John Winthrop A Success Or Failure

Starting a colony is not an easy accomplishment but John Winthrop proved that he was capable of gathering people, taking them to a new country and settling in a town. John Winthrop was a good leader. He was raised in a wealthy family and his father was an excellent businessmen. Winthrop was following into his father’s footsteps which lead to taking over his father’s business. Attending college at the age of 17 converted Winthrop into a great leader and noble hardworker. Having these characteristics really helped Winthrop to build the colony and governed it. His first act was when Charles I became king and his wife was a catholic. King Charles I was persecuting many Puritans which made the Puritans worry and not feel safe. Winthrop quickly thought

of a safety plan to flee to the New World and because of his leadership skills, he was able to bring followers with him and settle in the New World. Winthrop was smart enough to create the Cambridge Agreement which was permitting the Puritans to travel, control the government, the charter of Massachusetts Bay Company, and trading. In 1629 is where John Winthrop saw the opportunity to flee to the New World and was first elected governor.

(Morgan,41) Winthrop’s first time being elected governor was hectic for him being the reason of having to be in charge of the arrangements for the whole expedition: ships, provisions, and passengers.(Morgan,45) This was a huge responsibility for Winthrop to handle and accordinate everything perfectly for the journey to be a success. Gathering a handful of passengers willing to leave their home and settle elsewhere blindly was the most difficult task Winthrop had to face. But John Winthrop did not fail because of his fever of puritanism, it help him become a social activist and a leader where people looked up to him. A year later, the journey to the Americas had finally begun and included in the journey were approximately two thousand Puritans. Winthrop was sailing in the Arbella for two months in the cold, windy, crowded enviroment. To lighten up the mood, Winthrop acting like a leader set playing games on the deck and routed them out regularly helping the travelers to not get impatient.(Morgan, 49) Just as how he acted during the journey to the Americas, trying to keep the puritans contented is what he did when they settled in the Americas.

Also, a challenging job to please every person and to make it work. Because he was successful on keeping the people happy, he was governor for 10 years and elected 12 times. All of these things, John Winthrop did, it takes a leader to lead a community and he acheived it. Having to accomplish this huge step and having everything under control is one of the reasons why John Winthrop was a good leader.
When the Puritans settled in Boston they had the right idea on how they wanted to run the government.

They agreed that they weren’t going to be prudes or prohibitionist or live like drabs. Which was a great decision to do which develops the society and way of living instead of being ignorant and living by the old rules in England. They were looking forward to new things that better themselves in their community and becoming a paragon for others. Although, since they were still Puritans they had to attend church every sunday, tried to punish every sin in Massachusetts and was obligated to live with a family if you did not have any in the New World.(Morgan, 64) These rules were unneccessary to make, instead of making these rules on how to live your life, they should have shifted their focus on duties that had to be done to actually have a successful society. The Puritans had the people to run a community but weren’t brillant thinkers. They didn’t open their minds to a sense where they should have people working on different tasks such as someone working the farm, plant crops, hunting and making reasonable laws. Also, the Puritans were close minded and ignorant when it came to God. No one was allowed to worship any religion and couldn’t belive in God differently or think about God differently. Which lead to conflicts because there were several people who were smart enough to think differently than the Puritans. The people wanted to do things their way and each of them thought

they were right which made the people become less united. For this reason, the Puritans were not the right people to settle in New England. The Puritans did not know how to respond and so they decided to banish whoever did not agree to their terms and was a horrible decision to make. To create a prosperous community you need people who are giving out different ideas that can improve the society and make it better than it was before. This was the Puritans problem, they did not want to change on how they were ruling or running things. It was similar on what was happening in England where King Charles I was cleaving the Puritans or banishing the Puritans because the Puritans thought differently about God. King Charles I was Catholic and did not want any one in England who wasn’t Catholic so he got rid of the Puritans. Now the Puritans are following in King Charles I footsteps, whoever did not want to be a Puritan or follow their rules was banished from Massachusetts. You don’t need these type of people settling in a colony where they’re separating because of what they believe in, instead of this nonsense happening they should have been conjugagted like a successful community would have. Since the Puritans were governing this way, it made their government that they created not a Democaracy.
The Puritan’s government started as a Democracy where they could elect who they wanted their governor to be. Winthrop’s idea on keeping peace with the Puritans decieded to make their government a democracy. Luckly, Winthrop was elected governor more than once and picked eleven other members from the Massachusetts Bay Company to create laws and authority.(Morgan,77) It is one of the good ways to start a community by making laws because it makes the Puritans have order and not be sloppy. When starting a community, you want to have everything under control and set rules once you land in a new country to keep the community together and prevent starting a riot or corruption between the Puritans. Another thing to keep the peace in a community is where Winthrop and the other members of the company did not establish aristocracy.(Morgan, 90-91) Giving everyone equal rights and freedom avoids problems within the government and allows equality between every person. In addition, not giving special treatments to the upper class or wealthy people was a righteous law to make. This part of the laws and authority making from Winthrop was the equitable way to act since being a leader, you know how to create equality and happiness within the people. Which Wintrop was great at doing but again it is not easy to create a reasonable law that keeps everyone in line and peaceful. This goes back to Winthrop’s leadership skills and socially knowing the Puritans on how to keep them civil. Winthrop did an excellent job on starting the process of a new government but they got carried away with the laws that made it immoral and undemocratic. Also, the other members that Winthrop had beside him did not know when to be lenient or when to be strict. For example, they were strict with the people, whoever did not want to follow them were considered separatists and wanted to eliminate them just because of their beliefs. That is a wrongdoing from their part because that commences the separation between the people who want to continue being Puritans and the others who think differently from them. Another problem was that they didn’t know how to discipline them or how to approach the situation and come up with a solution. They were either too hard on them or too lenient but in a situation like that you have to learn how to be equally fair. They did not allow to make some changes to keep the people happy, they forced them to follow their beliefs and if they didn’t they automatically were banished. In a democratic government, they compromise laws or initiate new laws to keep the citizens pleased and still continue their beliefs. A democracy allows the people to vote who they choose to represent the citizens and their interests. The puritans did not allow any separatists to say what they believed in, instead they were trying to make them stop by threatening them. In a democratic government, people are free to think or believe in what they wanted and this was the start of the issue with Annne Hutchison and Roger Williams.
Roger Williams was a minister who started teaching differently than what Winthrop was teaching. He says different things and teachings that makes what Winthrop is teaching atrocious. Winthrop is complety against on what Williams began to do but it was already too late to convince Williams to stop. Roger Williams gained many followers and became really popular because of the new teachings. Winthrop gives him many chances to stop teaching differently than himself but Williams refuses to stop. So Winthrop had no choice but to banish him. It was not right to banish him just because he was teaching something different. Everyone deserves to see their own perspective on what they belive in. Another case was with Anne Hutchison who was a smart women that interpreted the bible differently than the other minister. After the meeting with the ministers, she’d invite people over and criticize what the ministers said. Ofcourse since she was thinking differently that the rest of the Puritans they decided to banish her aswell. The Puritans did abuse their power by banishing two people because they did not think exactly like them. Which is completly wrong because it was not like they were against on what they believed, they just interpretated certain things differently. Because the Puritans were very ignorant and naive causing many dilemmas, the land outside of Massachusetts were discovered.