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John Winthrop
John Winthrop (12 January 1587/8 – 26 March 1649) led a group of English Puritans to the New World, joined the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629 and was elected their governor in October 1629. Between 1639 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.
BiographyWinthrop was born in Edwardstone, Suffolk, England, the son of Adam Winthrop (1548–1623) and his wife, Anne Browne. Winthrop briefly attended Trinity College, Cambridge, then studied law at Gray's Inn, and in the 1620s became a lawyer 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. The colony's land was taken from Native Americans with Winthrop's excuse that the natives hadn't "subdued" the land and thus had no "civil right" to it.[1] 
1629 site of Winthrop's first home in Massachusetts, "The Great House" in City Square Park in Charlestown, Massachusetts across the Charles River from Boston 
1630 Site of Winthrop's first home in Boston on State Street 
Winthrop Building, site of Winthrop's final mansion house in Boston Claims to inheritance were presented to the royal court in London by the father Abraham Johnson a Sherriff of the Queen (Rutland, North of Nottingham). Isaac Johnson was buried with his wife the Lady Arbella of Lincolnshire on his land, now called King's Chapel, on Tremont Street, Boston. A reference is made to Isaac Johnson in the first chapter of the book "A Scarlet Letter". Winthrop endangered his servants for the purpose of running his enterprises and docks; "they had not clean water and many died before Winthrop was urged to move to Boston". Winthrop saw to the hanging of Mary Latham and James Britton in 1644, both found in adultery, but he also admitted to an encounter with an Indian woman at an abandoned settlement not far from his home. Many men searched for him all night only for him to be found not far from home with a very strange story to excuse himself with. John 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. 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."[3] 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 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."[4] Family
Winthrop's Tomb in King's Chapel Burying Ground LegacyWinthrop 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. 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 and President George Bush. See also
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