John Winthrop in The Columbian Exchange
John Winthrop (1587–1649) was a devoutly religious Puritan elder who led a large migration of Puritans from England to America in 1629 and became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony one year later. He was probably the most powerful figure in New England in the first half of the 17th century.
Like all Puritan colonists, Winthrop observed—but didn't fully understand—the incredible susceptibility of nearby Native Americans to European diseases like smallpox. While smallpox repeatedly struck both settlers and Native Americans in colonial Massachusetts, the Native Americans died at much higher rates.
Winthrop interpreted the disease-driven Native American holocaust—which weakened Native American resistance to colonial rule and opened up new lands for colonial expansion—as proof of God's special blessing of the Puritan settlement.