to punish dissenters, thus isolating itself from the mainstream of political culture abroad. Then, too, Boston's development into a seaport town was a process that made Winthrop's medieval standard of social relations anachronistic by the final decade of his life. Ironically, it was this transformation that refurbished Winthrop's "Citty upon a hill" imagery as an American emblem, one that related the themes of progress and declension in popular rhetoric.

Bibliography:

Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (1958); Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop's Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649 (1965).

Author:

Barbara Ritter Dailey

See also New England Colonies; Puritanism.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: John Winthrop
Top
Winthrop, John, 1588-1649, governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, b. Edwardstone, near Groton, Suffolk, England. Of a landowning family, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, came into a family fortune, and became a government administrator with strong Puritan leanings. A member of the Massachusetts Bay Company, he led the group that arranged for the removal of the company's government to New England and was chosen (1629) governor of the proposed colony. He arrived (1630) in the ship Arbella at Salem and shortly founded on Shawmut peninsula the settlement that became Boston. He was-with the possible exception of John Cotton-the most distinguished citizen of Massachusetts Bay colony, serving as governor some 12 times. He helped to shape the theocratic policy of the colony and opposed broad democracy. It was while he was deputy governor and Sir Henry Vane (1613-62) was governor that Winthrop bitterly and successfully opposed the antinomian beliefs of Anne Hutchinson and her followers, who were supported by Vane. The force of his influence on the history of Massachusetts was enormous. Winthrop's journal, which was edited by J. K. Hosmer and published in 1908 as The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 is one of the most valuable of American historical sources.

Bibliography

See The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649 (1996), abridged ed. by R. S. Dunn and L. Yeandle; R. C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop (2 vol., 1864-67; repr. 1971); Winthrop Papers (5 vol., 1929-47); biographies by J. H. Twichell (1892), E. S. Morgan (1958), G. R. Raymer (1963), and F. J. Bremer (2003); R. S. Dunn, Puritans and Yankees (1962, repr. 1971).

Works: Works by John Winthrop
Top
(1588-1649)

1630"A Modell of Christian Charity." Delivered on his way to America, this sermon asserts Winthrop's plan for the colony and warns the colonists of what might lie ahead. Winthrop also begins his most famous work, his Journal, which he would continue until his death. A vital record of activities in the colonies, the Journal, along with William Bradford's History of Plimmoth Plantation, would come to be valued as the most significant secular prose writing of early New England. The first two parts would be published in 1790, and the complete work would appear as The History of New England in 1825-1826.
1639The Wicked Capitalism of Robert Keayne. A rebuke of merchant Robert Keayne for his sharp business practices in Boston. Keayne is soundly attacked for overcharging in the Massachusetts Bay colony at a time when the colonists believe that this practice violates their covenant with God.
1644Arbitrary Government. Winthrop's discourse supports the absolute power of the Puritan government. It so inflames his constituents that he is impeached as governor. Nonetheless, he would avoid conviction by delivering a rousing speech on liberty and would be reelected governor annually until his death in 1649.
1644Antinomians and Familists Condemned by the Synod of elders in New England. Better known by the title of its second edition, A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians..., Winthrop's only historical book published during his lifetime is a collection of materials related to the Antinomian controversy and a defense of his banishment of Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) from Massachusetts.
1645On Liberty. Winthrop discusses the political liberties demanded by the colonists when challenged by the magistrates. In the same year Winthrop publishes A Declaration of Former Passages and Proceedings Betwixt the English and the Narrowgansets, a pamphlet expressing his concern that the colonists would soon have to punish the Rhode Island Indians at war with the Mohegans.
1761Relation of the Voyage from Boston to Newfoundland for the Observation of the Transit of Venus. Winthrop records his experiences on the first scientific expedition sponsored by a colonial college or government (Harvard and Massachusetts) to observe the parallax of the sun.
1790A Journal of the Transactions and Occurrences in the Settlement of Massachusetts and the Other New England Colonies from the Year 1630 to 1644. The first publication of Winthrop's journal, a major primary source of New England history, including documentation of political, social, and religious life in the Massachusetts Bay colony.
1825A History of New England from 1630-1649. An expanded version of Winthrop's Journal (1790) after his third notebook is found in the tower of Boston's Old South Church. The manuscript had been edited by James Savage, who publishes the complete journal with corrections and modernized spellings.

History Dictionary: Winthrop, John
Top

A Puritan political leader of the seventeenth century, born in England. Winthrop was sent to America as the first governor of Massachusetts. He compared the colony to “a city upon a hill,” suggesting that it would be a model for all nations.

Quotes By: John Winthrop
Top

Quotes:

"For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

"For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Soe that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."

Wikipedia: John Winthrop
Top
John Winthrop


In office
1630 – 1634
1637–1640
1642–1644
1646–1649
Preceded by John Endecott (1630)
Henry Vane (1637)
Richard Bellingham (1642)
Thomas Dudley (1646)
Succeeded by Thomas Dudley (1634 & 1640)
John Endecott (1644 & 1649)

Born January 12, 1587 or 1588
Edwardstone, Suffolk, England
Died March 26, 1649 (aged 62 or 63)
Boston, Massachusetts
Profession Lawyer, Governor
Religion Puritanism
Signature
Winthrop's Tomb in King's Chapel Burying Ground

John Winthrop (12 January 1587/8 – 26 March 1649 obtained a royal charter, along with other wealthy Puritans, from King Charles for the Massachusetts Bay Company and led a group of English Puritans to the New World in 1630. [1]. He was elected the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony the year before. Between 1639 and 1648, he was voted out of the governorship and then 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, and he clashed repeatedly with other Puritan leaders like Thomas Dudley, Rev. Peter Hobart and others.

Contents

Family

Winthrop married his first wife, Mary Forth, on 16 April 1605 at Great Stambridge, Essex, England. Mary bore him six children; the oldest son of that marriage was Winthrop, the Younger, a future governor/magistrate of Connecticut. Mary died in June 1615. Winthrop (elder) married his second wife, Thomasine Clopton, on 6 December 1615 at Groton, Suffolk, England. Thomasine died on 8 December 1616. On 29 April 1618 at Great Maplestead, Essex, England, Winthrop married his third wife, Margaret Tyndal. In the Spring of 1630, Winthrop (elder) led a fleet of eleven vessels and 700 passengers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the New World, sailing aboard the Arbella and accompanied by his two young sons, Stephen (12) and Samuel (4). [2]. Winthrop's wife, Margaret, sailed on the second voyage of the Lyon in 1631[3], leaving their small manor behind. Their baby daughter, Anne, died on the Lyon voyage[4]. Two more children were born to them in New England. Margaret died on 14 June 1647 in Boston, Massachusetts. Winthrop (elder) then married his fourth wife, Martha Rainsborough, widow of Thomas Coytmore and sister of the famous Levellers Thomas and William Rainborowe, sometime after 20 December 1647 and before the birth of their only child in 1648, he died of natural causes.

Literature

Though rarely published and relatively unappreciated for his literary contribution during his time, Winthrop spent his life continually producing written accounts of historical events and religious manifestations. Literary scholars and historians often turn to two works in particular for analytical inspection. Winthrop’s 1630 A Modell of Christian Charity and The Journal of John Winthrop are considered to be his most profound contributions to the literary world.

John Winthrop wrote and delivered the sermon that would be called A Modell of Christian Charity en route to America with a group of puritans in the year 1630. It described the ideas and plans to keep the puritan society strong in faith as well as the struggles that they would have to overcome in the New World.

At the start of his sermon he points out three objectives for a healthy puritan life. The first stated that there is a need for differences to arise within the people of a community for it to survive. Secondly, he made was that everyday activities should bring about spiritual resonance within the community, keeping the faith strong between the puritans and to keep the structure of the lives they have built for each other. The final point that Winthrop made was that each member of the puritan community shouldn’t hold themselves higher than others for the reason that equality breed’s kindness within the community. It shows that everyone is part of the larger community of Christ and shouldn’t take too much pride in their own personal identities.

As most of the puritans came from wealthy and business backgrounds Winthrop wasn’t partial to wealthy patrons of the church. In fact, he didn’t see them as inferior but as a crucial part to the puritan society. Later in his sermon he stated that wealth and love share a correlation. He argues that a certain amount of wealth is needed in order for one to love his or her neighbor as well as the community. Additionally, there is an obvious theme of love that surrounds A Modell of Christian Charity. Winthrop shows this with his talk of sacrifices for the greater good even if it isn’t beneficial to one’s self. Love is also shown with the work one does in the community, with efforts to keep the puritan society alive and working as a perfect model of charity between Christians in a New World.

From 1630 to 1649 John Winthrop, was the first governor of Massachusetts. During this time, he kept an ongoing journal of his life and experiences in colonial era New England. Written in three volumes or, notebooks, his account remains the "prime source for the history of the Bay Colony from 1630 to 1649" (Dunn 186). This journal is the first major work by Winthrop.

The first two volumes of Winthrop's journal were published in 1790, however, the third volume was lost and not recovered until 1816. In 1825 all three volumes were published together for the first time under the name The History of New England from 1630-1649. By John Winthrop, Esq. First Governor of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay. From his Original Manuscripts. (Dunn 187)

According to Richard Dunn, Winthrop began by keeping a daily journal in 1630, then recorded entries less frequently and regularly and wrote them up at a greater length, so that by the 1640's he had converted his work into a form of history" (Dunn 186). What started as a simple journal would later turn into a first-hand account of early colonial life. Upon his arrival in New England in 1630, Winthrop writes primarily of his private accounts: i.e. his journey from England, the arrival of his wife and children to the colony in 1631, and the birth of his son in 1632 (Dunn 197). The majority of his early journal entries were not intended to be literary, but merely observations of early New England life.

Gradually, the focus of his writings shifts from his personal observations to broader spiritual ideologies. Evidence of this can be found in the second half of his first notebook, mainly between the years of 1634 and 1637 when Winthrop was no longer in office. It is his later writings for which he is remembered.

In addition to his more famous works, Winthrop produced a plethora of writings, both published and unpublished. While living in England, Winthrop articulated his belief “in the validity of experience in his work “Experiencia” (Bremer). Later in his life, Winthrop wrote “A Short Story of the rise, reign, and ruine of the Antinomians, Familists and Libertines, that Infected the Churches of New England,” accounting for the Antinomian controversy surrounding Anne Hutchinson in the colony. The Short Story which was first published in London: 1644 (Schweninger). Both works further illustrate puritan religious philosophy with regards to political and social events during the seventeenth century.

The legacy of Winthrop’s literature is evident in American compositions following his death. “William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation (unpublished until 1856), Edward Johnson 's Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England (1654), Cotton Mather 's Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), and Winthrop's Journal were efforts both to discern the divine pattern in events and to justify the role New Englanders believed themselves called to play” (Bremer).


Legacy

Winthrop is most famous for his "City upon 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 coining these concepts, Winthrop was merely repeating what were widely held Puritan beliefs in his day. The work was not actually published until the nineteenth century, although it was known and circulated in manuscript before that time. Winthrop did publish The Humble Request of His Majesties Loyal Subjects (London, 1630), which defended the emigrants’ physical separation from England and reaffirmed their loyalty to the Crown and Church of England. This work was republished by Joshua Scottow in the 1696 compilation MASSACHUSETTS: or The first Planters of New-England, The End and Manner of their coming thither, and Abode there: In several EPISTLES.

Modern American politicians, like Ronald Reagan, continue to cite Winthrop as a source of inspiration. However, those who praise Winthrop fail 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."[5]

Winthrop was not governor at the outset of the Pequot war and bore only an indirect responsibility for its outcome. The decision to sell the survivors as slaves in the Bahamas was a societal response and not a personal choice.[citation needed]

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.

Winthrop is also briefly immortalized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter in the chapter entitled "The Minister's Vigil."[6]

John Winthrop's descendants number thousands today, including current U.S. Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Vowell, Sarah. The Wordy Shipmates. New York: Penguin, 2008. p.73.
  2. ^ BOYER, CARL, 3RD, editor Ship Passenger Lists, National and New England (1600-1825). Newhall, Calif.: the editor, 1977. 270p. 4th pr. 1985. Reprint. Family Line Publications, Westminster, MD, 1992
  3. ^ ibid
  4. ^ ibid
  5. ^ R.C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop (Boston, 1869), vol. ii, p. 430.
  6. ^ Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Portable Hawthorne. Ed. William C. Spengemann. New York: Penguin, 2005.
  7. ^ Vowell, Sarah. The Wordy Shipmates. Riverhead Books: New York, 2008. p. 224.

References

  • Bremer, Francis J. "John Winthrop." American Historians, 1607-1865. Ed. Clyde Norman Wilson. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 30. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Longwood University. 4 Nov. 2009.
  • Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 299
  • Reich, Jerome R. Colonial America. 5th ed. Ed. Charlyce J. Owen and Edie Riker. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001.
  • Schweninger, Lee. "'In Response to the Antinomian Controversy,' 'The Journal: A New Literature for a New World,' and 'Cheerful Submission to Authority: Miscellaneous and Later Writings'." John Winthrop. Ed. Barbara Sutton Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990. 47-66
  • The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr., 1984), pp. 186-212.
  • Winthrop, R.C. Life and Letters of John Winthrop (Boston, 1869), vol. ii, p. 430.
  • Wood, Andrew. "Summary of John Winthrop's "Modell of Christian Charity.

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
John Endecott
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1630–1633
Succeeded by
Thomas Dudley
Preceded by
Henry Vane
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1637–1639
Succeeded by
Thomas Dudley
Preceded by
Richard Bellingham
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1642–1643
Succeeded by
John Endecott
Preceded by
Thomas Dudley
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1646–1648
Succeeded by
John Endecott

 
 
Learn More
Winthrop
Roger Wolcott (literature)
John Winthrop (1638–1707, colonial governor of Connecticut)

What colony was john winthrop associated? Read answer...
What are ten facts about john winthrop? Read answer...
Who was John Winthrop a leader of? Read answer...

Help us answer these
Who replaced john winthrop?
Was John Winthrop a onservative?
What was John winthrop settlement called?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
US History Companion. The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "John Winthrop" Read more