Biography

Born in Groton, England, John Winthrop grew up on a farming estate that his father, a lawyer, had purchased from Henry VII. He attended Cambridge University for two years, where he first encountered Puritan thought. Unlike the Separatists, who wanted to distance themselves from the Church of England, Winthrop wished to purge the church of its Catholic rituals and its hierarchy of clergy. With the coronation of Charles I, a king unsympathetic to Puritan reformers, Winthrop and a group of merchants obtained a charter from the Council of New England for land in the New World. Just before or during the emigrants' journey to New England, Winthrop delivered his sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, in which he established the tenets of a Christian community. He ruled the colony as governor for twenty years.

Explorations

The most famous moment in Winthrop's Model of Christian Charity (1630) is his "city upon a hill" analogy, in the paragraph which begins "Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our prosperity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God." You can find echoes of the "city upon a hill" idea in nearly every presidential inaugural speech since Lincoln.

1. Winthrop's sermon ends with a dire warning: a special destiny, if unfulfilled, means a special damnation. Why does Winthrop believe that? Is it legitimate for modern speechwriters to borrow the happier side of Winthrop's great prophecy and to forget or avoid the darker side?

2. Anne Hutchinson, one of the most interesting figures from the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, comes down to us only obliquely--not in her own words, but in the accounts of the colonists who objected to her teachings, tried her, judged her, and expelled her from the community. Winthrop's journal says that she was guilty of "dangerous errors." What made them dangerous? What complex or delicate balance in the Puritan ideology did she threaten? Why does Winthrop show such detailed and macabre interest in the "monstrous birth" which Hutchinson suffered several months after her exile to Rhode Island?

Other sites to consult:

• Puritanism and Colonial Period: to 1700. An overview of the period, its important documents, and its key figures. Also includes extensive bibliographies. From the PAL: Perspectives in American Literature site maintained by Paul P. Reuben (California State University, Stanislaus).
• The Puritans. A useful page with numerous links to contextual sites about key figures including John Winthrop.