John Winthrop, the leader and governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, the name given to the Salem and Boston settlements, was then about forty years old, and had been in college at Cambridge, in England. He was a man of high social position. [Illustration: JOHN WINTHROP _From a portrait painted by John Singleton Copley; reproduced by permission of the trustees of Harvard University_] [Sidenote: =What the Puritans gave up=] The Puritans who came with Winthrop were people of property, and not only parted from friends and kindred when they came to the wild shores of America, but both men and women gave up lives of comfort and pleasure for lives of suffering and hardship. In America, the men had to cut down trees, work in the fields, and fight Indians. Only brave men and women act in this way. But no one among them gave up more or was willing to suffer more than their leader. The people elected him governor almost every year until his death, in 1649. [Sidenote: =Character of Winthrop=] John Winthrop was a firm man with many noble qualities, and not once, while governor, did he do anything merely to please the people if he thought it wrong. When a leading man in the colony sent him a bitter letter, he returned it saying that he did not wish to keep near him so great a cause of ill feeling. This answer made the writer Winthrop's friend. When food was scarce in the colony, Winthrop divided his last bit of bread with the poor, and worked with his laborers in the fields. [Sidenote: =Many new towns in Massachusetts=] While Winthrop was ruling the colony, hundreds of settlers came and settled many other towns around Boston, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony grew large in the number of its people. Later the old Plymouth Colony was united with it to form one colony. But these settlers did not always agree, especially in regard to religion and government. [Illustration: THE NEW ENGLAND SETTLEMENTS] JOHN ELIOT, A SUCCESSFUL MISSIONARY TO THE INDIANS [Sidenote: =Eliot translates the Bible=] =49. John Eliot.= The treatment of the Indians by the colonists was generally just and kind. Trading with the white man had brought the Indians better food and clothing. Schools were being set up to give them some of the white man's education, and many preachers tried to teach them to become Christians. One man who spent his whole life in this work was John Eliot. His first care was to learn the language of the Indians of Massachusetts. He succeeded so well that he was able to translate the entire Bible into the Indian language and to preach to the Indians in their native tongue.