John Winthrop

English Puritan and lawyer John Winthrop was a founding member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Appointed as the colony’s first governor in 1629, Winthrop proclaimed that this godly community would be a “city upon a hill” for other nations to admire. Serving twelve non-consecutive terms as governor, he guided the commonwealth in its foundational years. The government he formed was inseparable from Puritan values. Although Winthrop and his fellow Puritans had fled religious persecution in Britain, they did not tolerate dissent in the new commonwealth, which banished anyone who challenged religious authority.

As colonists expanded their settlements on Indigenous lands, Winthrop declared war against the Pequot tribe. Following the massacre of Pequot people in 1637, he proclaimed victory and declared a public day of thanksgiving. Indigenous prisoners of war were traded for goods or enslaved by colonists, with Winthrop owning at least one.