Winslow became a member of John Robinson’s Separatist congregation in Leiden, Holland, while making a tour of the Continent. He subsequently became one of the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ who sailed on the Mayflower to Massachusetts in 1520. He made the colonists’ first treaty with the Indians and was the first to be married at Plymouth (to a widow, after his wife died during the first winter).
He was a member of the governor’s council and governor of Plymouth Colony in the years 1633, 1636 and 1644. Business for the colony brought Winslow back to England several times. On one of these visits he was imprisoned by Archbishop Laud on the charge that he had taught in the church as a layman. He published a book on missionary efforts in Massachusetts, the Glorious Progress of the Gospel among the Indians in New England, and in 1649 was instrumental in getting Parliament to create the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, London’s first missionary society.