Category: John Winthrop

Both John Winthrop and Anne Bradstreet were both writers and settlers in the first colonies of America. While they both wrote about their lives in America, as well as basic principles of Protestantism, their writing differs in purpose specifically on the topic of death. John Winthrop’s speech to the first settlers aboard the Arbella is modeled after how they cannot die in the New World despite any obstacles that could be thrown at them. Anne Bradstreet who wrote many years after the colonies had settled, wrote about how her life will be much better after she dies and hopefully goes to heaven. Both writers still feature basic Protestant values in their writings, but how the two handle the subject of death varies entirely.

In Winthrop’s and Bradstreet’s writing, there is a clear discrepancy on how the two handle death. John Winthrop and other members aboard the Arbella believed that they were “The Elect,” a special group of people who were sent personally by God to the New World. In John Winthrop’s speech, he conveys to the people aboard the ship that their colony must survive, and never in his speech does he mention how their lives will be better once they die if you are predetermined to go to heaven, which is a principle ideology of Protestantism. While John Winthrop neglects the idea of life after death, he does this on purpose in order to motivate he is delivering his speech to. “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 by-word through this world” (Model of Christianity 9).Winthrop declares that no matter what, they need to survive to establish this colony. Winthrop writes that he and the other Puritans aboard the ship cannot fail God because if they do God will disown them and they will not be able to go to heaven, which is contrary to other Protestant values, especially compared to Bradstreet’s writing. Thirty years later Anne Bradstreet writes on the brevity of life and that if you die and believe that you are a part of the positive side of predetermination, you will leave behind your life and start a better life in heaven. “That fearful sound of ‘fire’ and ‘fire,’ Let know man know is my Desire” (Verses upon the Burning of our House). Bradstreet writes of secretly wanting to die and hoping that she is predetermined to go to Heaven. In the poem, she conveys that if she is to die in a house fire, she knows that this is God’s doing and she believes that it is her time to go to heaven. The contrast between the idea of death is entirely different between the two authors. Winthrop’s ideas of having to survive once the colony has been established and looks to stay there for a long period of time. Once that there is no need to motivate the people to live, this idea seemed to disappear in favor of dying to live a better life.

Bradstreet and Winthrop both believe in the basic principle of establishing a family. Winthrop mentions that it is essential to provide for your family because it supports his speech to motivate the members aboard the Arbella. “A man must lay up for posterity, the fathers lay up for posterity and children, and he is worse than an infidel that provideth not for his own” (Model of Christian Charity 3). Winthrop expects that the passengers aboard the Arbella to start their families and to stay with their children and make sure that they can survive into adulthood. This view seems to be rather intense, but the message remains clear that the people aboard the Arbella dedicate themselves to establishing this colony. Bradstreet, on the other hand, continues to think of life after death and hopes that the man who she has married will stay with her even after she dies. “Then while we live, in love let’s so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever” (To My Dear and Loving Husband). Bradstreet, who is living in the colony at this point during her writing career, has established her family and is now able to look forward to what her life will be like with her family after death. Similar to Winthrop, Bradstreet also values a strong commitment to family.

On July 3, 1645 Governor John Winthrop gave a speech to the Massachusetts Legislature. This speech explained the Puritans conception of freedom. This primary source expressed the ideas of John Winthrop between the two kinds of liberty. John Winthrop strongly believed there was two kinds of liberty which he explains within his speech. John Winthrop’s speech intended to clarify the questions about liberty which had troubled the country. In New England the early settlers were mostly Puritans. Puritans also known as English Protestants, which believed the Church of England held on to too many elements of Catholicism. Puritans traveled to America in search of liberty. Puritans mostly searched for the right to govern themselves and worship. John Winthrop explained the difference between “Natural” liberty and “Moral” liberty.

Winthrop describes natural liberty as acting without restraint, “liberty to do evil”. Moral liberty is described as following God’s law and the law of rulers, “liberty to do only good”. Winthrop’s opinion between natural and moral liberty has been used by other religious groups who were afraid that Americans were becoming immoral and selfish. Important questions about the authority of the magistrates and liberty of the people troubled the country. Winthrop believed that we all receive our authority from God. The covenant between the people and the magistrates is the oath individuals have taken, agreeing that the magistrates will govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God’s laws and their own. Winthrop possessed his beliefs about natural and moral liberty because he believed that individuals granted with natural liberty had the liberty to do evil.

Winthrop believed natural liberty was the same as our nature which he felt was now corrupt. He believed natural liberty was inconsistent and incompatible with authority. He believed exercising this liberty causes men to grow more evil, soon to be worse than brute beasts. He believed moral liberty was good, just, and honest. This liberty if maintained, he believed it was the same kind of liberty in which Christ had made them free. This primary source revealed a lot about their society in 1645. It revealed that their society wanted to live by the word of God. Their society wanted to live by the same liberty that Christ granted them with. The society believed natural liberty was the liberty to do evil. The society wanted faithfulness, if failed they must answer for it accordingly. This primary source played a huge part in history because if it wasn’t for John Winthrop’s speech, no one would have known that natural liberty causes men to become evil. It is significant today because if everyone in society followed natural liberty, soon individuals would act like animals. This source is important to know for the world today because without following God’s laws we would create chaos by acting like beasts.

At the start of the 17th century, an unprecedented amount of Puritan migrants begin moving to the New England colonial region because, in England, the reigning King Charles pushes Anglican religious practices onto Puritans. This, therefore, results in them experiencing intense religious persecution, which leads to the eventual desire of these individuals to escape to the new world and start anew. One important aspect of this new beginning with the intention of shaping the Massachusetts Bay was John Winthrop’s speech/sermon titled, “A Model of Christian Charity”. John Winthrop writes this speech with the intention of persuading those moving to the new colonies to live a very strict Puritan lifestyle and, therefore, set an example of what an ideally run colony should appear to be.

The author of this document, John Winthrop was born in Groton, England where he would soon grow to start his family and become a lawyer at the Court of Wards in London. Winthrop received his education primarily at Thetford Grammar School in Thetford, Norfolk, England. Winthrop, known as an active political philosopher and later as a political leader, was too soon to become the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As a very religious and strictly Puritan individual, Winthrop believed strongly in the idea that the Anglican Church and its catholic-oriented beliefs were in strong opposition to God’s wishes. He believed that because of this, God was to soon punish the people of the Anglican Church in England and that English Puritans were in dire need of an escape during this time. This, therefore, leads to Winthrop, along with other English Puritans holding firm to this belief, gathering together as a group and issuing a charter to the New World. This directly leads to the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay colony, built firmly upon the Puritan principles outlined in Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” speech given to these New World settlers.

This speech primarily serves as a reminder to those moving to this new colony that it should be built above all, upon Puritan beliefs and influences and that, if established this way, the colony “shall be a Citty upon a Hill”. This document serves to show that in order to achieve a City that serves as a shining example to all others, the people must not be united in only a political sense, but also socially and religiously. In this famous sermon, Winthrop claims that the people shall, “rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke”. This shows that Winthrop believes in a strong and tightly bound Community and that this is the basis for a unified people in all other senses of a nation.

During the 1600s things were not going so well in England. This was a period of an ongoing crisis of people landless and without a job looking for labor service. Most English immigrants sought economic opportunities in London and various other cities but were quickly disappointed. This was only one of many other various reasons, another being that disease (bubonic plague) ran rampant throughout England killing lots of people another reason people were leaving was the low success rate on producing crops. This was called the Little Ice Age where the winters were much more frigid and cold, because of this many English people migrated to Maryland and Virginia to the tobacco fields. In 1630 a Realist by the name of John Winthrop would arrive to model to his puritans that he would build a new society and be a “city upon a hill” and “the eyes on all the people are upon us”.Winthrop believed that he’d be a shining example of puritan perfection and shine like an example to the rest on the world. In Winthrop’s sermon he delivered on the Arbella he preached that unity will be needed.

“All men are part of the body of Christ, and when one part suffers, everyone suffers. It is paramount that all Christians aid, comfort, and love each other, because they are stronger together.”- Winthrop.

Without following God’s rules of their mission, they will fail and will be punished for breaking the covenant with God.

Pueblo War of Independence.

The 1680s was a time of revolutions to the Spanish Southwest that brought on civil wars and turmoil. The local Pueblo Indians needed to unite to drive the Spanish from New Mexico.

The Pueblo Revolt in 1680 was known as Popay’s rebellion. During this time the Indian tribes were not unified and this is significant because for the first time Popay was able to unify a large majority of the Indian tribes to act as one and also got the neighboring apache and Navajo Indians to also take part in the rebellion against the Spanish rule. Popay unified the tribes by a cord and tied some knots in it to indicate the number on days until the perpetration of the treason and sent the cord by Indian runners to all the surrounding tribes and those who would join would untie a knot. The Spanish were interrogating Indians trying to abolish the religion of the pueblo and also flogging and hanging on multiple Indians which created this large uprising that ultimately led to the Spanish to be driven out on the territory. The Spanish had taken away their idols and forbade their sorceries and idolatries. It was said that the resentment in Indian hearts against the Spaniards had been so strong that this 80-year-old man has been “hearing the resentment since he was of age to acknowledge”. After all the tribes unified and began driving the Spaniards out they made sure to burn Spanish churches and destroy vestiges of Christianity. This has affected history in how you have your religious freedom and that the government can’t intervene with your beliefs and who you idolize.

Middle passage

Colonial North America expanded rapidly in the early 1700s as a result on forced African migration due to the slave trade. Many enslaved people were divided up from their families and villages. Due to the expanded cultivation on tobacco increased the demand for enslaved labor.

Olaudah Equiano was one of many slaves that were kidnapped and taken through the middle passage that brought slaves from South Africa to North America by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. During this trek across the Atlantic the enslaved people in the hold on the ship were put in terrible conditions where so many people were squished together it was hard to turn around, breathe and the heat was unbearable. Many slaves in the hold of the ship were getting sick which led to numerous deaths 1 in 5 would not make it while en route to America to be sold off to new owners. This story of Olaudah Equiano was significant because he actually made it to Barbados and eventually got his freedom and began to advocate for abolition of slavery. This has impacted history because rising up to slavery eventually led to the Civil war where lots of blood was shed over the enslavement of African American people, because of this war slavery was abolished and the trafficking of slaves from Africa came to a halt.

Citations

1. Okie, Tom. “The American Yawp: A Free and Online, Collaboratively Built American History Textbook.” Journal of American History 103, no. 4 (January 2017): 1121–22. https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaw625.
2. Russell, Scott C., and J. Manuel Espinosa. “The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico: Letters of the Missionaries and Related Documents.” American Indian Quarterly 17, no. 3 (1993): 415. https://doi.org/10.2307/1184903.