Major Thomas Savage (c. 1607 – February 14, 1682) was an English-born merchant, military officer and politician who thrice served as the speaker of the Massachusetts General Court.

[3] After arriving in the colony, he settled down in Boston, becoming a member of the settlement's Puritan church on January 1636 prior to being admitted as a freeman of Massachusetts Bay in May of that year.

In 1651, he was promoted to the rank of captain; Faith died the next year on February 20, and Savage remarried to Mary, the daughter of Zechariah Symmes, on September 15.

[1][5][6] In 1653, Savage was identified as a suitable military officer to lead a planned expedition against the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which ultimately never materialised.

During this period, he also became active in Boston's political sphere, serving on the settlement's select board and the Massachusetts General Court.

[1] The colonial authorities of Massachusetts, who were hostile to the Restoration, summoned Savage along with several other colonists in 1666 to answer for a petition they had signed advocating such a view.

[8] Savage played a major role in acquiring indigenous captives for the purpose of selling them into slavery, doing so in concert with Massachusetts Bay Colony treasurer John Hull, who was responsible for arranging and recording the sale of all indigenous slaves; Hull recorded the sale of 185 people into slavery during the war.

His last will and testament, which was dated on June 28, 1675, appointed Hull and New England lawyer Isaac Addington as the executors of the will, which disposed of property worth 3,500 Massachusetts pounds.

[1] American historian Carla Gardina Pestana wrote in the Dictionary of National Biography that the inclusion of Boston Harbour in the portrait serves to symbolise Savage's "mercantile calling".