John Haynes - Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

As a man of some means, (Winthrop referred to him as a "man of great estate") in 1634, Haynes was admitted as a freeman and elected to the colony's council of assistants. He was also named to a committee overseeing military matters, a position that assumed some importance when war broke out with the Pequot tribe that year. The assistants were called on to consider the controversial defacement of the English flag by John Endecott in 1634. Claiming that St George's Cross was a symbol of popery, he had cut it from the Salem militia company's banner. Haynes was part of a moderate faction that disagreed with Endecott's action, claiming that the cross had been reduced to a symbol of nationalism. For his action, Endecott was censured and deprived of serving in any offices for one year.

In 1634, Haynes served in a variety of municipal capacities. He was a Cambridge selectman and served on a commission that decided the boundary between Boston and Charlestown. He was elected governor in 1635, winning an election that Roger Ludlow had been expected to win. Haynes had argued for the lowering of taxes; Ludlow also alleged that the deputies of some towns had made private agreements that concerned the vote before it occurred. Ludlow, who was not even elected as an assistant, was apparently motivated by his loss to leave the colony for a settlement on the Connecticut River.

Haynes' one year term as governor was marked by political conflict between a faction led by Haynes, Hooker, and Dudley, and another led by Winthrop. The major disagreement between them concerned the strictness of judicial procedures and the process of rendering judgments; the Haynes faction believed that Winthrop had been lax in some of his decisions. The conservative faction was successful in enacting regulations for stricter judicial procedures; it also passed legislation banning the smoking of tobacco and restricting overly ostentatious or fashionable clothing. Haynes also presided over the trial and banishment of Roger Williams, an act that Williams reports Haynes later expressed some regret over.